Rejoice! The King Draws Nearer

This evening the new moon was sighted in Israel, meaning that officially it’s The Feast of Trumpets– Yom Teruah, literally the Feast of Shouting!

For centuries the Church understood the salvation aspects of Passover and the spring festivals of the Lord and how Jesus fulfilled these appointed seasons in exact detail.

But throughout the history of the Church, until our lifetime, churchmen knew or wrote hardly anything about the fall feasts.

All of the seven festivals, or appointed seasons, of the Lord are outlined in the Torah in Leviticus 23. And each one concerns various aspects concerning the plan of salvation through Messiah.

The subject until recent times was a silent, closed book of little interest or concern.

This is because the spring festivals explain the first coming of Jesus as God’s Suffering Servant (Messiah Ben Joseph), but the fall festivals concern largely his Second Coming as King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Messiah Ben David).

When the Lord returns as the triumphant, conquering Messiah Son of David, he will fulfil to the last detail aspects of the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles.

In our lifetime, the Levitical festivals of the Lord that occur in the fall are finally being understood for their prophetic significance. Although we have not unraveled all the priceless mysteries, revelation is ongoing and thrilling.

Understanding the fall festivals is part of the increase in knowledge and unsealing of the books prophesied in the Book of Daniel.

“Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.”  (Daniel 12:9)

Although my husband and I have been privileged to have many mentors through the years, Pat Robertson taught us so much about Israel decades ago.  Pat is to be credited as a forerunner of revelation knowledge concerning the Levitical fall festivals.  He and his ministry have been faithfully celebrating the fall festivals and taeching about them for decades.  The closest my Protestant upbringing taught me in the United States about the Lord’s fall festivals was Thanksgiving and fall Harvest festivals.

As the Jerusalem Channel prepares to welcome a team to Israel to celebrate once again the Feast of Tabernacles, we almost take it for granted that this same festival will be celebrated in church halls at the same time all over the world.

But it was not always so.

So I want to thank Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) nearly 40 years ago for introducing my husband and me to the Lord’s fall festivals.

From the beginning of the early days of the 700 Club TV program, Pat possessed from God extraordinary revelation, not only about the name of God YHVH, but also concerning the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles.  We learned so much from Pat about Israel. My husband and I were sent to open a news bureau in Jerusalem on behalf of CBN and Pat Robertson in 1982.

It is important to understand the fall festivals in order to grasp God’s entire plan of redemption.  If the spring festivals spoke of Yeshua’s first coming, surely the fall festivals speak of his Second Coming.

Pat Robertson has truly enjoyed a John the Baptist type ministry as a forerunner and herald of the Second Coming of Jesus.

A dear friend sent me the following question on Facebook:

“In the story of the ten virgins in Matthew 25, they were all sleeping, and since they were supposed to be going to a wedding,  who was the person responsible for declaring ‘Behold, the Bridegroom Cometh!’ Was he the town crier or one of the wedding party? Years ago, a man of God prayed earnestly not to be one of the foolish virgins, but to help him to be like the wise virgins. God told him he was looking for those who were wise and ready to go to the wedding and also looking for those to declare the coming of the Bridegroom.  As  I was reading that scripture recently , I thought of this question.”

I replied: Jesus said in John 3:29, “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend [best man] who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.”  Especially at this time of year at the Feast of Trumpets we are waiting to hear the Lord’s voice and the trump of God!

John the Baptist was the friend of the Bridegroom who scripturally made the initial declaration, ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ and functioned in the role of which you speak.  Now it is the “John the Baptist/Elijah Company”…prophetic people like you and me [and Pat Robertson]….who cry, “Behold, the Bridegroom Cometh!”

The joy of the Lord will only be entirely realized when fellowship with his Bride is completed.

John the Baptist recognized that his own work was finished when the Messiah had been introduced. Our work in this End-time company will be completed when the Second Coming of Messiah is heralded and the final Harvest of souls are swept into the Kingdom of God.

Click here to download a free pdf file from CBN on the fall festivals.