Anticipating the Lord's Coming!

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thessalonians 4: 16-17)

Behold, I tell you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthains 15: 52-52, emphases mine)

By Christine Darg

If, if, if, I could figure out God (big smile), I would speculate that the end of Yom Kippur, the solemn Day of Atonement on the Hebrew calendar, would be a likely and very prophetic time for the last trump to sound and for the dead in Messiah to be raised.

My speculation (and don’t worry– it is only speculation and not date-setting) is based upon Scriptures about the trump of God and the fact that at the end of Yom Kippur services there’s a long shofar blast.

The final Yom Kippur service at the end of 24-25 hours of fasting is called THE CLOSING OF THE GATES. That really preaches! It reminds me of the foolish virgins in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25 who beat on the doors of the wedding feast but it is too late for them to be admitted. It also reminds me of when God shut the door on the ark of Noah and only eight souls were saved from the flood.

Evangelicals often associate the Feast of Trumpets (in Hebrew Yom Teruah, Day of Shouts) with the Rapture and the sounding of the trump of God because of the nature of the feast itself—a festival of loud shouting and trumpets!  It’s also a day and hour that no man knows because the exact date can only be determined by the sighting of a new moon. Yom Kippur is the 10th day of the current Hebrew month of Tishri. And this Hebrew year of 5776, the new moon could not be sighted for 24 hours because of atmospheric conditions. Lately the worst dust storm in record history had been visited upon the region. Truly only God knows what time it really is!  All I know is that the hour is late!

The Feast of Trumpets could be like a wakeup call announcing that the Lord is coming– and the Ten Days of Awe between Trumpets (also referred to as Rosh HaShanah/Jewish New Year) could be the equivalent of the missing ten days that Jesus left unfulfilled when he broke the omer in the previous spring Levitical Festival, Shavuot in Hebrew (Weeks/in Christianity “Pentecost”). If you recall, there are 50 days between Passover and Shavuot (or seven weeks) but after Jesus, the Passover Lamb of God, was raised from the dead, he broke the days of counting the omer (grain offering) between Passover and Shavuot on the 40^th day. He left ten days unreckoned. (I did a video teaching on this subject called “Countdown to Pentecost: The Mystery of the Omer.” To watch click here.)

All we believers know for sure is that a many prophetic signs are converging—great upheaval and trouble in the nations, blood moons, shemita year, and now the new year of Jubilee. The question is, are we ready for the coming of the Lord? The Jews set an example to us by setting aside a whole day to go without food and water to try to make themselves right with God. Believers in Yeshua know that Atonement has already made for us at the Cross and that his Atonement is still effacious nearly 2,000 years later, according to the Hebrew Scriptures!

If the Lord delays his coming, we can rejoice that we still have time to bring in the remaining Gentile harvest, which will soon be full and finished according to Luke 21: 24 and Romans 11:25. We plan to go to India at the end of next month for that purpose. We are hiring a stadium. May the Lord of the Harvest give us a Jubilee Harvest! We decree a release of souls from the powers of darkness in this Jubilee Year!

Also this weekend begins our ministry’s “Moveable Feast in the Four Quarters of Jerusalem’s Old City.” Ernest Hemingway’s “Moveable Feast” described his memoirs of Paris, but Jerusalem, the City of the Great King, provides a much greater Moveable Feast for those attuned to the heart of the Eternal God!

Jerusalem does not need to be divided, it has already been quartered into Christian, Armenian, Jewish and Muslim Quarters. Come celebrate with us! Details are at our Events page.

But before we can celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, which is a picture of the Millennium rule of Messiah, Yom Kippur is the most solemn holiday of the Jewish year. The word “kippur” comes from the Hebrew meaning “to cover” and it refers to the covering, or mercy seat where God’s presence dwelt in the temple.

In Old Testament times, once a year the Jewish high priest in Jerusalem would enter into the Most Holy Place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. In fear for his own life, because of the awesome and holy presence of God, the priest would approach the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant to make atonement for the sins of Israel with the sacrificial blood. The God of Israel would forgive the sins of Israel for one more year.

Yom Kippur is a picture and a rehearsal for Judgment Day. It’s the last call –the last chance to repent. Our society has become so secular that I daresay a lot of people don’t really know what it means to be penitent.

A New Testament verse that I believe is the present day answer to Yom Kippur’s demands to repent and change is 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 2:

“Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

That’s because for Judeo-Christians, Jesus IS our Atonement and every day is an opportunity to repent. Jesus–Yeshua is his Hebrew name– is both the Lamb of sacrifice at the Feast of Passover and he is also the whole burnt offering of Yom Kippur, the solemn Day of Atonement.

As Yom Kippur begins today at sundown, we greet our Israeli and other Jewish friends with a most sincere G’mar Hatimah Tovah, literally “Complete a good signature!” or “May you be inscribed for a good year (in the book of life)!”

Friends, as we also recall the evil surprise attack upon Israel on her holiest day on Yom Kippur in 1973 by the forces of Egypt and Syria, we must be diligent to pray especially for Israel’s military intelligence, especially due to renewed threats from Iran’s leader and many others in the Middle East who would do Israel harm. We also pray for the protection of Christians in the Middle East.