WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
Scripture:
Ø
Matthew 12:39;
“But he answered and
said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh
after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign
of the prophet Jonah:”
Ø
Matthew 16:4;
“A
wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no
sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah. And he left
them, and departed.”
Ø
Luke 11:29;
“And
when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an
evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given
it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet.”
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Luke 11:30;
“For
as Jonah was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son
of man be to this generation.”
So let’s start with
the words of JESUS. In Matthew 12:38, it is written that some of “the scribes
and of the Pharisees answered, saying,
Master, we would see a sign from thee.”
In those days people wanted proof and I don’t see it any
different today. When JESUS touches you miraculously, the world wants ‘proof’.
The world then and still today say first see and then believe;
The Bible teaches, first believe and then see.
So, what did JESUS say to them?
JESUS said that there shall no
sign be given, but the sign of the prophet Jonah.
So now is the question; what was the
sign of Jonah? And that you will find in Matthew 12:40 and I quote; “For
as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly;
so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in
the heart of the earth.”
Stunning Scripture this! Here you
see that JESUS says that just as Jonah was three days (3) and three night’s
(3) in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days (3) and
three night’s (3) in the heart of the earth!
Now this is what the infallible Word
of God says and this is what I believe. So why does the church celebrate
the crucifixion on ‘Good Friday’ and rise Him up on Sunday morning. I didn’t
get my 3 days and 3 night’s, or either the church is wrong
or the Word is wrong.
I leave this one up to the reader
to ponder on.
Now we have the sign of Jonah and
I think we must now go to the Book of Jonah to see what has transpired.
In Jonah 1:17 we see that the LORD has prepared
a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and he was in the belly of the fish three
(3) days and three (3) night’s.
Look at this; in Jonah 2:2, and I
quote “And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and
he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and
thou heardest my voice.”
I want to draw your attention to this
Scripture, and specifically the part “out of the belly of hell”.
According to the “Strong’s Hebrew
and Greek Dictionary” # Strong 7585 the following is revealed;
H7585
ùׁàì
ùׁàåì
she'o^l she'o^l
sheh-ole', sheh-ole'
From H7592; hades or the world of the dead (as if a
subterranian retreat), including its accessories and inmates: - grave,
hell, pit.
Here you will see that when the whale / great fish swallowed Jonah, he died,
seeing that ‘hell’ in Hebrew means “the world of the dead”.
Jesus’ body was in the grave for three days (3) and three night’s (3), and
everybody is in agreement that He was dead, which confirms Scripture.
Look at this Scripture, and you will see that we must take the whole adventure
of Jonah as part of the sign;
Luke 11:30;
“For as Jonah
was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man
be to this generation.”
So now we have to go
and see what else has transpired in the days of Jonah.
In Jonah 3:4 the following is written; “And Jonah began
to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet
forty days, and Nineveh shall be
overthrown.”
What was Jonah doing? He was warning Nineveh for forty
days (40) before the destruction of the city, as instructed by God.
We all know the rest of the story that the King has given
order that everybody must put on sackcloth and repent of their evil ways,
and the city was saved.
The key here is forty days (40) and now the question
is how this fit into the picture of the “end times” does
The following teaching is from Eschatologist and International
teacher, Salvatore Smario on the Feasts of the LORD.
The
Feasts of the LORD become the
Promises of God to the Church
You know, one only needs a basic
understanding of how God uses the principle of Substance and
Shadow, to see how He reveals to us, that the Feasts of the LORD,
fulfilled in Christ, become the Promises He makes to the Church. (Colossians
2:16-17)
This is not going to
be an in depth study of the Feasts, but rather an explanation as to how
the basic meaning of the fulfilled Feasts relate to the promises of God
to the Church.
The Jews kept holy,
the weekly Sabbath, which was the last day of each week, Saturday, and seven
other Feasts, during their calendar year. The word Feast means "Set
Time".
The Feasts were the
time that God set, on their calendar, for them to interact with Him, and
He with them. Their Feasts, or set times began in the Spring and finished
in the fall.
Their first & most
important Feast, held in the first month of their spiritual year was:
The Passover - to be celebrated forever, in
remembrance of their deliverance out of Egypt. Next:
Unleavened Bread - To remember their affliction
under bondage in Egypt. Then:
First fruits - A Feast of Promise. Next:
Pentecost - 50 days after First fruits -
A time for new offerings & a time of completion.
Then the fall Feasts:
Trumpets - The Harvest Time/New beginning
Atonement - The Affliction of their souls,
and finally,
Tabernacles - A time of thankfulness, gladness
and expectancy.
These are the feasts
of the Jews, of which only the first four were fulfilled for the Jews by
the coming of Christ, and are the ones that become the promises that God
makes to the Church.
Remember, Paul preached
to the Colossians that the Feasts of the LORD were . . ."shadows of
things to come . . . but the substance was of Christ"
(Colossians 2:17 NKJV)
So, let's journey through
each one individually to get an understanding of how their basic meaning
relates them as God's promises to the Church.
THE WEEKLY SABBATH
To the Jews, the Sabbath
meant rest. The law required that no servile work be done on that
day. It was celebrated to represent a number of rests. Gods rest of Genesis
2:3, the rest of redemption, and the deliverance of Israel from Egypt from
Deut.5:15, and also pointing forward to the "better rest" of Hebrews
4:9, and ultimately to the eternal Sabbath of completed work, of completed
redemption, and completed ‘hallowing' of Rev. 11.
This was the meaning,
to the Jews, of the weekly Sabbath.
Ø
The shadow
cast was Rest!
As a promise of God
to the Church, Fulfilled in Christ, the word Sabbath becomes a verb - Sabbath-
ing - because Christians REST in the work of Christ. Christians keep
holy the Sabbath by resting in the sure and certain knowledge that Christ
died so that we might be free. We accept His salvation through unmerited
favor, and we know that we are saved by
Faith through His grace!
And, we as Christians believe Paul's teaching that: "tho I am yet a
sinner, He died for me".
That's the rest of
the Sabbath for a Christian.
The Feasts begin with:
THE PASSOVER
Now to the Jews, the
Passover represented their salvation from bondage through the blood of the
Lamb for their obedience.
Ø
The shadow
cast was salvation by blood for obedience, work.
As a promise to the
Church, Passover is fulfilled in Christ. He was the Lamb of God as His blood
shed at his crucifixion provides salvation to the Church, by Faith through
the Grace of God. That represents a totally different covenant!
UNLEAVENED BREAD
To the Jews, leaven
represented corruption and evil. This comes from their remembrance of their
affliction in Egypt and yet is celebrated with joy,
as Israel is always to remember their bondage
in connection with their deliverance. For it had been their ‘affliction',
and a mark of their subjection to the Egyptians, to be driven forth in such
haste, as not to even have time for leavening their bread.
As part of the celebration
of the feast, the bread is hidden for 3 days, and is brought fourth
on First fruits.
Ø
The shadow
cast overcoming corruption & evil.
As a promise of God
to the Church, Unleavened bread is fulfilled in Christ. Promising us that
He overcame corruption and evil, but not for himself, and was the deliverer
God sent. And He lays hidden in the tomb for 3 days to appear again
on First fruits.
FIRST FRUITS
To the Jews, First
fruits represented a promise of the full harvest yet to come. They took
the first sheaf's of barley (Month of Abib) and ground them into
a flour and offered it to God in the temple, symbolic of the full harvest
yet to come.
Ø
Shadow
cast is the promise of the full harvest yet to come.
As a promise of God
to the Church, First fruits is fulfilled in Christ, as His resurrection
on First fruits promises us the full harvest, or Rapture of
the Church, yet to come.
PENTECOST - The Pivotal Feast
To the Jews, this was
a time of completion and new offering made 50 days after First fruits. The
offering made on Pentecost was not merely barley flour, but the completed
product, a loaf of bread.
Ø
The shadow
cast was a new offering of completion made 50 days after First fruits.
As a promise of God
to the Church, Pentecost is fulfilled in Christ, as HE was the new offering,
having been completed through His death on the cross, His resurrection as
promised and His ascension back to His divinity, just ten days earlier.
The True Messiah!
These first four Feasts
of the LORD, are the set times, that have been fulfilled by Jesus at His
first coming that also fulfill the promises they become to the Church.
The remaining set times,
Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles, not yet fulfilled, and has nothing
to do with the church.
They'll be fulfilled
during the Great Tribulation and after Christ's Second Coming.
The three unfulfilled
feasts of Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles, are yet unfulfilled because
of the parenthesis. During the time of the Gentiles, these feasts, which
don't apply to the Church, have been set aside waiting for their time, which
comes after the rapture, during the Great Tribulation and beyond into the
millennium.
That's what Paul meant
when he said to the Colossians: . . . The feasts of the LORD are but
shadows of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
So now the question,
why this crush cause on the Feasts of the LORD?
Point number one is
to show you that our LORD Jesus has fulfilled the first four feasts exactly
as the Jews has rehearsed it for hundreds of years.
There is an in-depth study on Jesus fulfilling the first
four feasts on request, but the object of this study is something else that
also happened between the Feast of First Fruits and Pentecost!
So what did happen between those two feasts?
The fact of the matter is that Jesus rose on the Feast
of First Fruits, which is confirmed by 1 Corinthians 15:23, and I quote;
“But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits;
afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.”
1 Corinthians 15:20;
“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them
that slept.”
Now see the Scripture in Matthew 27:51-53, and I
quote; “51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from
the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
52 And the graves were
opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53 And came out of the graves
after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared
unto many.
From this Scripture you will see that there are an order
of events that has to take place before the Coming of Christ, which has
already started when HE rose.
In this Scripture you will see that the other saints also
rose on the Feast of First Fruits, just as Jesus did, hence the “Window
of opportunity” on First Fruits!
Now there was an event that took place that was not part
of the “Feasts of the LORD” and that was HIS ascension!
Interesting to note is that from the day of resurrection
to His ascension, was exactly forty days (40). Does that ring a bell?
Jesus ascended ten days (10) before the Feast of Pentecost,
and that means that was a “shadow of tings to come, but the substance
is of Christ”.
Remember the sign of Jonah, he died, and was in
the belly of the great fish, three days and three nights, and he warned
for forty days (40)?
Now this is the key;
1.
There is going
to be another First fruit resurrection.
(1 Thessalonians 4:16)
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,
with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead
in Christ shall rise first”
2.
And there
is going to be another ascension (Harpazo = Greek)
(1 Thessalonians 4:17)
“Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be
with the Lord.”
So now we have established that yes, there will
be another resurrection and yes, there will be ascension,
according to the infallible Word of God!
Let’s see where it fits into timeline of today.
Currently, today we
operate on the Gregorian calendar, which was instituted by the
actions of Pope Gregory XIII, who reformed the Roman calendar in
the year 1582.
And before that time the civil calendar was called the
Julian calendar, after the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, who
also made alterations to the calendar in the year 46 BC.
So in order to get
to the correct calendar, one has to go back to the Bible, and the best place
to start is the time the Hebrews left Egypt.
In Exodus 12:2, the
LORD said to Moses that “This month shall be unto you the beginning
of months: it shall be the
first month of the year to you.”
Here you see that the LORD instructed Moses that “this
month” should be the beginning of the year to them. The question now
is when was “this month”?
And the month is determined by the following Scripture;
Exodus 12:3 where every man of the household must take a lamb which is without
blemish, and where they have put the blood on the doorposts. Because the
reason you will find in Exodus 12:12, and Exodus 13:4 where
it is written; “This day came ye out in the month of Abib.”
Read also Deuteronomy 16:1 and I quote; “Observe
the month of Abib, and keep the Passover unto the LORD thy God:
for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth
out of Egypt by night.”
Now to determine what does “Abib” means, and the
following was taken from the “Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionary.”
H24
àáéá
'a^bi^yb
aw-beeb'
From an unused root (meaning to be tender); green,
that is a young ear of grain; hence the name of the
month Abib or Nisan: - Abib, ear, green ears of corn.
The “Webster’s 1828 Dictionary” described it as follows;
Abib
A'BIB, n. [Heb.
swelling, protuberant. To produce the first or early fruit; a full grown
ear of corn.]
The first month of the Jewish ecclesiastical year called
also Nissan. It begins at the spring equinox, and answers to the latter
part of March and beginning of April. Its name is derived from the full
growth of wheat in Egypt, which took place anciently, as it does now, at
that season.
Now
you will see that the Hebrews could not have left Egypt on just any day.
God has timed it so that the Barley harvest was ripe so that they could
bake the “Unleavened Bread” for the “Passover”.
So now, we’ve seen that according to the Biblical Calendar,
instituted by God Himself at the time of the Exodus, that this would be
the only calendar that would be Biblical correct, to determine that Passover,
(14th day of Abib)
Now this year the Barley was Abib (ripened) on the 20th
of March 2007, meaning that that day, sundown started the first day of the
first month of the Biblical New Year, according to God’s calendar.
Meaning, the
14th Abib (Passover) commences on the 4th of April
2007 and then the Feast of Unleavened Bread commences on the 5th
of April 2007.
Now Brother Smario believe that the “window of opportunity”
starts at the beginning of Spring, Jerusalem time, and end at the end of
Spring, the 20th of June, Jerusalem time.
Jesus ascended after 40 days and the 40th day
after the resurrection fall this year on the 17th of May 2007
which means that there might be a possible ‘window of opportunity’ opening
up for the ‘order’ hat has been set in motion about 2000 years ago.
Dear friends, I’m not setting dates but I do cling to the
Scripture that gives a command which I feel that the Body of Christ has
also neglect in these times that we are living in.
Proverbs 25:2
“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing:
but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.”
Revelation
3:3
“Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent.
If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee
as a thief, and thou shalt not know what
hour I will come upon thee.”
Very clear instruction, and therefore I will be watching and found doing so
at His coming and my friends the hour is upon us and lets all have an expectancy
and be ready to meet the KING in the air, just as we can cling to the promise
laid out in 1 Thessalonians 4:18.
“Wherefore comfort one another
with these words.”
Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in
peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you. The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit,
be with you.
Be
blessed my dear friends, which labour with me in Christ.
You’re Brother in Christ
Steven Braun
Pretoria
South Africa