Watching and Waiting for our Lord (Luke 21:34-36)
What is the importance of watching and waiting? The scripture above reveals it. Note, you do not have a valid response to anything if you do not search these scriptures, and allow Rauch Ha Kodesh (The Holy Spirit) to teach you so you may know the TRUTH for YOURSELF. It does not matter what your mother, grandfather, your pastor, some well renowned best-selling author or what I say, but what does the Holy Spirit say to you? You MUST study your bible and seek God through in the Holy Spirit. There is no other way. I will not harp on the prevalence of false doctrines, false teachings or spirit of error, but believers and followers of Christ need to be aware that these are wide spread in the end days. Furthermore, we must also identify with the fact that we are indeed at the end. I mean it is here! We are not decades and decades away. We are months and only a few years from the end of all things, then the Heaven and Earth will be made anew (Revelations 21). We must understand, before THE END, comes much calamity and chaos. Tribulation and Great Tribulation is upon us (Matthew 24). This is it! Because we are at the end, much, much closer than most may realize, we must pay very close attention to the end-time scriptures and bible prophesies. How else can the Holy Spirit reveal the secret things of God if we are not searching these scriptures and heeding the warnings our Lord has made available to us (1 Corinthians 2:8-16)? This is the watch. We can easily compare the scripture to what is going on all around us. It is safe to say now that those who ignore the signs will not be ready for what is to come. There are those that say, “Well I’ll just let Him come for me when He comes.” The nugget that they are missing is, if they are not watching and waiting, made ready (sanctified, constantly seeking, praying and pressing into the Lord) and aware, their hearts will fail with fear of those things that is to take place prior to His coming. It is not just going to be that simple. If they do not read it and the pastor do not say it, then how do they know what to expect? They will not! Jesus warns us continuously to:
"Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect Him. “
The Lord appointed His very own watchman in this season to warn, reproof, correct and rebuke so that many hearts can be in tune with end-time truths of the word of God regarding His return. Only the Lord can open your eyes but you must be willing to see. The watchman can only shake you to try and wake you that you may become alert, watchful and evermore vigilant. There are no re-dos. Once the door is closed, it is closed. What door? See Matthew 25:10. Yes, once Yeshua gathers His bride (the faithful and true), the only salvation is through the Great Tribulation period. This brings up another interesting, divisive and misunderstood idea of “THE RAPTURE.” There are many of the persuasion saying that the “rapture” is a false doctrine. Unfortunately, those who do not believe it will miss it. That is ok because there is still a chance of salvation. This truth only comes through revelation of certain bible scripture and teaching of the Holy Spirit, not theological wisdom only. It is important to note that “rapture” is not a biblical term. It is used to describe the “catching away”. It is also important to note that major biblical events always repeat themselves. Just a few examples of this are as follows: God’s birth of man through Adam and the re-birth of man through Jesus, The Temple of Jerusalem was already twice built, twice destroyed and will be rebuilt a final time as “The antichrist” takes his seat. I am not diminishing the fact that many “antichrists” has already come into the world. Speaking of antichrist, Nimrod was “The antichrist” of old and there comes another very soon. The world was destroyed with water in the days of old and God promised that the end of all things will come again with fire this time (2Peter 3). Likewise, because Enoch and Elijah were faithful and true to God, they were caught-up. Again, God’s faithful and true bride will be caught-up or “raptured” as Enoch and Elijah. As we can see, a “rapture” (catching away) has already happened before the second coming of our Lord; it will happen again.
How do we then distinguish between the events in scripture? Ok. It is become popular that “christians” are “preached” to instead of taught so much that many leave church assembly with a warm fuzzy feeling and still ignorant to the word of God and how to apply it in daily life. Even the opportunity to teach in bible study fails when pastors and teachers will not even touch revelations during this time. That book is given to us for a reason. We must also realize that the prophetic books such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, Amos, Haggai, Zechariah, Micah, etc. speak of the times we are in right now. In addition, the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, then Thessalonians, Peter, Jude, even Psalms and now that I think about it, the entire bible all help unlock the prophecies of end-time in the book of Revelations. However, if we are not delivering the message as the Holy Spirit intends during this season, we are going to miss the revelation to these prophesies. One reason within the scope of failed teaching that “christians” are unaware and therefore will be caught unaware at the major event “the rapture” of the bride is because many do not believe it, thus will not be watching and waiting and therefore not ready. This is because of the doctrines that say there will not be rapture before the Great Tribulations.
The "rapture" is not a secret event. Revelations 3:10 clearly says that the faithful will be kept from the trial that come on the earth. Then one may say, well that is speaking of protection, not a rapture. That is fair argument. However, this scripture does put an end to those who believes every believer must be beheaded for salvation during the great tribulation. There is great misinterpretation of the difference between the rapture and the second coming. These are indeed two separate events. At the rapture, Jesus will come in the sky, to the edge of the earth, while angels will gather His bride to meet Him in the sky. I will not attempt to teach you scripture in this post. I will only point you to the scriptures and pray that you will pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal through these scriptures that I give you. See Jude 14-15- (“Behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of His saints”) I will say that many new “christians” and many that have been “saved” for years are unknowledgeable or oblivious to the 1000 year reign of Christ in Revelations 20. It is important to note that when Jesus comes descends to earth; this is the second coming. Jesus will come WITH his saints, faithful ones that have already been removed. See Revelations 17:14. Note, Jesus does not come to earth during the rapture, but when He comes to earth at His second coming it is to defeat the powers of darkness and establish his kingdom on earth (Mt. Zion/ New Jerusalem) for the thousand year reign. Therefore is it important for us to search and receive revelations for the study of the new heaven and new earth as mentioned in Revelations 21. Many songs and scriptures refer to Zion and the New Jerusalem, but many “christians” do not even know about this kingdom, how it will begin, how we all will enter it and if we all will enter it or not. Is this not important? It is written.
This message is to make you aware that we must not just take our pastor’s or teacher’s or anyone’s absolute word for everything they say. We are still accountable for the things they do not say. They are mere men as we are. I am not saying do not listen, but you must read and know the scriptures for yourselves. You must be born-again with the Holy Spirit yourselves. You must have a relationship with the Lord yourselves. You must search and rightfully divide the word of truth yourselves. Every believer that wishes to enter into eternal life with the Lord must have a personal relationship with Yeshua (Jesus). We must study to show ourselves approved unto God. Our walk with the Lord only begins when we say “I do” to our bridegroom. Speaking of saying “I do” and taking our marriage vows established by the new covenant, we have a responsibility to love God with all our hearts, mind and soul then, to love our neighbors as we do ourselves. Now you see, this requires much more than lip service. As we are freely given grace through faith in Jesus Christ, our faith can only live with our actions as we repent, pick up our cross and follow Christ Jesus –Yeshua HaMashiach.
So at this point, hopefully we know who we are waiting for and why we are waiting. But, do we really know why we are watching and what we are watching for? Ok. Yes, we are watching for Jesus, but if we are not ready when He comes our watching will be in vain. There is more to watching than meets the eye. We are watching for all of the signs to occur that the Lord gave us all through Matthew 24, 25, Jude, Thessalonians 2, Revelations 6, 8, and 9 just to name a few.
The “rapture” or retrieval of the bride is synonymously revealed through the Jewish wedding.
(Taken from messianicfellowship.com- “Jewish Wedding Customs and The Bride of Messiah”) But what of His bride - what is she to be doing? During this one year period - the bride would consecrate herself - and prepare holy garments for the upcoming marriage. Paul puts this preparation in very clear terms - (Eph 5:25-27). The bridegroom is making preparations to return for His bride - we need to ask ourselves are we as His betrothed keeping our garments clean? Are we arrayed in our bridal attire, and keeping our ketubah hbtk - covenant promises and vows?
The Nissuin - Marriage Itself
The culminating step in the Process of the Jewish Wedding
The final step in the wedding proces is called - Nissuin - the word commons from the Hebrew verb - hsn ( nasa) - which means , "to carry." This is a graphic description - as the bride would be waiting for her groom to come - to carry her off to her new home. The period of the betrothal - was a time of great anticipation - as the bride waited for the arrival of her betrothed. One of the unique features of the Biblical Jewish wedding was the time of the groom's arrival - it was to be a surprise:
- The bride took the betrothal seriously - expecting the bridegroom at the end of the long period of the betrothal.
- SHE KNEW THE APPROXIMATE TIMING, BUT THE EXACT HOUR OR DAY WAS UNCERTAIN.
- It was the father of the groom who would give the final approval for the marriage to begin.
The coming of the Bridegroom and the Wedding Begins
Since the time of his arrival was a surprise - the bride and her bridal party were always to be ready - this is the background of Yeshua's parable (Mat. 25:1-13). It was customary for one of the grooms party to go ahead of the bridegroom, leading the way to the bride's house - and shout - "Behold, the bridegroom comes." This would be followed by the sounding of the shofar. At the sounding of the shofar the entire wedding processional would go through the streets of the city to the bride's house. The groomsmen would again set up the huppah:
Yeshua - told His disciples - that He did not know the day or hour of His return (Mat. 24:32-36) - this is not so much to say He does not have all knowledge - but as with any Jewish bridegroom - He must wait for His Father to give the word that the set time has come.
As we noted before - in a traditional Jewish wedding - one of the groom's men would go before the arrival of the groom and shout - Behold the groom comes - should we expect anything less with the coming of our heavenly bridegroom? But where do we see such an event? - if we look to ( I Thess 4:16-18) we see that just prior to our Lord's we return - there will indeed be a shout - from one of the ruling angels - what might this angel shout, could it be - "Behold the groom comes?"
We also saw that after this joyful proclamation of the groom's men there was in a traditional Jewish wedding the joyful sounding of the shofar. Will this happen when our Lord returns to receive His bride? If we continue reading the description of our Lord's future wedding in (I Thess 4:16-18) we see there also - the sounding of the shofar in annunciation of His return. (end of messianic article)…….
So, if you do not believe our Lord will rescue His bride before great tribulation, then that is what you believe-or do not believe. If you do not believe it, then that is even more reason for you to be preparing your hearts, mind and souls NOW for the worst devastation, destruction and suffering known to man. As a watchman of Yeshua HaMashiach, I tell you, there will be a “rapture” and whether you believe or not, Jesus is coming. SOON!! I promise, you don’t want to miss this. Will it be this year? Will it be next year? Hmm…?
Perhaps you should: “take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly- for it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of man.” (Luke 21:34-36)
