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Issachar B7D Fellowship

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Shalom Aleichem

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Grace and peace to you from our Lord, Saviour and King.

God has an urgent word for His people today so that, like the men of Issachar, we understand the times and know what we should do. What He wants to speak to us is apparent in the Bible when we consider it through the perspective of the 7 Days of Creation (B7D).

And His word is this - we are fast approaching the end where we will be tested in unprecedented ways. We therefore need to equip ourselves now in our fellowship groups so that we can uphold one another and others in the Body of Christ to keep the faith, persevere in hope, and love the Body, until our Lord returns.

The Issachar B7D Fellowship is our response in obedience to His word. Through it, God equips us by His people, Word and Spirit. As you study God's Logos together in your own fellowship groups in whichever local church or denomination you belong to, may His Rhema and Spirit transform you into such future and Christ-ready fellowships in His Kairos.

For His Glory,
Stephen and Wei Ling Lim
36 Episodes
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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 are told that His coming would be sudden/unexpected. This was what exactly happened when Jesus first came. Although announced by John the Baptist and accompanied by various signs and wonders, the people still rejected and crucified Jesus. The Temple in Jesus’ time was the most magnificent as it had ever been, but tragically the people totally missed recognising their God, their True Temple. As in the past, God will again send another messenger - in fact, He would send two of them (I’ll talk about this next time) - to announce Jesus’ return. But let us not wait until then to believe that Jesus is indeed coming soon, for the message is already being announced to us now. May we rebuild our spiritual temple and community in such a way that we will be ready to recognise and receive our King and not be caught asleep by His sudden return. Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g51c41d56fa_0_0
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 will do likewise with the nations of this world and ultimately with this evil empire itself. As with these two kingdoms, there will be a brief period of false peace, a lull before the storm. As we end this section, in God’s Kairos, this satanic kingdom will eventually betray its true colours. The false promise of world unity and peace will turn out to be a lie as division and war looms. This evil empire will turn against Israel and the Apostate Church and war against rival nations, as it strives to put its mark and authority on all mankind. As it crumbles and falls in its own wickedness, it will make a last ditch attempt to invade and destroy Israel, setting the stage for the next pivotal scene - to be continued in our next podcast.  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g3501a07393_0_0
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, where there is a repeat/review of key historical events (history and prophecy repeating itself) but also change brought about by the multiple gradual fulfilment of prophecy.  Further, the prophetic narrative that we will be looking at here applies not only to Israel but also the Church. We learnt previously that what happened to Israel was not only instructive but prophetic of what would come upon the Church, as the Commonwealth of Israel during this period of grace. Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4f21611841_0_59
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)
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
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
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
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/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4ee4ba2061_0_137
Shalom Aleichem! Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Grace and peace to you from our Lord, Saviour and King. God has an urgent word for His people today so that, like the men of Issachar, we understand the times and know what we should do. What He wants to speak to us is apparent in the Bible when we consider it through the perspective of the 7 Days of Creation (B7D). And His word is this - we are fast approaching the end where we will be tested in unprecedented ways. We therefore need to equip ourselves now in our fellowship groups so that we can uphold one another and others in the Body of Christ to keep the faith, persevere in hope, and love the Body, until our Lord returns. The Issachar B7D Fellowship is our response in obedience to His word. Through it, God equips us by His people, Word and Spirit. As you study God's Logos together in your own fellowship groups in whichever local church or denomination you belong to, may His Rhema and Spirit transform you into such future and Christ-ready fellowships in His Kairos. For His Glory, Stephen and Wei Ling Lim Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1xffvtooqd_ThP3lXzsrA3d5dknnsCEvBF2pVyTl0Stw/present#slide=id.g2dfc3d059d_0_0
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! In our last session, we saw the importance of kingship, love and obedience in the kingdom life of God’s nation and His people. When we examine Israel’s history from the time of Yehoshua (Joshua) to Yeshua (Jesus), we find that failure in precisely these areas was what ultimately led to the country’s downfall.  It didn’t start out this way though. Following the Exodus and wilderness years, we are told that the Israelites under Joshua served God all the days of their lives (Jos 24:31).  However, when a new generation arose, they neither knew God nor what He had done for Israel. Because they did not acknowledge Him as King and instead worshipped the idols of the peoples around them, God disciplined the Israelites by allowing their enemies to force them to a point of repentance. Each time they cried out to God for help, He was faithful to raise up a judge or leader to deliver them and give them rest from their enemies. The people would remain faithful until that judge died, and then a new generation would arise to repeat this vicious cycle. The book of Judges summed it up with this statement - “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit” (Judg 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25). Despite three centuries of going through the same cycle of idolatry, oppression, repentance and deliverance, the Israelites still did not acknowledge God as their True King; instead, they longed to be like the nations around them and demanded for a human king.  Israel existed as one united kingdom for 120 years and reached its peak in the early years of King Solomon’s rule. When Solomon completed the First Temple in Jerusalem in AM 3000 - the start of Day 4 or the Fourth Millennium - Israel was finally fully equipped to serve as the lesser light drawing all nations to worship God on His holy mountain. But this was not to be. Unlike his father David who was after God’s own heart, Solomon loved women more than he loved God. This eventually led to idolatry with disastrous consequences for the nation. Israel will only recover its former glory when Jesus returns to rule from Mt Zion during the Millennium. But for now, the once united and powerful kingdom became divided and severely weakened after Solomon’s death. Both the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah became vulnerable to foreign powers, tempted to make compromises and fell into idolatry, corruption and injustice. And as we will see later on, both rejected the warnings of the Prophets.  God eventually punished both kingdoms and exiled the Israelites for their sins - the Northern Kingdom of Israel to Assyria in 722 BC, and Judah to Babylon in 586 BC. As mentioned before, the land rested for 70 years during the Babylonian exile to make up for all the years that Israel did not keep the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles. God disciplined Israel but also set a definite time frame after which He would restore His people according to His mercy and faithfulness, and deal with His enemies according to His holiness and righteousness.  So, in His Kairos in 538 BC, God released His Rhema - amazingly, through a pagan king, Cyrus - who issued a proclamation allowing the Jews to return to the Promised Land to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.  And, in His Kairos about 530-odd years after that, God Himself would come to His people as a man, the Logos Word made flesh, Jesus, the Messiah and Greater Light, Lord and Saviour of the World.  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4ee4ba2061_0_132
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! In today’s session, we will cover the period from the time the Israelites left Mt Sinai until the next generation stood by the banks of the Jordan river forty years later, and the prophetic lessons we can learn from their wilderness journey. First, when Israel set out to conquer the Promised Land, the nation was effectively entering into warfare as they would need to defeat the pagan peoples occupying the land then. Similarly, the Church is called into warfare and we must expect and be prepared for spiritual opposition as we rescue and take possession of lost souls for God’s Kingdom.  Next, the way the Israelites were encamped around the Tabernacle of God as they proceeded on their journey reflected how the life and community of the Israelites then, just as the life and community of the Church today, must revolve around worship of God as a witness to the surrounding nations. This is our primary weapon to win others to Christ - by reflecting God’s glory as His lesser light and so draw people to Him. Worship is also important in warfare as the devil will try to derail us through earthly distractions and temptations or by using fear and intimidation. We can only stand firm and overcome when we keep our focus on God alone. When we worship God in this way and have no other idols in our hearts - even things that are seemingly good such as health and family - then we won’t give a foothold for the enemy to use these against us. As we all know, a journey that should have only lasted eleven days (Deut 1:2) ended up taking forty long years (Num 33). This wilderness period is prophetic of the forty jubilees from the time the Church - filled with the Holy Spirit - moved out of the upper room on the Day of Pentecost almost two thousand years ago until now, as this generation - like the one led by Joshua - await Jesus’ return to lead us into the Promised Land of the Millennial Kingdom and ultimately into eternity with God.  The number forty in the Bible is often associated with testing and trials, patient obedience and judgment. Like Moses who was up on the mountain forty days (Ex 24:18, 32:1), Jesus is “up on the mountain” of God’s heavenly throne these forty jubilees, a trial period to test whether we will remain faithful to Him while we wait for His return. We can either be like the rebellious three thousand who died at Mt Sinai during the first Pentecost, or the believing three thousand who were saved on the Day of Pentecost (Ex 32:28, Acts 2:41). Ultimately, at the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. Kingdom life is about God’s Kingship over Israel and the Church and the lives of each and every citizen of the kingdom. It was, is, and will always be about Love and Obedience. As Jesus Himself put it, “If you love me, keep my commands” (Jn 14:15). Obedience should not be out of habit or even duty, which can only fulfill the letter but not the spirit of the Law. It must ultimately stem from love for God.  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g34ae2e5598_0_322
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! Over the next few blog posts, we will conclude Session 3 by looking at the history of Israel and what it means for the Church as God’s royal priesthood and holy nation today. By Church, I want to clarify that we are speaking here about the Church in its visible form - as an institution, denomination or local body of believers that we belong to - just as by Israel, we are referring to the visible Jewish nation. This is because God has chosen to work through these earthly communities (Ekklesia) to bring about His spiritual plans and purposes.  In 1 Cor 10:1-11, Paul pointed out how Israel served as an example for the Church. He used the Greek term tupos, which means, in the technical sense, a pattern in conformity to which something must be made; in an ethical sense, a warning; and in a doctrinal or Biblical sense, a person or thing prefiguring or foretelling a future person or thing as it relates to Jesus. In other words, what happened to Israel is not only instructive but PROPHETIC of what will come upon the Church even as Jesus’ return draws near. In fact, as we will see later, Israel’s history would virtually repeat itself in the growth and development of the Church.  That the Church should behave like Israel, as though they were both from the same tree, should come as no surprise. In Rom 11:11-32, Paul warned Gentile believers not to be proud, thinking that they were superior to the Jews. This was because they were in actual fact ingrafted into God’s Kingdom in place of the Jews, who were the natural branches as it were but who had been cut off for now due to their rejection of Jesus. As I had briefly mentioned in our last session, the entire nation of Israel would be removed from the face of the Earth for almost 2,000 years following the Roman Exile in 70 AD. In its place, the largely Gentile Church was ingrafted in as it were to bear the fruits of the Kingdom of God among the nations during this “time of the Gentiles”. However, when the fullness of the Gentiles have come in - by this, Paul was referring to Jacob’s prophecy regarding Ephraim that we learnt about earlier on - Israel will be revived to prepare for Jesus’ return, even as the ingrafted branches of the Church begin to wither - something I hinted at in my last session and that we will go into in greater detail in my future podcasts. And we know that Israel has indeed been reborn since 1948.  So we see then that the Church is not separate from Israel - not distinct from, let alone replace Israel as the final or perfected Kingdom of God. The Church is here for a season and a purpose. To phrase it another way, both Israel and the Church are the same Kingdom of God but revealed in different ways at different times. While Israel was, historically, how God chose to reveal His Kingdom through whom Jesus first came, and eschatologically or in the end times, for whom Jesus will return, prophetically, the Church - which was a “mystery” (Eph 3:6, 10) until then - was how God chose to reveal His Kingdom in whom the Body of Christ reaches its full maturity - the fullness of the Gentiles - before Jesus returns.  This correct understanding of how Israel and the Church are related is important because it determines the Church’s true identity and mission - especially in this Kairos when - as we saw in our last session - Jesus will return soon to establish His millennial kingdom and rule.  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4b288663b7_0_0 Go here to study more about the relationship between Israel and the Church as the Kingdom of God - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UNfIf_ks_KzajPF-DQ9YKiLnRyOR96ACzB7xDD6ViDY/present?slide=id.g2574a2b65c_0_0
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! In our opening session, we learnt about God’s concept of time - how earthly time is temporal and is in continual linear motion. We then learnt how God gave us a series of weekly, monthly/annual and sabbatical/jubilee cycles in patterns of 7s as a way for us, who live in earthly time, to understand His eternal will. These were given in the form of religious practices and festivals, as well as national laws and regulations, that Israel was to observe on specific dates. In so doing, Israel was to mark and draw the world’s attention to the sacred or appointed times symbolised by these occasions whereby God would bring about His plan of redemption in His Kairos through the coming and return of Jesus.  Weekly cycle - Sabbath first seen in the 7 Days of Creation points to the 7 millennia (7,000 years) of world history, revolving around the coming of Jesus the Greater Light and His return on the Day of the Lord to inaugurate the Sabbath rest, which is the period of the Millennium. If we understand time as being measured according to the chronology of events and people in the Bible, then we are reaching the end of the sixth millennium in our day. Looking back at the narrative of the 7 Days of Creation, God is telling us that the world is now living under the rule of man - more specifically, one man - the Antichrist. In fact, the Apostle John tells us that the spirit of the Antichrist was already at work in our midst since his time (1 Jn 4:3), but as we approach the end of this Sixth Day of Creation the Antichrist will soon be revealed in the flesh.  Monthly/Annual cycle - 7 High Sabbaths that Israel was to celebrate in the form of 7 Feasts of God over 7 months every year. These High Sabbaths, which can be grouped into the Spring and Fall Feasts according to Israel’s agricultural calendar, point to 7 Kairos events during these 7 millennia of world history. Now, we know that the Spring Feasts have already been fulfilled in God’s Kairos 2,000 years ago with the coming of Jesus. Here, the Feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits to commemorate the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt pointed to Jesus' death and resurrection as our Passover Lamb opening the way for our salvation and escape from the bondage of sin. Meanwhile, the birth of Israel as a nation at Mt Sinai, which took place on the day of Pentecost with the giving of the Law, pointed to the birth of the Church at Mt Zion with the giving of the Holy Spirit. Today, we are reaching the end of the Summer interval - this age of grace and year of the Lord’s favour (Isa 61:1-2a, Lk 4:18-19) more commonly known as the Church Age - before the Fall Feasts arrive in God’s Kairos to mark Jesus’ return and another great exodus - that of the final and complete deliverance of God’s people from His enemies, and ultimately from the judgment of sin which is eternal death.  Sabbatical/Jubilee cycle - God commanded Israel to let the land rest every seventh or Sabbatical year and to further proclaim freedom for the people during the year of Jubilee, which takes place every 50th year - that is, after 7 by 7 or 49 years. This cycle was to start after Israel entered the Promised Land, and points to the spiritual rest and freedom that the world and mankind would ultimately experience during the Millennial Sabbath after 6,000 years of human sin and struggle. We know that, historically, the Promised Land only got its rest after 70 Sabbatical cycles and this during Israel’s exile in Babylon because of her disobedience and unfaithfulness to God (Lev 26:34-35, 2 Chron 36:20-21). Today, we are in the 70th Jubilee cycle from the time Israel first entered the Promised Land. In 2018, Israel celebrated 70 years since its rebirth as a nation. The Israel we know today is far from God and the Church is not doing that much better. All these indicators point to us as being the last generation in God’s Kairos who will witness Jesus’ return to usher in this Millennial rest during a similar end-time Babylonian exile as prophesied in the book of Revelations. Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4e50b5c110_0_0
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! Why do we celebrate the Holy Communion?  For most of us, it is to remember and proclaim the Lord’s death (1 Cor 11:26a). Here, the bread and wine represent His body and blood which was given to save us. Now, in order to fully appreciate this, we need to realise that Jesus gave us this command during His Last Supper with His disciples. This meal took place on the eve of the annual Jewish Festival of the Passover, which was to commemorate how God’s judgment passed over the Israelites the night before their exodus from Egypt 1,500 years earlier. As part of the Passover celebration, the Jews were to sacrifice and eat the Passover lamb like how their original ancestors did. This was so as to ultimately point to Jesus, our true Passover Lamb, who was sacrificed on this appointed day so that God’s eternal judgment would pass over us. He is the perfect Lamb of God who died for our sins as we saw in our last session. Jesus is also the True Bread that came down from heaven to give us eternal life, like the Manna that God sent to sustain the Israelites during their subsequent wilderness journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. In Jesus’ death, God revealed His love for us (Jn 3:16), adopting us as His children at the price of His one and only Son.  However, Jesus’ death is also the dowry and bride price to make us His Bride. As we see here, the cup of wine symbolises His blood of the New Covenant - which is essentially a marriage contract. You see, when Israel failed to keep the Law - her old marriage contract with God - the punishment was supposed to be divorce or death. We can read about this in Lev 20:10 and Deut 24:1-4. But God in His love and mercy did neither - He chose instead to die in our place to pay the price of our spiritual adultery. He then rewrote the marriage contract, this time not on tablets of stone but on our hearts, paying the bride price again with His own blood and sealing it with the Holy Spirit, so as to guarantee our eternal union with Him.  We could say that Jesus performed two miracles at two weddings, one at the start and the other at the end of His ministry - turning water into wine in Cana (His first miracle), and turning wine into blood (His last miracle, spiritually speaking); in these acts, we see why He is our Living Water that wells up to eternal life.  The Bible speaks of at least two weddings and a funeral as we see here, but of only one marriage made in Heaven - that of the Lamb and His Bride. Until that Day, until He comes (1 Cor 11:26b), we are called celebrate the Holy Communion, to share in common the bread and wine representing Jesus’ body and blood. When we do so, let us remember that salvation is not about us, our exodus from bondage to sin and journey to the Promised Land; it is about God and His sacrificial love to restore our broken relationship with Him. We are no longer slaves to sin, but children of God and Jesus’ redeemed bride.  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4c23645697_0_0
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! In our last two sessions, we saw firstly how - through the Law - Israel pointed to man’s utter sinfulness and need for Jesus, who alone could meet all its requirements so that we could be forever reconciled with God. Then we saw how God gave Israel the Tabernacle as a way for a sinful nation to serve as His priest drawing all men to worship Him. More importantly, the Tabernacle reflected God’s desire to be reconciled and dwell among us. Knowing that we are unable to find our way back to Him, God took the first step to find us - all out of Love. Now, although God gave Israel the Tabernacle, as well as a Priesthood and Sacrificial system to carry out its mission to the world, these were all imperfect and insufficient. Otherwise, there won’t be a need for a permanent solution in Jesus and for Israel to act as God’s lesser light pointing us all to Him. We know from the Bible that God chose Moses’ elder brother Aaron to be the High Priest and Moses’ tribe - the Levites - as priests. But they, like the rest of the Israelites and indeed mankind, were sinful and fallen individuals. The blood of the animal sacrifices were also only of symbolic value and could not really atone or serve as payment for man’s sin. The author of Hebrews tells us how “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins … [because] it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Heb 10:11, 4). Surely we do not think that an animal could take our place. We are made in the image of God and therefore only one among us - but who is perfect in God’s eyes - could properly represent and pay the price for our sins. God had purposely made it such because His intention was for Aaron and the Levitical priests to point to Jesus, our true and perfect Great High Priest, whom we saw before was of the mysterious priestly and royal line of Melchizedek, while the inadequate animal sacrifices that had to be offered day after day, year after year, pointed to the all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus the Lamb of God, the one and only perfect and sinless man who could therefore by His one sacrifice atone for the sins of mankind for all time. As we end this session, we can see how the Law, Tabernacle, Priesthood and Sacrifices, all point to Jesus. May He who fulfills all the Law’s requirements for us, who came as a man to tabernacle and dwell among us, our Great High Priest who now intercedes for us at the right hand of God, and the perfect Lamb of God who died for our sins - Jesus - may He bless you until we meet again in our next session.  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4c1af23ac7_0_0
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! In our previous session, we saw how God gave Israel the Law as part of His plan for the nation to become His lesser light pointing to Jesus. God did not expect Israel to do this by keeping the Law; in fact, it was precisely by not being able to do so that Israel would point to our need for Jesus, who alone can meet all the requirements of the Law.   Because Israel was never meant to be able to uphold the Law, God also gave the nation the Tabernacle - a special place whereby they and all mankind could come before God - as well as a system of Priesthood and Sacrifices. These were to provide a way for Israel to be forgiven and cleansed so that it could serve as God’s priest drawing all nations to worship the One True God. Israel was to be God’s lesser light not by its own righteousness (in being able to keep the Law), but by reflecting God’s love, grace, mercy and forgiveness to the world. Now, if the Law was meant to expose our sinfulness and inability to come into God’s presence by our good works, then the Tabernacle revealed how God nonetheless wanted to dwell among us by providing a way to remove this barrier of sin. If the Law spoke of how we were to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind … [and to] love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37-40), then the Tabernacle spoke of how it was God who first loved us. For God, love was not just mere words or something demanded of us by command. Instead, the Tabernacle revealed how God Himself actively took steps to restore our broken relationship with Him. Ultimately, the Tabernacle pointed to “God with us” - literally, physically - in the person of Jesus or Emmanuel. We are told in the book of Hebrews that the earthly Tabernacle was patterned after the “true tabernacle” in heaven (Heb 8:1-5, 9:11,24). In other words, besides its earthly function, the Tabernacle - every section and article in it - was meant to reflect a deeper spiritual reality. This reality can be summed up by Jesus’ words in John 14:6 - “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Let us look at this further by examining some of the articles in the Tabernacle: First, Jesus is the (only) Way to God - we see this reflected in the single doorway into the Tabernacle. And not only that - in order for the priests to enter the covered tent proper, they had to offer burnt sacrifices on the Altar and wash themselves at the Bronze Laver or basin. These are symbolic of how we cannot enter into God’s presence without accepting Jesus’ death on the cross for us and letting our sins be cleansed and washed away by His blood. Next, Jesus is the Truth that reveals God to us - once inside what is known as the Holy Place, the only source of light in the room comes from the Golden Lampstand - symbolic of Jesus, our True Light. Jesus is also reflected in the Table of Showbread, also known as the Bread of the Presence (or that which causes God to “show up”). In Jesus, God literally “showed up” among us - He is God's Word made flesh, the Bread of Life, the Truth that sets us free. Finally, Jesus is Life itself - Hebrews 10:19-20 tells us that “we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place [where the Ark of the Covenant and the Glory of God resided] … by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain [or veil], that is, His body.” For when Jesus died, we are told that the curtain in the Temple that separated us from the very life-giving presence of God was torn in two. In Jesus, we can now boldly come before God to receive eternal life.   Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g464f54d68d_0_0
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! In our previous session, we saw how, on the Fourth Day of Creation, God made the greater and lesser lights, and how these lights were prophetic of Jesus the Greater and True Light and of God’s people - Israel and the Church - who were to be the lesser lights to reflect His glory to the world. In this and the next few sessions, let us dig deeper into how God first equipped Israel for this purpose. When God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, His reason was not only to preserve His chosen people out of whom Jesus would be born. They were also to become His kingdom of priests and holy nation to draw all nations to worship the one true God in Jesus. God prepared Israel for this role during its one-year stopover at Mt Sinai after escaping from Egypt by first giving the nation His Law - also known as the Law of Moses or, more commonly, the Ten Commandments. The Law was like a National Constitution or Agreement binding Israel to God. In Ex 19:5, God said, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.” We all know from the Bible that Israel failed to keep God’s Law. In fact, none of us is able to meet up to God’s standards of righteousness. In Rom 3:20, Paul said “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.” No one, that is, except Jesus. You see, when God gave Israel the Law, the Israelites thought that the Law was given for them to follow in perfect obedience. They did not understand God’s real intention, which was actually - by their very inability to keep the Law - for Israel to thereby lift up the Law like a banner before the entire world to expose our utter sinfulness and inability to meet God’s standard of righteousness and holiness, and therefore our great need for Jesus, who alone was able to fulfill the requirements of the Law (References). God already knew that neither Israel nor anyone of us for that matter would be able to perfectly obey the Law. His purpose in giving Israel the Law was so that through it, Israel would unwittingly serve as God’s lesser light uncovering man’s true condition and pointing them to the only One who could save them. Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g494e8d5287_0_0
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! Previously, we saw how the first three days of creation pointed to three key events characteristic of the first three thousand years of human history - the fall of Man in the First Millennium resulting in sin and death entering the world, judgment in the Second Millennium in the form of a worldwide flood and a second chance through Noah and his ark, and God’s plan of salvation in the Third Millennium beginning with the Patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - and that was so vividly portrayed in the Exodus. Day 4 concerns the creation of specific lights - firstly, to separate day from night - symbolic of the separation of good from bad, holy from unholy; second, to serve as signs to mark sacred or appointed times - we learnt in our first session that these are God’s opportune times or Kairos when He will act in the Chronos of world history to bring about His will. The lights are to guide, indicate and draw our attention to these Kairos events; lastly, to give light - to illuminate or make clear not just what is good or holy or opportune, but ultimately to reveal God Himself to us in Jesus.  To this end, we were told that God made two great lights - the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. In the original Creation Account, the greater light referred to the rising sun that marked the end of night and dawn of a new day, while the lesser light referred to the moon. Prophetically, the greater light refers to Jesus the risen Son of God who marks the end of the darkness and night of sin and death and the dawn of a new day in the light and life of God. The lesser light - as we will see in Sessions Three and Four - refers to God’s chosen people and nation, Israel. It is not coincidental that the first act by Israel as a nation was to sanctify or set apart the new moon - we can read about this in  Ex 12:1-2. Instead of using the sun or solar cycle/calendar to measure time, Israel was to use the moon or lunar cycle/calendar. Instead of starting the day at sunrise, they were to start the day at sundown (or you could call it moonrise).  The lesser light also refers to the Church today. Now, there is a reason why God used the sun to refer to Jesus and the moon to refer to His people. For just as the moon does not have light in itself but reflects the light of the sun, both Israel and the Church are called by God to reflect His glory as ultimately revealed in Jesus so as to draw all nations to Him.  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4691cdae19_0_0
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! In Session 1, we learnt that the Creation account gives us a unique Biblical perspective of world history - when God would act in His Kairos. Further, the 7 Days of Creation referred to 7 Millennia (7,000 years) of world history, as determined by the chronology of people and events in the Bible. As we conclude Session 2, we see that this was indeed the case with the first three Days of Creation.   First, we saw how DAY 1 foreshadowed sin and its consequences - in the Fall of Man. In Gen 2:17, God warned Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day he ate from it he would surely die. If a day is indeed like a thousand years, then Adam truly died within the day at age 930. In fact, none lived beyond a thousand years (one day).  Then we saw how DAY 2 foreshadowed impending judgment and salvation - through the Flood and Noah’s Ark. The Flood happened during the Second Millennium - in AM 1656. Noah lived another 350 years after the Flood and passed away in AM 2006 - marking the end of Day 2.  Finally, we saw how DAY 3 foreshadowed God’s dry ground of salvation - beginning with the Patriarchs and followed by the Exodus. Abraham, the first of the Patriarchs, was born at the start of the Third Millennium in AM 2008, two years after Noah died. The Exodus of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt also took place on Day 3 - in AM 2513. Let me end by briefly highlighting some loose ends to keep in view, given their prophetic significance later on. I know that some of these ideas will appear quite “heavy” to digest, so do take your time and if you wish to, you can study them in more detail by checking out the materials on my website or through your own research.  Circumcision - God instructed Abraham to circumcise all the males in his family as a sign of His covenant or oath with them. This act of physical circumcision foreshadows how God Himself will spiritually circumcise our hearts, cutting off our hardened selves so that we are made receptive to Him, through the Holy Spirit’s work in us when we receive Jesus as our Saviour and Lord.  Melchizedek - this mysterious king, who ruled over Jerusalem and whom Abraham gave a tenth of his possessions, was also said to be a “priest of God Most High.” The Bible would later describe Jesus as both King and Priest from the line of Melchizedek.  Time of Jacob’s trouble - after years on the run, Jacob finally returned to face the consequences of stealing his elder twin’s birthright. The night before he was to meet Esau, Jacob wrestled with God and God changed his name to Israel. This “time of Jacob’s trouble” foreshadows how the nation of Israel - like their forefather Jacob - would wrestle with God later on, crucifying Jesus as part of God’s plan of salvation two thousand years ago, and setting the stage again in the very near future for Jesus to return. Keep our eyes on Israel as the Church shares a common spiritual identity and destiny with it! Fullness of the Gentiles - when Jacob died, God’s blessings that were inherited by him were passed on to his twelve sons. Now, Joseph received a double portion normally given to the firstborn when Jacob took Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, as his own. In blessing the younger son, Jacob further prophesied that Ephraim’s descendants “will become a multitude [fullness] of [gentile or non-Jewish] nations.” In Rom 11:25-26, Paul explained to us what Jacob meant by revealing that “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved.” You see, Jacob already prophesied through his blessing given to Ephraim that God would bless all nations as He had promised Abraham, because it was through Israel’s rejection and crucifixion of Jesus that the way to God was opened to the rest of the world.  Now throughout these first three days or millennium of history, we see glimpses of Jesus: Like the ten generations from Adam to Noah, the names of twelve tribes of Israel point to Jesus. Further, in Jacob’s children Joseph and Judah, we see two descriptions of Jesus the coming Messiah (which means the “Anointed One”). In Joseph, the Messiah was revealed as, firstly, a man of suffering and sorrow. He is the Passover Lamb of God first seen in the Exodus, who died so that God’s judgment will pass over our sins. And through Joseph’s son Ephraim, the way of salvation was open to all nations. Jesus fulfilled all these in His first coming as Saviour of the world. In Judah, the Messiah was revealed as the conquering King of Kings - the Lion of Judah who will rule all nations. This will come to pass when Jesus comes again to usher in the Millennial Kingdom.  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4484cf6bad_0_0
Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! Earlier, we saw how the Third Day of Creation foretold the literal gathering of the floodwaters and appearing of the Dry Ground of a new world following the Flood.  Symbolically, it pointed to the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) through whom God brought forth His plan of salvation - the dry ground as it were on which we are rescued from drowning in the sea of sin and judgment, this dry ground being none other than Jesus our Rock of salvation. But there was one more Kairos event that took place on this Day - the supernatural gathering of the waters and appearing of dry ground during the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Most of us are quite familiar with the Exodus story and how it symbolically describes our deliverance from bondage to sin when we accepted Jesus as our personal Saviour and Lord. But there is another and perhaps even more important observation - it was here that God first revealed His personal name. Although God’s name (Yahweh) was first used in Gen 2:4, bear in mind that Genesis was written by Moses, whom God revealed His name to. Later on (Gen 4:26, 12:8, 13:4, 21:33, 26:25), we see the children of Seth, as well as Abraham and Isaac “calling on the name of the Lord” but we are told in Ex 6:2-3 that God did not reveal His personal name to them, not even when asked by Jacob after wrestling the whole night with God (Gen 32:29-30). It was only here, with Moses, that God revealed His personal name, and we are told the reason in Ex 4:22 - because “Israel is my firstborn son.” God saved the Israelites because He loved them as His very own. He saved His people not just to free them from their physical bondage but to restore their true identity as His children.  Reflections - Many seek God’s name for the wrong reasons, often for power or control, blessings or self-glory. Yes, we are told of the power found in His name alone - that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21, Rom 10:13). We can prophesy, drive out demons and perform many miracles in His name. However, when God proclaimed His name to the Israelites, it was because they were to be His children, His firstborn, who would carry His name to all the world. Likewise, when Jesus took on the name of God - “I AM” (Jn 6:35, 8:12, 10:9, 10:11, 11:25, 14:6, 15:1; see also Jn 8:58) - it was not to seek glory for Himself although He could have easily done so, but to do His Father’s will. God gave us His name in Jesus to let us know that we are His children.  It is this personal relationship that is the key to true discipleship. When we see God as our Heavenly Father, we are motivated by love and obedience, and His will and honour becomes what is most important in our lives. It was this love - love for His Father and love for us His brothers and sisters - that led Jesus to obey and do His Father’s will by dying on the Cross for us. Ultimately, it is God Himself who demonstrated true love to us His children. In Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, actually the father was the true prodigal by His extravagant show of love to his prodigal son. But this was exactly what God did for us as Paul explained in Rom 5:8. Like the father who rushed out of His home to meet his unworthy son, “God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, [God left His home and came down to us as a human in Jesus and] died for us.” (Lk 15:20, Rom 5:8).  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g3227e75477_0_61
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