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#220: THE LORD’S COMING IS FAST APPROACHING

THE LORD’S COMING IS FAST APPROACHING

If the heavenly bodies were created to display divine signs,so God’s chosen people Israel as His witnesses would be able to be used as divine signs to the world. This idea might be confirmed by Christ’s own words......
 
I ask then: did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah – how he appealed to God against Israel: 3 ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me’? 4 And what was God’s answer to him? ‘I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ 5 So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6 And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. 7 What then? What the people of Israel sought so earnestly they did not obtain. The elect among them did, but the others were hardened, 8 as it is written:‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, to this very day.’ 9 And David says: ‘May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling-block and a retribution for them. 10 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent for ever’……
25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, 26 and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: ‘The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. 27 And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’ 28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, 29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. 30 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. 32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. 33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 34 ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?’ 35 ‘Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?’ 36 For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.                                            
ROMANS 11.
 
In Israel’s patriarch, Joseph’s dream ‘the sun, moon and stars’ were interpreted as his father Jacob, his mother Rachel, and his eleven brothers, respectively i.e., the nation of Israel, who originated from Jacob’s family. When God created the heavens and earth, concerning the heavenly bodies He declared:
‘Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years’ (Genesis 1:14, Line added).
If the heavenly bodies were created to display divine signs, so God’s chosen people Israel as His witnesses would be able to be used as divine signs to the world. This idea might be confirmed by Christ’s own words:
‘Now learn this lesson from the fig-tree: as soon as its twigs become tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door’ (Mt.24:32-33).
Christ taught that the fig-tree would be a sign of the end times, and needless to say, in the Scripture a fig-tree represents the nation of Israel. Accordingly, acknowledging what is going on in the nation of Israel and the land of Israel gives us divine directions as to our current position in God’s redemptive plans. Apostle Peter taught:
‘We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit’ (1Pe.1:19-21).
Throughout human history, God’s covenantal promises have been fulfilled in His people, the Jews and so, all other prophecies over human history will be materialized in and through them.
 
First, let us turn our attention to the latest news of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s passing on 11th January this year after eight years in a coma. He was responsible for all of Israel’s wars since 1948 until he fell into the coma. On 28th Jan. 2006 when Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, the most venerated rabbi in Israel died at the age of 108, Ariel Sharon was in a coma after his third and serious stroke on 4th Jan. and his death was expected imminently. Two months before Sharon had the major stroke and he was still in office as prime minister, Kaduri had announced to his followers that the long-awaited Jewish Messiah would not come until after the death of Sharon. It was only in 2007, a year after the rabbi’s death that his cryptic death note revealing the name of the Messiah was unsealed and publicised. Knowing what great impact its publication would have in the Jewish community, it is understandable why Kaduri wished his followers to wait for a year after his death to open the note.
 
As this cover story was dealt with before in our Letter in 2012 (Huldah Letter No.205), it would be worth quoting from Israel Today Magazine what was actually written in his note and the detailed story:
‘A few months before he died, one of the nation’s most prominent rabbis, Yitzhak Kaduri, supposedly wrote the name of the Messiah on a small note which he requested would remain sealed until now. When the note was unsealed, it revealed what many have known for centuries: Yehoshua, or Yeshua (Jesus), is the Messiah. With the biblical name of Jesus, the Rabbi and kabbalist described the Messiah using six words and hinting that the initial letters form the name of the Messiah. The secret note said: Concerning the letter abbreviation of the Messiah’s name, He will lift the people and prove that his word and law are valid. This I have signed in the month of mercy, Yitzhak Kaduri
The Hebrew sentence (translated above in bold) with the hidden name of the Messiah reads:Yarim Ha’Am Veyokhiakh Shedvaro Vetorato Omdim. The initials spell the Hebrew name of Jesus יהושוע. Yehoshua and Yeshua are effectively the same name, derived from the same Hebrew root of the word “salvation” as documented in Zechariah 6:11 and Ezra 3:2. ….. When the name of Yehoshua appeared in Kaduri’s message, ultra-Orthodox Jews from his Nahalat Yitzhak Yeshiva (seminary) in Jerusalem argued that their master did not leave the exact solution for decoding the Messiah’s name. The revelation received scant coverage in the Israeli media. Only the Hebrew websites News First Class (Nfc) and Kaduri.net mentioned the Messiah note, insisting it was authentic. The Hebrew daily Ma’ariv ran a story on the note but described it as a forgery. Jewish readers responded on the websites’ forums with mixed feelings: “So this means Rabbi Kaduri was a Christian?” and “The Christians are dancing and celebrating,” were among the comments. Israel Today spoke to two of Kaduri’s followers in Jerusalem who admitted that the note was authentic, but confusing for his followers as well. “We have no idea how the Rabbi got to this name of the Messiah,” one of them said. Yet others completely deny any possibility that the note is authentic. In an interview with Israel Today, Rabbi David Kaduri, 80, the son of the late Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, denied that his father left a note with the name Yeshua just before he died. “It’s not his writing,” he said when we showed him a copy of the note. During a night-time meeting in the Nahalat Yitzhak Yeshiva in Jerusalem, books with Kaduri’s handwriting from 80 years ago were presented to us in an attempt to prove that the Messiah note was not authentic. When we told Rabbi Kaduri that his father’s official website (www.kaduri.net)
had mentioned the Messiah note, he was shocked. “Oh no! That’s blasphemy. The people could understand that my father pointed to him [the Messiah of the Christians].” David Kaduri confirmed, however, that in his last year his father had talked and dreamed almost exclusively about the Messiah and his coming. “My father has met the Messiah in a vision,” he said, “and told us that he would come soon”’
   Because of Kaduri’s prediction, all eyes were on Sharon’s condition and now his death is taken as a significant event. Even seven years after the stroke in January 2006, there were reports of “significant brain activity” in Sharon’s MRI scan of the brain when he was exposed to familiar pictures and voices. However, he has passed away now and we will see to the rabbi’s prediction. An American pastor, Call Gallups wrote a book about a sensational story entitled “The Rabbi Who Found Messiah” and also inspired a movie on the same subject of the same name in late 2013. Concerning the book and the movie, WND puts it:
‘“The only prophetic utterance of Kaduri concerning Ariel Sharon was that Messiah, would not appear until Ariel Sharon had died,” said Gallups. “Within a little over two months after speaking these prophetic words Sharon was in a coma and Kaduri himself died.” The Kaduri prophecy did not name a specific time or date in which Messiah would be revealed — only that it would not happen until after Sharon had died. “Many who have examined Kaduri’s prophecy have interpreted the urgent feel of it to mean that Messiah might appear very shortly after Sharon’s death,” said Gallups. “This sense of urgency was strengthened by the fact that for several years prior to his death, Kaduri made several pronouncements of Messiah’s imminent return.” Both the book and the movie look at Kaduri’s many prophecies objectively – neither affirming or denying their accuracy or authenticity. The book and the movie simply examine his remarkable story about the popular rabbi and his shocking messianic prophecy from a journalistic and biblical point of view. Since Sharon’s condition took a turn for the worse around the new year, Gallups has been in huge demand by the media – particularly the Christian media’ (“Prophetic Twist To Sharons Imminent Death” on 1st Jan.’14).

   On 13th Jan. 2014, while Ariel Sharon was laid to rest on his farm in southern Israel after a memorial ceremony at the Knesset, a minor earthquake measured 3.5 on the Richter scale occurred in the Galilee region. For the residents the quake was powerful enough. In October 2013 as well, five separate tremors were recorded in the Kinneret region and also in neighbouring states, including Lebanon. Many cities in Israel are known to have been built above the Syrian-African fault-line. So it is said that the authorities have started to consider preparing for a full scale event, both for civilians and for emergency response agencies. While a series of smaller quakes does not necessarily mean a larger one is approaching, there is indeed a need for preparedness for natural disasters, and disasters which could occur at any time is globally increasing. Israeli geologists are said to be looking for patterns and signs to determine if a massive earthquake is going to take place, which could cause thousands of deaths. From biblical perspective, a massive earthquake never yet experienced will undoubtedly take place, accompanied with other natural disasters like the fall of huge hailstones not only in Israel but also all over the world:
‘The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air…Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed…Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about forty kilograms fell on people…’ (Re.16:17-21).

   Secondly, there is some good news of miraculous healing by faith in Jesus Christ, released on 5th Jan. this year. This happened in Israel where there is thought to be the fastest growing number of Christian converts. According to the news, a lady with a huge cancerous tumor was taken to a Tel Aviv hospital where she was told that the amputation of her leg would be her only chance of survival because of the tumor’s aggressive nature. At that time it had grown to the size of an orange and the biopsy clearly showed a sarcoma. She was also sent to the USA for a second opinion but the result was the same prognosis. On the day of surgery her operation had to be rescheduled because of technical difficulties. On the rescheduled day when she was about to be wheeled into the operation theater, her operation had to be postponed again since the surgical units turned out to be unavailable due to a number of other emergencies. By the third rescheduled date of operation her mother had become very ill and she herself postponed the operation. At this time she took all this as a clear sign from the Lord. She decided not to have the surgery but started to pray for divine healing. Her decision was taken by the doctors to mean that she would soon die. However, three months later, an MRI showed a dramatic regression of the malignant tumor. Another biopsy only showed the fact that there was no cancer, which had gone without any treatment. Israeli news stations reported the miracle and admitted that such a miracle could not be explained other than the power of her faith. The article comments in the end:
‘Hospital staff and reporters even traveled to Therese’s home to look for some other explanation. They tasted the food she eats and checked the water she drinks, but there was no physical explanation. They left contemplating one undeniable, unavoidable and very uncomfortable option – that prayer in Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel, still heals today’ (“Miraculous Healing in Jesus Stuns Israelis” on 5th Jan.’14).
As apostle Paul taught ‘all Israel will be saved’ in the end of human history as quoted from Romans Ch.11 at the beginning, there will be more opportunities for Jewish Christians giving testimonies, and there is likely to be more of Christ’s own direct encounter with the truly pious Jews as the end approaches.
   Thirdly, as Christ taught His disciples:
‘Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me’ (Mt.24:9),
Fox News this year reported that across North Africa and the greater Middle East, anti-Christian pressure had grown during the last few decades. In Cairo Coptic Christians were killed and churches were burnt. In Syria churches were also burnt, Christian leaders were executed and thousands of Syrian Christians fled to Turkey. The numbers of Christians killed for faith in 2013 had doubled, more than half of which occurred in Syria, Nigeria and Pakistan. The most dangerous country worldwide for Christians has been for twelve consecutive years North Korea where, thirty thousand Christians are estimated to exist, and Somalia, Syria and Iraq follow closely. Under such oppressive regimes, Christians have to not only hide their faith in Christ to escape execution or a life-long political prison sentence, but also deal with corrupt officials, bad policies, natural disasters, diseases and hunger.
(http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/12/christians-killed-for-faith-nearly-doubled-in-2013-group-finds/).
All these facts above seen worldwide in contemporary times seem to point to the imminence of Christ’s Second Coming.