Tying a bow on Human History

By Daniel J. Arnold

Bethel - The House of God

During the second week of April, four buddies and I went to Israel with our Bibles and an Israeli tour guide/driver. Unlike the usual tours, we made our own plans and went to the sites of our choice during our trip.

There were two sites I had not been able to get to on my previous six trips to Israel and they were heavy on my heart to visit — Shiloh and Bethel. I spent four weeks convincing our guide we must visit both sites on this trip. His hesitation was due to the fact both sites are located in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank.

Bethel is an indescribably beautiful place that emits an overwhelming sense of importance.

This is where Abraham meet with God twice, it was the land “He would show him” and where God spoke to Him the promise:

“Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:5-6) He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” (Genesis 15:7) Here God made a covenant with Abraham.

It was at Bethel that Jacob had his dream of a ladder or stairway to heaven and later returned to build an altar (Genesis 35:9-15). It was here that he was given the new name of Israel. The Ark of the Covenant was kept under the care of the grandson of Aaron at Bethel. Samuel held a court of justice here. It was here that Joshua led the Jews in the second battle coming into the promise land. This was and is an important place.

From its hilltop location one can see The Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem, the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. We were in awe.  Coming together,  I recounted to the group how Jesus spoke of himself being the stairway between heaven and earth in John 1:15, ”I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.” (NLT)

I went on to share one of Tim Keller’s teachings in which he remarked that in Matthew 13:31-32 the mustard seed that becomes the largest of all trees is a reference to what is called axis mundi.

Here is another illustration Jesus used: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field (the Axis mundi). It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.”  Bethel is where Jacob saw the axis mundi, the "Navel of the world.”¹

From Wikipedia:

The axis mundi (also cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, columna cerului, center of the world, world tree), in religion or mythology, is the world center or the connection between Heaven and Earth. As the celestial pole and geographic pole, it expresses a point of connection between sky and earth where the four compass directions meet.^{[citation needed]} At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms.^[1] Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all.^[2] The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning.^[3][4]

The image is mostly viewed as feminine, as it relates to center of the earth (perhaps like an umbilical providing nourishment). It may have the form of a natural object (a mountain, a tree, a vine, a stalk, a column of smoke or fire) or a product of human manufacture (a staff, a tower, a ladder, a staircase, a maypole, a cross, a steeple, a rope, a totem pole, a pillar, a spire). Its proximity to heaven may carry implications that are chiefly religious.

Reflecting on the implications of Jesus’ words and Jacob’s dream while we were gazing out on the same vista as Abraham had when the promise was given, it occurred to me that we are the believers and inheritors of the promise given to Abraham and his sons and followers of Jesus, the true ladder to heaven. We were also some of a very few in human history who could testify that the Kingdom, the mustard seed, has grown to the very heights of heaven. The Heights of heaven, the end of time, the end of history, when the tree has fully come fully grown and mature touching the heavens were the prophecy and pouring out of God’s spirit spoken of by the Prophet Joel was obtained. It had come to pass on us in this generation.

With all this rushing through my mind, I felt the strong need to pray - recognizing and testifying to Heaven that God has done it! From promises spoken to Abraham to the prophetic dream of Jacob seeing the coming of Jesus, to the Jewish people being gathered from the ends of the earth to form a Nation now called Israel with its capital Jerusalem (the city of David and location of the Temple), all has come to pass.

I prayed, thanking God for each of these things. I realized that we alone, in this generation and on this date, knew it had come to pass. All others only believed God that He would do it. I was struck with the thought that, as believers in Jesus, we were some of His heirs, we were some of the stars promised that night to Abraham. We all felt that we were very blessed to be able to come to Bethel and acknowledge, on record of prayer, God’s faithfulness and completion of these promises and prophecies.

As we walked back to our van we saw a Dutch tour group leader speaking to his group. After greeting them,  the leader asked us why were had come to Bethel. He was very surprised when I told him I felt the Spirit of God calling me here for the last few years. He then looked over to his group and said “I have lived in Israel for 26 years and only two years ago I found this place Bethel and understood it’s supreme importance  to God’s latter days prophetic fulfillment. I have since come here every week.”

He then showed us a Google image of the area we were standing on. He said, “If you turn it from north facing to east, look what is written into the hills.” Our Israeli tour guide, who reads Hebrew, leaned over to see what was on the paper and then exclaimed ‘God’s Name!’  God had written His name on the place we were standing.

Our new friend then said, “I knew in my spirit God would begin to call others here also to, like me, give witness to His fulfillment of all He promised here to his servants.”

From here we went to Shiloh and stood over the place where the ark sat and the Glory rested for hundreds of years. We could look up to the city Judas was from and know God had won - the glory of His presence was now in us as He had intended.

When I was I child I used to watch my mother sew. When her sewing was done she would tie a knot at the end of the thread. I felt God, having finished his sewing that He began here with Abraham, was tying a knot with our visit and prayer. I HAVE DONE IT, AS I SAID I WOULD. How many more He would call to same this place to give that witness I could not know. But it was enough to know he had begun.

Passover and the Blood Moons

April 14, during our visit to Israel, Passover began and not just any Passover in Israel but this one was under a blood moon. Why is this important? The Bible clearly states there will be an increase of signs in the heavens and nations in the last days. Yes, but what fascinates me is that the signs are falling on the key Jewish days of Passover and Tabernacles four times with a full solar eclipse on Moesds (New Year’s Dates).

Blood Moons

• ·         April 15, 2014 Passover & October 8, 2014 Tabernacles
• ·         April 4, 2015 Passover & September 28, 2015 Tabernacles
• ·         Solar Eclipse on Moeds in 2015
• ·         March 20, 2015 & September 13, 2015

The last time that happened, a tetrad of four blood moons, something really big happened in Jewish history.

•      1492 The Alhambra Decree expelling 200,000 Jews from Spain and Christopher Columbus finding the new world.
• ·         1948 Founding of the State of Israel
• ·         1967 The Six-day war

The Bible includes three mentions of blood moons:

I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. (Joel 2:30-31, NIV)

The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. (Acts 2:20, NIV)

I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, (Revelation 6:12, NIV)

These signs may have escaped the attention of some but I can tell you the Jewish Rabbis are all a buzz about them.

We also need to watch the signs in the nations. Ezekiel 38-39 warns of an alliance between Russia and Iran. Turmoil in Egypt has my attention because I believe they have a promise in Isaiah 19:25, “Blessed be Egypt, my people”. And our ‘fig tree’ Israel (see Matt 24:3-33) because it now seems like the time of 1 Thessalonians 5:3 “For when they shall say, peace and safety; then shall sudden destruction upon them.”

It is good to reread Zechariah 12:1-3 to remind us what was prophesied concerning Israel before anyone believed it could ever become a nation again.

A prophecy: The word of the Lord concerning Israel. The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person, declares: ² “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. ³ On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.

The heavens are God’s billboards. We are in a period where God is clearly speaking to planet earth and the Jewish people. Rabbi’s say a blood moon is a foreboding warning to Israel; the full solar eclipse is a warning to the world. The New York Times Bestseller list has a book on it by John Hagee, an important voice in the prophetic church, called Four Blood Moons. Something is About to Change.

Tying a knot on Human History

I am not one to be an alarmist but I do respect statistics that show those who are most aware and react quickly are most likely to survive a plane crash or a burning theater.  Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14).  However, it is sobering each time I have heard reports of dreams and near death encounters in which Jesus is said to instruct earnestly to tell and warn the church “I am returning VERY soon.”

It is also worth noting that last fall the message given throughout the prophetic church was “GLORY”.

One was very clear. Billye Brim said the Lord had given her this word, “In 2014 the church must don GLORY.” This would be the clearest sign to me that the Lord was tying a knot on the sewing of human history as He will be returning for a Glorious church and bride. Ephesians 5:25-27 “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault”.

When will be THE SECOD COMING OF JESUS? It’s when there is a Glorious Church.

If judgment is to begin, it will begin with righting the church. Be expecting the Glory of the Lord to show up this year. Do a study on the word ‘glory’ and print it out reading it over and over during your devotion time. I now hear daily of incredible results God’s servants are achieving that were unthinkable a few years ago –is this not glorious? 

The bottom line of this blog is that my visit to Israel and other items mentioned, causes me to reconsider everything and acknowledge that we may not know the hour of Jesus return but we are to be watching the signs. The signs are everywhere and I simply want to warn myself and you HIS RETURN COULD BE VERY SOON; much sooner than any of us have been thinking. “Your Savior standing ready, right at the door.”

We may be witnessing the tying up of loose strings and the tying of a bow on human history.  As the song goes ‘’He steps back into time and Earth and says gentlemen, that is quite enough’’.