Second Coming – Light from the Word

Behold, the Messiah (part 2)

Messiah being essentially one with God and in the form of God, did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped, or retained, but stripped Himself, so as to assume the guise of a servant in that He became like men and was born a human being. And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross! God has highly exalted Him and has freely bestowed on Him the name that is above every name. That in the name of YAHSHUA every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess and acknowledge that YAHSHUA the Messiah is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2: 6-7).

On the first day of weeks, that is, counting from the day after the Sabbath, when they had brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven Sabbaths (Lev. 23: 15-16). That constituted Pentecost and the waving of the sheaf constitutes resurrection- Messiah’s resurrection, behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled the boulder back and sat upon it. And his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. He said to the women who had come to the tomb, do not fear. He is not here for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord was laid. There was the empty tomb! Some of His disciples witnessed as well and believed Him. As two of His disciples were walking to the city of Emmaus, Messiah walked with them to their place and ate with them. On the evening of that same day, Messiah appeared to His disciples though they were behind closed doors for fear of the Jews. He stood among them and said, Peace to you! Then He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples were filled with joy. The Prophet Zachariah foretold that in “that day” future day yet to come, Israel will look upon their Messiah, Whom they had pierced and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one who is in bitterness for his firstborn. Messiah remained on earth forty days after His resurrection. He appeared to five hundred people at that time. They all testified His resurrection. He, the firstfruit of all those who will believe in Him, went ahead to conquer death. It was swallowed up in and unto victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? But thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through the Lord YAHSHUA the Messiah.

Pages: 12

A Lamb, A Shofar, A Lion in God’s Timeline

God’s time line is in no way our time line. He acts in the sphere of eternity, in His all-knowing, all seeing before even anything takes place, to the time when all begins. In fact, before there was time, He was. Hard for a limited human mind to comprehend such reality. Where there is no beginning and no end, it just floats around our mind, without settling in our understanding. But that is the way it is. For our God is not in the frame of our understanding, being Who He is. This is how the Apostle Paul describes Him: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unfathomable are His judgments! And how untraceable are His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord and who has understood His thoughts, or who has ever been His counselor? … For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever! Amen (Rom. 11:33-34, 36).

Pages: 12

The Last Trump

(I Corinthians 15: 52; I Thessalonians 4:16)

The trumpet is an instrument of great significance in the Bible. It served Israel when in their pilgrimage through the desert: to call to assemble, to move on, to announce the new year, to call to war, and to proclaim victory, and more. Of all the instruments, God chose the trumpet to establish order, warnings in many aspects in the lives of the Jewish people. God also established the Feast of Trumpets for the nation to carry on the tradition He established for them. We read it in Leviticus 23:24: Say to Israelites, On the first day of the seventh month (almost October), you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial day announced by the blowing of trumpets, a holy assembly. When God descended to Mount Sinai to covenant with Israel, at the beginning of their journey, He expressed Himself to them through a loud trumpet sound. That was not a sound the people enjoyed, but a sound that caused them fear to the point of asking Moses to speak to them instead of God. That was a sound that echoed God’s holiness, purity and judgment, as Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, for the Lord descended upon it in fire; its smoke ascended like that of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. (Exo. 19:18-19). That was also the symbolic sound of the tribulation’s trumpets bringing judgements upon the earth for its wickedness.

At Mount Sinai, a trumpet sound sealed the covenant between God and Israel, and God’s trumpet future sounding will finalize His promise of redemption for His church. We also see in this chapter of Exodus the picture of the bride of Christ being taken away in verses 13 and 19 which reads, When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain; as the trumpet blast grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with a voice; the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up. Let’s compare this passage with the one in I Thessalonians 4:16: For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud summons, with the shout of an archangel and with the blast of the trumpet of God. And those who have departed this life in Christ will rise first; then we, the living ones who remain, shall simultaneously be caught up along in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so always we shall be with the Lord! A cry of summons, a shout and a trumpet and this time, the trumpet of God, will resonate for the rapture of the church of Christ, the one whose Chief Cornerstone is YAHSHUA her Lord. The trumpet of God is a specific trumpet to be used to call His bride home, as opposed to the seventh trumpet of Revelation which will be used to bring judgment upon the earth. This is the reason why the need for the bride of Christ to be removed from earth. The rapture is the means by which God will use to save the Bride of Christ before His wrath is poured on earth, just as He did for the righteous Noah before the flood and Lot before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. There would not have been a reason for the rapture of His bride, if there would not be a world-wide tribulation, or God’s wrath to punish the wicked people of this earth.

Pages: 12

The Last Three Feasts Yet to Be Fulfilled (part 2) – The Feast of Tabernacles

The Feast of Tabernacles points to the future restoration of the Jewish nation. The meaning of the Feast of Tabernacle is of great importance in its fulfillment. According to A.E. Ware, the Lord YAHSHUA was born on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which was on the 29^th of October (The Restored Vision). One might doubt the date and disregard the point on that occasion, but YAHWEH established His feasts with a future in His mind. It was as if He was indirectly telling the world through Israel that those feasts were a shadow of what were to come in His prophetic plans for the world. They were not just ordinances to be observed, they were pictures of the true fulfillment embed in YAHWEH’S future. When YAHSHUA was born on the first day of this feast, Israel was unaware of the Light being shone that day through Him as the incarnate God. This was the most important feast of that year, signaling God’s faithfulness and love for all mankind. That feast would have been fulfilled completely if the Jewish nation had accepted YAHSHUA as their Messiah. However, they didn’t and therefore, the Feast of Tabernacle’s fulfillment was set for another time in history.

Pages: 12