I’ve been studying the “end times; last days” type of scriptures, and I’ve discovered something interesting.
Isaiah 17:1 says, “Woe to Damascus, it’s been taken away from being a city it has become a ruinous heap.” What’s interesting is that ISIS (and other terrorist groups) have their headquarters in Damascus.
Thank you for this post. I always enjoy your lessons, and I continue to learn.
Pastor, most amazing thing about those appointed times that include the new moons and weekly Sabbaths and Feasts is that Our Messiah fulfilled them while He tabernacled with us.
Biggest obstacle to us seeing them is the way the world keeps time.
His calendar (prophectic Kingdom calendar in Ezekiel 46:1) is shown throughout Torah and can be found subtly and not so subtly in the New Testament.
But it incorporates the moon and stars which the world’s calendar ignores in timekeeping.
When His calendar of sun, moon and stars is followed, Messiah’s life unfolds amazingly with those new moons, Sabbaths and feasts.
The Bride can know His genuine birthday, day of His circumcision, His dedication at the temple, baptism, in addition to death, burial and resurrection.
But none of those are found on the gregorian calendar. The world’s calendar doesn’t point to the Son.
The world’s calendar points just to the sun.
And that worldly sun based calendar has birthed December 25,good friday and easter, and passes them off as genuine, when His calendar proves they are counterfeits.
I pray more believers study those new moons, sabbaths and feasts..and study His sun, moon and stars that the Words calls ‘signs’ He gives us to tell time with.
Satan can’t counterfeit them. But he can have man use 1/3 of the signs and call it genuine.
It does make one consider a crossroads, though... conform to the world and its systems, or follow our Heavenly Father’s timekeeping and calendar found in the Word and in His sky.
The world calls today Thor’s Day.. on His calendar, it is the third day of the week.
One can commemorate thor without knowing it, or one can commemorate what our Heavenly Father did on the third day in Scripture.
One of those calendars has Creative and Redemptive significance that spans eternity.
The other, well.it can only counterfeit..
The term "the feasts of Israel" suggests that you Any clear unbiased reading of YHvH's WORD
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
will yield YHvH's appointed times for the learning
and understanding of His followers.
belong to some religion other than as a follower fo YHvH.
Pastor Randles, I am sure you are a great guy. I commend you on your work condemning heresies in the Pentecostal movement. I think however, you might be better sticking with that area of scripture. Your twelve part series on Israel is rife with core biblical problems, misunderstandings, and errors regarding prophecy. It would take a whole book to thoroughly destroy some of the many wrong notions presented so rather than write a book, I will point out some high level problems so you or other readers can investigate for themselves.
1. You use Jew and Israel in unbiblical ways. I worked with a “Jew” who often identified himself as such in political or ideological discussions. Until one day I challenged it and said, You call yourself a Jew, what are you claiming? What is a Jew. Is a Jew a race? Is it someone who is racially descended from Judah the son of Jacob? But we have people of many races claiming to be Jews. If descent is implied at all when used, it is usually used to imply the descent from any of the twelve tribes which would be totally biblically erroneous. Or do you mean you are a Jew culturally? You have adopted certain practices associated with a particular culture. Or do you mean you are a Jew because you follow the teaching of the [antichrist] Talmud. You even use the ridiculous term “anti semitism” in the title of one post. You realize that means “anti descendant-of-Shem”, Noah’s son, and has nothing to do with anti followers-of-the-Talmud, as you seem to use it.
The New Testament is very clear who God’s people are. They are followers of Christ. Those that deny Christ are not of God, period.
2. You seem to show no understanding of the difference between the Southern Kingdom of Judah in scriptural history or prophecy, and that of the northern Kingdom of the House of Israel, rightfully called Israel in scripture. More on that follows.
3. To make the statements you do, you must completely reject many plain teachings about the kingdom of Judah and its inhabitants, Jews. Compare Jeremiah 18 and 19 where the House of Israel will be remade, but the Kingdom of Judah will be destroyed and “NEVER” put back together. Matthew 21-24 are almost exclusively devoted to the rejection of the Kingdom of Judah. It is stated over and over in many ways. The fig tree, will NEVER produce fruit again. The kingdom of God is taken from them and given to a NATION (note the rare singular in Greek) bringing forth fruits. Perhaps you should consider who this nation is? Or at least acknowledge that Christ and God did not lie when he said they will NEVER be His kingdom again. There are other places to. Look to how Jerusalem was promised to be made like Shiloh which was never used again as the place of worship or abode of God. On and on scripture goes about the kingdom of Judah, but if you don’t understand the difference between the two kingdoms, then when you see a reference to Israel all is confused.
4. Then there is what you do directly with Revelation. Wow. You should spend a couple of years studying the Historicist view of prophecy which was widely taught in the reformation. The worst thing that could happen is that you might be able to convince yourself it is wrong, but at least you could speak from a more educated standpoint. Hopefully though you could see that the reformers were correct and the current trend in prophecy is dangerous to Christianity because it is error and it obscures the wonderful work of God in history. The 42 months to which you refer, and is equivalent to the times, time and dividing of times, is already fulfilled, as is Nebuchadnezzar’s seven times.
5. Your ideas on heaven are common, though mistaken. Your tagline “the choice isn’t heaven or Hell. Its heaven or the world” exemplifies this. I suggest you go through scripture and rightly divide the passages that refer to heaven(in Greek) in the New Testament from those that refer to the Kingdom of Heaven. They are entirely different things. Write down the Characteristics of heaven, as used in each of the verses. Then compare that to those of the kingdom. God, Christ, angels, clouds, lightning, birds, they are all in heaven. People are in the kingdom. In the process of considering all the above, realize also that THE church is NOT the kingdom. The parables plainly teach there are tares in the kingdom. THE church is the body of Christ and has no tares.