292 Scriptural prophecy reveals Messiah

Scriptural prophecy reveals when Messiah will come to rule.

Over the past two months the whole world has beenin lockdown due to the Corona virus and somehow most of those people who heard the good news about the coming of Messiah ben David to come and rule the world from Jerusalem, became very excited. But what very few people understand is that the coming of Messiah will be preceded by a period known as Jacob’s trouble and the Day of YHVH, which is not Sunday as many in Churchianity believe, but a day of which YHVH will take vengeance on the dwellers of the earth for rejecting knowledge about Him and not obeying His Torah teachings for their good. YHVH therefore warns those who long for the Day of YHVH to repent and return to Him, rather than longing for the His day in Amos 5: 14 –20, saying: ‘Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and thus may YHVH Elohim of hosts be with you, just as you have said! (15) Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the gate! Perhaps YHVH Elohim of hosts may be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. (16) Therefore, thus says YHVH Elohim of hosts, Adonai. “There is wailing in all the plazas,and in all the streets they say, ‘Alas! Alas!’ They also call the farmer to mourning and professional mourners to lamentation. (17) And in all the vineyards there is wailing, because I shall pass through the midst of you,” says YHVH. (18)Alas, you who are longing for the day of YHVH, for what purpose will the day of YHVH be to you?It will be darkness and not light; (19) as when a man flees from a lion, and a bear meets him, or goes home, leans his hand against the wall, and a snake bites him. (20)Will not the day of YHVH be darkness instead of light, even gloom with no brightness in it?’

As Nazarene Jewish/Israelite believers in Messiah, we are aware that Yahshua the Nazarene warned His disciples a number of times that prophecy is a subject to be handled with great care, since it will be used to deceive many well-meaning people, especially during these last days. When Yahshua’s disciples questioned Him about the signs that would mark the time of His return, He told them in Luke 21: 8, saying: “See to it that you be not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and ,’The time is at hand; do not go after them.’” Even though Yahshua told His disciples that they would not know the exact time of His return in Mark 13: 32 & 33[1], He told them the specific signs when His imminent return would be unmistakable, using an allegory in Mark 13: 28 & 29, saying: “Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender, and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. (29) Even so, you too, when you see these things happening, recognize that He is near,right at the door.” He told them that similar to when a fig tree begins to bud; a sure sign is that summer is on its way, so will His coming be near when the things He described in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 start happening. He gave another sure sign which many religious groups misinterpreted in the recent past, saying in verse 30 of Mark 13: “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” Many has misinterpreted this prophecy to mean that some of the generation of people who lived during World War 1 or 2, would still be alive at the time of His return, but He was actually referring to the Jewish race who would remain alive even after His return, as may be seen from the footnote against the word ‘generation’ in this verse in the New American Standard Bible, which reads: ‘Or race’. In fact, we see that when Messiah returns one day on Yom Teruah, He is going to save the tents of Judah first as witnessed in Zechariah 12: 7, in this way: “YHVH also will save the tents of Judah first in order that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be magnified above Judah.” We also see the timing of this event from verses 8 & 9 of Zechariah 12, as follows: “In that day YHVH will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like Elohim, like the angel of YHVH before them. (9) And it will come about in that day that I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”

When will all the nations mentioned in verse 9 above, come against Jerusalem? We find the answer in Revelation 16: 13 – 16, in this way: ‘And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; (14) for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of Elohim, the Almighty. (15) (Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his garments (study Torah), lest he walk about naked and men see his shame.”) (16) And they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon.’ So it is clear that when Messiah returns He will interact with the house of Judah and as a result the dead in Him will be resurrected as witnessed in Romans 11: 15, as follows: ‘For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?’ Rav Shaul gave more details on this subject in 1 Corinthians 15: 50 – 55, saying: ‘Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of Elohim; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (51) Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (52) in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. (53) For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. (54) But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.(55) “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?”

Messiah warned that prophecy should be treated with extreme care (in Matthew 24: 23 – 26), in case we are deceived. Regrettably, many sorrowful events have occurred from Messiah’s time that lead many naïve believers to be ridiculed or even to disbelieve the rest of the Scriptures, by incorrect interpretations of prophecy. During the past 2000 years numerous people have claimed to be prophets, holy teachers or even the Messiah and have deceived many. It is therefore only normal for some to become suspicious about Scriptural prophecies and then go on to avoid all religious topics. Do not be deceived; Scriptural prophecy serves a very important purpose for believers in Messiah. However, we should avoid the many dangers of becoming so entangled in prophecy that we interpret every interesting event as a sign of the end-times or at the other end of the scale, dismiss every occurrence on the world scene as unimportant. But what is the correct interpretation or view of Scriptural prophecy? Rav Kepha wrote that fulfilled prophecy should serve to strengthen our faith and hope in prophecies yet to be fulfilled, in 2 Peter 1: 19, saying: ‘And so we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.’ He compared Scriptural prophecy in this verse to a light that provides us with vision until the ultimate coming of Elohim’s Kingdom on earth. It is as Yahshua told His disciples in Matthew 24: 27, saying: “For just as the lightning (or sunlight) comes from the east, and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.” Even though Elohim gives us a general outline of prophetic events, He does not give specific details of such events. However, as we get closer to the time of Messiah’s return, things become a lot clearer, as He also said to Daniel in Daniel 12: 10: “Many will be purged, purified and refined; but the wicked will act wickedly; and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand.” Nevertheless, we need to realize that there is a reliable framework of prophecy, which can become counterproductive if we try and interpret every detail. But as we move towards the end, things have and will become clearer to those who remain close to Elohim.

But what is this framework of prophecy? We need to understand that Included in the prophecies and events leading up to Messiah’s coming are a number of major conditions that can be confirmed historically; the first condition that Messiah mentioned only became possible during and after World War II, is man’s ability to annihilate all life from the earth. This was the first of the conditions that Messiah described that would only be present as the end of the age draws near, as witnessed in Matthew 24: 21 & 22, in this way: ‘For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall. (22) And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut short.’ Yahshua told His disciples that a time would come when man’s destructive capacity would be so great that all life could be wiped out from earth, if He does not return in time. This is why the time of tribulation will be so distressing and unequaled in human history and even though mankind has been waging wars since the beginning of time, he never had the ability, with stones and sticks; bows and arrows; or even canons and automatic rifles to erase all human life from earth, to fulfill this prophecy. But as most of us know, this all changed when the first atom bomb were detonated in 1945. Since then, mankind developed hydrogen bombs and has thousands of nuclear weapons available to destroy all life on earth, a thousand times over. Messiah predicted that even though mankind was never a good caretaker of the earth, there will come a time before the end, when the earth will be so polluted and mankind will have developed the capacity to totally destroy all life on earth that He will have to come and intervene to save us from ourselves. In fact Yahshua also showed Yochanan in a vision, long after His resurrection and ascension to heaven in Revelation 11: 18 what our world will be like just before His return, saying: “And the nations were enraged, and Thy wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to Thy bond-servants the prophets and to the saints (faithful believers) and to those who fear Thy name (Jews), the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”

The second condition that will have to exist before Messiah’s return concerns the existence of the modern state of Israel. The survival of the culture and religion of the Jewish people, which witnessed the rise and fall of great empires and civilizations, such as Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome goes against all odds and even though the Jewish people have been dispersed throughout the world YHVH promised that He will one day bring them back to the Promised Land, saying in Isaiah 66: 8, “Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed (suffered in childbirth), she also brought forth her sons.” This happened in 1948 when the descendants of the ancient kingdom of Judah again came into possession of the Promised Land, which they then called Israel. As prophesied in the books of Joel, Zechariah and elsewhere in the Tanach a significant number of Jews are once again present in and around Jerusalem before the second coming of Messiah. The prophet Daniel prophesied about a time when Jews will once again be sacrificing animals before Messiah’s return. This was confirmed in Yahshua’s teaching to His disciples in Matthew 24: 15& 16, as follows: “Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, (16) then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” The abomination of desolation described in Daniel 9: 27 talks about the defiling of sacrifices at the Set-apart place in Jerusalem. However, for these prophecies to be fulfilled there will have to be a holy or Set-apart place with an altar, if the temple will not be rebuilt. It was only since the 1967 Six Day War that Israel took possession of the divided city Jerusalem, but in order to defuse further hostility and tension, the Israeli government decided that the Temple Mount should remain under Muslim control. There have been many attempts since then to try to rebuild the temple, which was destroyed by the Romans about forty years after Messiah’s death. Arabs or Turks governed Jerusalem until after the defeat of the Turks in World War 1. The British ruled the area under mandates from the League of Nations and the United Nations until 1948 when the state of Israel was established. During those many years the temple Mount was a stronghold of the Muslims and Jews were banned from worshipping anywhere near it. An Islamic place of worship was constructed on the very place where many authorities believe sacrifices were once made. It was therefore impossible for the prophecy of Messiah in Matthew 24 to be fulfilled while the Arabs held control over Jerusalem. However, the newly established nation of Israel regained control over Jerusalem in 1967, which set the scene for this prophecy of Messiah to come to pass. Even so, at this point only a small number of Jews believe it to be their responsibility to rebuild the Temple and it would ultimately take divine intervention to ensure the actual rebuilding of the temple.

The third condition necessary to exist before Messiah will return, deals with the revival of the Roman Empire, which was prophesied widely in the books of Daniel and Revelation. Daniel interpreted king Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of an enormous image of himself, talking about a number of consecutive kingdoms to appear on the world scene. King Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was the first of the kingdoms that Daniel saw. This was followed by three additional kingdoms and which we are able to identify by comparing history with Scriptural prophecy as the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greco-Macedonian and Roman Empires. When discussing the condition of the fourth and final kingdom, the Roman Empire, Daniel wrote in Daniel 2: 40, saying: “Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces.” The Roman Empire was definitely more dominant and durable than its predecessors and its reign remained for many centuries. Daniel continued to reveal some prophetic details about the Roman Empire, saying that the legs and feet of the image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, represented the Roman Empire over the duration of its reign. Finally the feet and toes were composed partly of iron and clay, which essentially indicated that it will be as strong as iron, but also as brittle as clay. We read accordingly from verses 41 – 43 of Daniel 2, “And in that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. (42) And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. (43) And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.”

Next Daniel tells us in verse 44 of Daniel 2 saying: “And in the days of those kings the Elohim of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.” This was obviously a prophecy about the coming kingdom of Elohim, when Messiah will come and rule the world from Jerusalem. This is similar to the prophecy Yahshua revealed to Yochanan in a vision in Revelation 11: 15 as follows: ‘And the seventh angel sounded; and there arose loud voices in heaven saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Master and of His Messiah; and He will reign forever and ever.”’ However, we are all aware that the Kingdom of Elohim was definitely not established in the time of the ancient Roman Empire. The question is: Was Daniel wrong about when these events will occur? We find the answer in examining other prophecies about this fourth kingdom. Rav Yochanan was given an amazing prophecy by Yahshua in the book of Revelation about what will happen in the rest of mankind’s history until Messiah’s return and even after the establishment of the New Jerusalem on earth in Revelation 21. Similar to Daniel, Yochanan was told to write about the events that will lead up to Messiah’s return. We read from Revelation 19 about His return and the overthrow and destruction of the other kingdoms and their armies. We also read about a great false religious leader as well as ‘the beast’ which agrees with the Roman Empire or fourth kingdom described by Daniel as per king Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Yochanan was given a series of visions in which he saw this mighty empire pictured symbolically, its fall, resurrection and final destruction. So important is the knowledge of this empire to Elohim’s people that the Scriptures deal with it in great detail.

We see the description of the composite beast that Yahshua showed Yochanan in a vision in Revelation 13: 1, in this way: ‘And he stood on the sand of the seashore. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names.’ In the rest of Revelation 13, Yahshuashowed Yochanan a symbolic beast which looked as though it were composed of three different animals – a lion, a leopard and a bear. It included the most powerful parts of the very animals by which Elohim had pictured the Chaldean, the Persian and Grecian empires to Daniel. In other words the beast Yochanan saw represented the characteristics of all these empires in one. When Daniel wrote, about 650 years before Yochanan’s vision, three of the four empires pictured by the four beasts had not yet come to power. But by the time of Yochanan’s vision, all of these world empires, except one, had existed and fallen. Therefore the beast Yochanan saw represented specifically that fourth empire then existing, which had swallowed up all vestiges of the other three, conquering and occupying their former territories. The Roman Empire was the greatest war-making machine the world had ever seen, for it had the strongest part of the ‘lion’, the Head and jaws, it had the massiveness and power of the most powerful part of the ‘bear’, the legs; and it possessed the swiftness, the cunning and the cruelty of Alexander’s army, symbolized by the body of the ‘leopard’.The Roman Empire represented by the beast Yochanan saw in Revelation 13, had absorbed and therefore included the three empires before it which were described in Daniel 7. Therefore this beast was seen with all six heads of the first three beasts (including the four heads of the third beast), plus its own. So this beast of Revelation 13 has seven heads. It was the fourth beast Daniel saw, which had ten horns, and the beast Yochanan described had ten horns. Therefore if we allow the Scriptures to interpret the Scriptures, we must conclude that the beast of Revelation 13 is the Roman Empire! Yochanan like Daniel, pictures this beast in the second part of Revelation 13: 4, not as a religious institution, but a powerful government having a tremendous army, as follows: ‘And they worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?”’ We see from verse 3 of Revelation 13, that the beast received a deadly wound and the head that was wounded died. However, we also see from verse 3, that the deadly wound healed.

The sprawling Roman Empire was divided for administrative reasons after 330 CE, when there were two legs to the Roman Empire, namely: the Western division with its capital at Rome and the Eastern division with its capital at Constantinople. The Roman Empire in the west ceased to exist in the fifth century as a result of Germanic invasions. But, Emperor Justinian from the east ‘revived’ the empire in 554 CE in what historians call the “Imperial Restoration.” From that time on, through successive revivals till the time of Napoleon, that empire continued to exist. We see from verse 2 of Revelation 13 that Satan was the motivating force which empowered this beast. The Roman Empire was one of the greatest of the political instruments through which the god of this world, Satan the devil (2nd Corinthians 4: 4), has worked in deceiving and dominating mankind. For that reason Satan himself was represented to Yochanan as having seven heads and ten horns (Revelation 12: 3). And in the near future Satan will once more guide a final revival of the same political system which had its beginnings in the ancient ‘Babylon’ of Nimrod. After the beast’s ‘deadly wound’ was healed, it was to continue for forty two months. Using the Scriptural day-for-a-year principle, we find that ’forty and two months’ equal 1260 days (42 times 30), or 1260 years – the length of time Elohim allowed the ‘healed’ beast to continue. Thus the beast continued in existence from its restoration in 554 CE to the fall of Napoleon in 1814. After Napoleon’s fall, the ‘Holy’ Roman Empire split up. Each Italian, German or Netherlands principality became independent. Italy was broken up into twelve separate smaller states. At that time eight of the original ten ‘horns’ of Revelation 13 – five of the seven ‘heads’ of Revelation 17 – had arisen and fallen. The beast then went temporarily into a non-existent condition symbolized as the ‘bottomless pit’.

The sixth head of the beast of Revelation 17, which is equivalent to the ninth horn of the beast in Revelation 13 pictured as existing in the end time, at which time this prophecy would be understood, was the head which began with Garibaldi in Italy and Bismarck in Germany and culminated in the Mussolini-Hitler dynasty (1870 – 1945 CE). In 1870 – 71, Garibaldi seized Rome and succeeded in uniting all the Italian states into the one nation of Italy. Italy then entered the race for colonies and acquired Libya, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland in Africa. In 1870, also Otto von Bismarck united all Germany and defeated the French in the Franco-Prussian War. At that time the German Empire was re-established. In 1929 Mussolini entered into a concordat or an agreement made by the Papal see with a secular power, offering the protection of the church to political rulers who promise in return to defend the church and to guarantee the authority of her teaching over the people, just as Napoleon did, thus defining the official relationship between Italy and the Vatican state. In 1935 Mussolini attacked and conquered Ethiopia, adding this to Italian Somaliland, Eritrea, Libya and later Albania. He proclaimed his empire a resurrection of the Roman Empire. The king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, assumed the title of Emperor, though Mussolini exercised real power. Mussolini then allied himself with Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. This was the insignificant, short lived ninth horn of the beast of Revelation 13 – the sixth head of the beast of Revelation 17 – the sixth resurrection of the empire since the ‘deadly wound’ was healed in 554 CE. It is described in verse 8 of Revelation 17 as ‘the beast that was, and is not, and yet is’. Italy was so unimportant internationally that as a mighty Roman Empire, it really ‘was not’ – and yet it was – at least in name. In World War II, this weak, almost insignificant ninth horn or sixth head was defeated and destroyed. The beast dropped for the second time into the ‘bottomless pit’. The church-dominated Roman Empire existed for 1260 years as Elohim had prophesied. It ceased to exist with the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814 and began to revive again in 1870, but was completely crushed a second time in 1945. But ‘there are seven kings’ says prophecy and one ‘is not yet come’ (Revelation 17: 10). So once more the religious-political system is to revive, arising out of the symbolic ‘bottomless pit’ to form the seventh head of Revelation 17 or the tenth and final ‘horn’ of Revelation 13: 1 & 2 and Daniel 7.

The ‘seven heads’ of the beast are called seven mountains in Revelation 17: 9. Oddly enough there are seven literal hills on which Rome is built, symbolic of the seven kingdoms or revivals of the Roman Empire over which the Roman church was to rule. It was on May 9, 1936, that Mussolini acclaimed the rebirth of the fated hills of Rome after fifteen centuries. But the ‘mind that had wisdom’ is to see beyond the symbol. A Scriptural symbol for a nation or kingdom is called a ‘mountain’. So the seven mountains in Revelation 17: 10 represent seven kings. The words ‘one is and the other is not yet come’ in Revelation 17: 10 tells us that these kingdoms are clearly successive revivals of the one empire. As prophesied, a great religious authority sat astride each of these revivals from Justinian to Mussolini. It is obvious therefore that the same religious power will dominate the seventh and last resurrection of the Roman Empire yet to come. In Revelation 17: 11 the church-dominated empire is actually called an ‘eighth’ beast, but yet it is one of the ‘seven’. The Chaldean Empire, Persia, the four divisions of Greece and the original Roman Empire add up to seven, as symbolized by the heads of the beast of Revelation 13. These seven heads were not dominated by religion. Pagan Rome was the seventh head and was wounded to death. Yet later Rome continued as a revived – ‘healed’ beast (described in Revelation 17). Its system is called the ‘eighth’ in Revelation 17: 11 because it is different from the previous seven – it is and has always been ridden by a fallen ‘woman’, the symbol for a great apostate church – representing a union of church and state; and yet it is part of the original seventh and therefore ‘of the seven.’The image interpreted by Daniel had feet and toes of iron mixed with clay. In Revelation 17 we see that the 10 toes correspond to the ten horns of the beast seen by Yochanan. We read from verses 12 – 14 of Revelation 17: “And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings, who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour. (13) These have one purpose and they give their power and authority to the beast. (14) These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Master of masters and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”Ten ‘kings’ will unite in a political, economic and military alliance, immediately prior to Messiah’s return. Because these kings will represent various cultures and nationalities, they will be divided in ways other than in their allegiance with the beast. The power and authority that come from their confederation will last only for a short period of time before they make the mistake of making war with Messiah at His return, at which time they will be destroyed.

We read about these final events and the seven last plagues from Revelation 16: 1, in this way: ‘And I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the seven angels,“Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of Elohim into the earth.”We see the results of the bowls that will be poured out from verses 2 – 12, as follows: ‘And the first angel went and poured out his bowl into the earth; and it became a loathsome and malignant sore upon men who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image. (3) And the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea died. (4) And the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters; and they became blood. (5) And I heard the angel of the waters saying, “Righteous art Thou, who art and who wast, O Holy One, because Thou didst judge these things; (6) for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink. They deserve it.” (7) And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, O Adonai Elohim, the Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judgements.” (8) And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun; and it was given to it to scorch men with fire. (9) And men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of Elohim who has the power over these plagues; and they did not repent, so as to give Him glory. (10) And the fifth angel poured out his bowl upon the throne of the beast; and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain, (11) and they blasphemed the Elohim of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds. (12) And the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings from the east.” As quoted before in Revelation 16: 13 – 16 Yahshua shows Rav Yochanan three unclean spirits like frogs or demons coming out of the mouth of the beast that will perform signs and go out to the kings of the world to gather them for the war of the great day of YHVH. He goes on to say that He is coming like a thief and knowing that His followers should remain vigilant and clothed by the Spirit through Torah until then. He also shows the name of the place (in Hebrew) where these nations will be gathered at Har-Magedon. Continuing in verses 17 – 21, we read about what happens when the seventh angel pours out his bowl, as follows: ‘And the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air; and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.” (18) And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was aearthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. (19) And the great city was split into three parts, and the cities of nations fell. And Babylon the great was remembered before Elohim, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath. (20) And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. (21)And huge hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men, and men blasphemed Elohim because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe.’ The tremendously powerful earthquake which will cause the destruction of many world cities could be the direct result of the nemesis of the sun (known as planet X) passing very close to our solar system. Some of the disasters described in Revelation has been and are busy happening at this very time. The Covit-19 virus and the trouble brewing in the USA and elsewhere at present are definitely the beginnings of the great tribulation.

Where does this leave us? With mankind possessing the capacity to destroy all life on earth; with Israel in control of Jerusalem; and the desire for some Israelis to restore the temple and sacrifices; and with the move afoot to continue to unify Europe, we need to heed the warnings of Scriptural prophecy and watch both ourselves in terms of Torah observance, but also prophecies and the news regarding these developments. We need to be very concerned, but should not stop our reliance on our heavenly Father to protect us at this time. It is time to repent and return to YHVH our Elohim fully. Only then will we be ready for Messiah’s imminent return! Think about it!

[1]Mark 13; 32 & 33, “But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. Take heed, keep on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time (Yom Teruah) is.”