Showing posts with label book of Joel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book of Joel. Show all posts

Friday, August 11, 2017

Today's Headlines Signal Convergence with 'End of Days' Scenario, Rabbi Says - CBN NEWS CHARISMA NEWS


Partial solar eclipse (Wikimedia Commons)
Standing With Israel

Today's Headlines Signal Convergence with 'End of Days' Scenario, Rabbi Says

You only have to look at today's headlines to see that history is speeding up and the world is moving closer to an end of days scenario, a popular Israeli rabbi said.
In anticipation of the upcoming solar eclipse on Aug. 21 and the alignment of stars and planets in September, CBN News asked historian and Rabbi Ken Spiro what Judaism has to say about the relation of celestial events to prophecy and the coming of the Messiah.
"We're only a few headlines away from direct convergence of that biblical 'end of days' scenario with the headlines in the news today," Spiro told CBN News. But the question is not so much about what's happening in the sky as what's happening on the ground.
"God is always speaking to us," Spiro said. "It's a fundamental belief in Judaism that everything that happens in the world is for a meaning and there's a message hidden in there somewhere, even in the astronomical phenomenon."
Correlation between Heavens and Earth
But according to Spiro, the question is always how to interpret "astronomical phenomenon" in light of history.
"The question would be to see whether there is a correlation between something happening up in the heavens and then we see something actually happening down on earth," he explained.
"It's not a big phenomenon in Judaism to look at things like eclipses, solar or lunar, comets and try to directly relate them to specifically here is happening here on the planet Earth, but again, God controls everything and if something like that is happening, a major astronomical event, there is definitely some meaning," he said.
According to Spiro, there are classic examples in the Bible of God's signs in the heavens, like the sun and moon standing still for Joshua in the Givon and Ayalon Valleys.
'God Can Suspend Laws of Nature'
Most of the time, he said, God works within the laws of nature that he already established. That means "most of what we call miraculous phenomenon are natural phenomenon with really good timing," he said. "But there are situations absolutely where God can suspend the laws of nature," like the darkness that covered the earth during the plagues in Egypt just before the Exodus.
And there is the end of days prophecy in the Book of Joel that says the moon will be turned to blood and the sun to darkness at the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.
"Now, that could be interpreted as eclipses by the way. You know, the moon turning to blood is called the blood moon actually, which is what happens in a lunar eclipse and when the moon—when you have a solar eclipse, the sun disappears and turns to blackness. So there in the prophets it's talking about signs we see at the end of days. Whether that is what it's meant to be interpreted as remains a big question," he said.
As for the "buzz" among some Christians in the U.S. about the upcoming celestial events, Spiro said it's not generating the same enthusiasm in the Jewish world for two reasons.
Exercising Caution
The first reason is because there's been so much "Messianic expectation in Jewish history" in the past that "Jews are very wary about reading into specific people, specific events or specific astronomical phenomena that this it. Because then when it doesn't happen it's a big letdown."
The other reason is that there are so many prophecies being fulfilled that the Jewish people are focusing on that rather than heavenly signs, he said. He likened the coming of the Messiah to birth pangs and the contractions getting closer and closer together before a woman gives birth.
"So, too, events on the planet Earth will get more and more intense and happen much more rapidly and certainly I would say things are speeding up very dramatically in the world, the change that is taking place, the political upheaval, the technological advances, as to whether that is linked to astronomical events that are coming, we'll only know [when it happens]," Spiro said.
"We could be hitting that end of days scenario," he continued. "Certainly time is definitely running out and as we see by what's going on in the world, in a positive and a negative way—I mean the rebirth of the state of Israel, the reunification of Jerusalem. We just celebrated the 50th anniversary of that. I mean that's unbelievable, that's prophecy coming true before our eyes. The nations of the world lining up against Israel, largely, what you see going on in UNESCO, the United Nations is clearly a sign," he said. 
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Friday, June 27, 2014

Blood Moons, the Shemitah and Prophetic Implications We Can't Ignore - The Next One is October 8, 2014




Blood Moons, the Shemitah and Prophetic Implications We Can't Ignore



Blood moon over Jerusalem
A blood moon viewed through the wall of Damascus gate in Jerusalem's Old City during a total lunar eclipse, June 15, 2011 (Reuters)
Israel is appropriating $29 million to help farmers observe a critical agricultural commandment from the Mosaic law, according to WND.
That commandment instructs the Israelites to give the land a rest from all agricultural activity once every seven years.
In the Torah, the Sabbath concept isn't limited to the seventh day of the week; it also applies to every seventh year—also known as the Shemitah year.
The $29 million in funding is headed to Israel's Religious Affairs Ministry, which will spend the money encouraging and enabling Jewish farmers who wish to follow the command.
Though farming regulations may seem insignificant to Western eyes, it was in part Israel's original failure to observe the resting years that resulted in the 70-year exile (2 Chronicles 36:20-23)—a seven-decade "Sabbath rest" for the land.
The Sabbath year command has not been observed in any real official capacity since A.D. 70, when God judged the nation of Israel for rejecting the Messiah, Jesus Christ, about 40 years earlier.
Biblically, while Israel may once more seek to observe the ordinance, the Jewish people remain in spiritual exile (Romans 11:7-11, Acts 28:25-28) because they rejected the Messiah's true Sabbath rest for the soul (see Hebrews 4).
The move on Israel's part may be critical as the nation navigates through events surrounding blood moons occurring in 2014 and 2015, which may be prophetically significant.
In the book of Joel, the prophet writes, "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (2:31-32). At Pentecost, the Apostle Peter quotes that passage in reference to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Now, many are connecting that same passage to a new end-times move of the Spirit preceding Christ's return—whenever that may be.
The question is: why Israel's revived interest in the law? Is it drawing closer to seeking God's will just as when King Josiah rediscovered the law in 2 Kings 22? Or is it instead keeping God "on their lips" but far from their hearts as they "seek to establish their own righteousness"—not knowing that the whole point of the law is to be fulfilled in the righteousness given freely through the Messiah (Romans 10:3-4)?
The unusual tetrad of lunar eclipses correspond with Jewish feast dates, beginning with Passover of April 2014 and ending with the Feast of Tabernacles on September 28, 2015—around which time Israel will celebrate the end of the Sabbath year.
The next blood moon will occur October 8, 2014.