Will Jubilee Follow This Shemitah Cycle That Is Ending?

Summary: 2015-2016 is likely to have a huge event initiate a Bible prophecy that includes Christians. Failure to understand the wedding parables has left us “asleep with lights out” on this topic.

Jubilee in 2016 depends on how we define it. If we are thinking of what it represents, this coming year cannot be the real jubilee when the land returns to the original owner who is God. The 2^nd coming is probably seven years away, at the end of the next shemitah cycle.

Nevertheless, a real jubilee event foreshadowing the 2^nd coming could occur, based on this prophecy– ”Lo the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people, Israel and Judah, and cause them to return to the land of their fathers, and they shall possess it.” Jeremiah 30:3.

But why 2015-2016? God told Israel that if they walked contrary to Him, He would punish them seven times over. And if they continued to walk contrary, He would punish them seven times more, Leviticus 25. We know Israel’s history, but maybe we forget the specifics. The Assyrian Captivity began in 722 BC and God scattered Israel among the nations, but for how long?

Ezekiel was asked to lie on his side for 390 days, each day for a year of Israel’s iniquity, Ezek 4:5. The math is easy. Punishing them seven times over for 390 years means a captivity of 2730 years! It started in 722 BC, which means it would end in the shemitah of 2008, except there was no year “0,” the 2730 years ended in 2009. The jubilee which follows the shemitah year, could not begin in 2008 before the prophetic period ended. It must follow the shemitah that ends next month—September, 2015!

But that does not mean the jubilee events in October. For the coming year to be a jubilee, it will require more than we are seeing now. A Messianic Rabbi spoke of the two sticks (Israel and Judah) coming together in Ezekiel 37:16,17. He said God is going to clean both houses before He puts them together.

Zechariah wrote, “The day of the LORD comes…I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses rifled and the women ravished, and half of the city shall go forth into captivity…Then shall the LORD go forth to fight against those nations.” Zech 14:1-3.

This could happen, and may be a necessary “house-cleaning” before Israel and Judah return as in Jer 30:3 (top, 2^nd par.) The dry bones that come together got life, also represented by two sticks becoming one kingdom, Ezek 37:16,17,22, but the identity of Israel (Ephraim) and Judah, needs clarification.

Israel was the northern kingdom of 10 tribes that had a false focus of worship in Dan. God scattered them among the nations, many of them intermarried with Christians and fled the papal oppression to the New World. America is more Christian than Jewish, and it has a false center of worship on the day the papacy authored, but God winks at our ignorance until the time for judgment, Acts 17:30,31.

The Jews (Judah) also have problems. They failed to count the 69 weeks [of years] from Artaxerxes’ decree in 457 BC pointing to their Messiah, a word meaning anointed. Christ was anointed of the Holy Spirit at his baptism when foretold, John 1:29-33. He proclaimed the jubilee as the “acceptable year,” Luke 4:19; Isa 61:2, seven years later. It didn’t happen because they rejected and crucified Him, as the prophets foretold, Isaiah 53:3-7; Psalm 22:1-18.

In the end-times, God is going to clean both houses and put Christians who accept the laws of the Bible (including the Sabbath of the 4^th Commandment) together with Jews who accept their rejected Messiah.

His Hebrew name was Yeshua, a word that means health and salvation. Jews might reasonably reject “Jesus” because there is no “J” letter or sound in Hebrew nor Greek. Names should be transliterated to give the same sound, not translated. China doesn’t call Pres. Bush a Chinese name meaning little shrub.

Both Christians and Jews* call Abraham their father and will be fully compatible under the terms of a new covenant that includes the statutes, judgments and sabbaths. They have a 7-fold emphasis in Ezek 20:11-24 as a mark of end-time truth, much like Revelation has 7 churches, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, etc.

The covenant we make must also include God’s name and “His Son’s name,” Prov 30:4. Both groups* become one kingdom, Ezek 37:22 in the land God gave Abraham for his seed. The Bible says, “If you are Christ’s, you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise [of land],” Galatians 3:29.

Any previous aliyah (returning) was not the real deal, but a foreshadowing of what must be when New World Order is impending and all will be compelled to worship falsely, (Rev 13:14-17) or, if you are sabbatarian, you must go to the only place provided in NWO for sabbatarians—the land of Israel. That will be God’s doing; He promises to gather us as part of the New Covenant Promise, Jer 31:8,16,17,31.

The pope’s Laudato Si’ appeals to mankind to save earth as God’s “creation,” a word used 66 times in his letter, but he ignores the Sabbath as the biblical memorial to creation (4^th Commandment) as he puffs up Sunday that has pagan sun worship as its basis, and he claims Sunday as a memorial to Christ’s resurrection, but the Bible gives baptism as the memorial to his death, burial and resurrection, Rom 6:4.

The Vatican (a word that means “divining serpent” in Latin) is using Protestant leaders in apostasy to promote unity with Rome. Note this quote from its press release–“Protestants, as a people, have a long history of heresy. The time for reconciliation is now in order to ensure a full and dogmatic transition into the folds of the Church,” said Rick Warren in Rome, Pastor of Saddleback Church in California.

When New World Order is proclaimed by the United Nations, it will be the image of the previous Old World Order (papacy) seen by a careful reading of Revelation 13:14-17. In that context, the most solemn warning in all the Bible will given–”If any man worship the beast [papacy] or its image [New World Order headed by the pope] and receive his mark [of compliance shown in the previous text] the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God,” [plagues] Rev 14:9,10.

But in the face of the Bible’s most solemn warning, God offers the greatest news. Five verses earlier, there will be 144,000 “virgins” who get to follow Christ wherever He goes in eternity. If we love Christ (and He is wonderful beyond imagination, 1Cor 2:9) we will do everything possible to be included in that group, but who are they and how can we be part of them?

The Bible is it’s own expositor—it explains itself, which, by the way, should challenge the Jews to see that the two olive trees in Zechariah represent the Old and the New Testaments. The only passage that explains who the virgins are who get to follow Christ wherever He goes, is Matthew 25—they are the wise virgins that go promptly to the wedding that the Old Testament shows is a covenant relationship.

When Israel made a covenant with God, He said, “I am married to you.” Jer 3:14. The covenant involves knowing who He is. His laws are the basis of His kingdom—dominion of a King, and the land that He provided for us, even as wise parents give good gifts to their children, but this will require faith.

Marriage to Christ brings the highest destiny (Luke 12:36,44) even though it may not mean a sudden rapture to heaven before the tribulation begins. “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom,” Acts 14:22. “Kingdom” is also what happens when we covenant with Him, Exod 19:5,6. God “declares the end from the beginning” (Isa 46:10) as the history of the Exodus will repeat, 1Cor 10:1,11; Isa 11:11. May God help us to understand and be ready for jubilee events in the coming year.

Dr. Richard Ruhling is author of The Alpha & Omega Bible Code, an eBook that’s had mostly five-star reviews on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010CFNMCU, but readers can get a pdf with a bonus for visiting his website at http://TheBridegroomComes.com