When will the Day of the Lord come?

Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.

-Matthew 24:32-33 (NIV)

The Year of Jubilee:

Like the Second Coming of Jesus—the trumpet blows as the year of Jubilee begins.

This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them, and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

-Ezekiel 37:21-23 (NIV)

I will bring my people Israel back from exile. They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them, says the Lord your God.

-Amos 9:14-15 (NIV)

2000 years ago:

Titus (Roman general) went into the holy of holies, desecrating the Temple.

God’s people lost their land - their Holy City.

God always promises to bring God's people back to the land He gave them!

He demonstrated this by establishing the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25

Ancient prophecies: the ultimate Jubilee for Israel would come.

In 1917: WWI: the British Empire is drawn into the conflict, along with the Ottoman Empire that possessed this tiny strip of land in the Middle East.

In the midst of this war, there was a revival taking place throughout Great Britain that began in 1904 and as a result, they began seeing the Jews as the people of God, chosen by God for God and His purposes.

The British Empire under General Edmund Allenby begins marching to the Promised Land. The Ottomans (the Muslims) who occupied the city fled.

Allenby gets to the Holy City and declares that the land is going back to the Jewish people to be their homeland.

This is 1917 the first Jubilee of restoration in many years!

Many who study the Scriptures believe that 1917 was the Jubilee that started a chain of events leading to the Second Coming of Jesus and the Ultimate Jubilee.

1917: Israel begins a return to the land.

1948: Israel became a nation, but the city of Jerusalem was not in their hands.

1967: (50 years later) the Year of Jubilee

1967: The Six Day War. Israel gained back the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank including Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

-Joshua 1:4 (NIV) 

June 7, 1967: Israeli soldiers enter the gates of Jerusalem for the first time in 2000 years.

1967: Year of Jubilee, 50 years after the Balfour Declaration (1917) when the British government stated it viewed “with favor the establishment of a national home for Israel in the land.”

What was the sign of Jubilee? You blow the shofar—the trumpet.

The man who sounded the shofar when the soldiers arrived in Jerusalem was a Rabbi born in 1917 (50 years earlier—in the first Jubilee).

Is another Jubilee coming?

1917: Official proclamation that the land shall be the Home of the Jews (Israel).

1967: Israel marches in and takes Jerusalem.

1967 + 50 = 2017

What happened in 2017?

On the day of the presidential inauguration The United Nations had just passed a law that said Israel had no right to Jerusalem.

But who has the sovereign right over Jerusalem? The Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yahweh.

December 6, 2017: President Trump issues a declaration that America will now recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the nation of Israel. The legal authority is given back to Israel for the first time since ancient times.

1867 (50 years before 1917): a Stranger comes to the Land

Moses gives a prophecy before he dies:

Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it. The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger. All the nations will ask: “Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?” And the answer will be: “It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt.”

-Deuteronomy 29:22-25 (NIV)

In the 19th century Mark Twain came to the land of Israel and the words he uses are the same words Moses said he would say, almost word for word.

The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it…

-Deuteronomy 29:23A (NIV)

In 1867 he wrote about all of this in The Innocents Abroad—and described the area of the Promised Land as largely barren, desolate, and sparsely populated.

1867 begins the first Jubilee Year of Restoration.

On Mark Twain’s last full day in Jerusalem, the reading in the Torah was: “a stranger shall come to Israel and bear witness.”

The Jubilee prayer of Israel:

Hear our prayer and be merciful. Bring us back to the land. Restore us. Hear our prayer and be merciful.

Mark Twain’s real name: Samuel Clemens:

Samuel means: The Lord has heard.

Clemens means: Has been merciful.

1897: Theodore Herzl declared that the world would recognize Israel’s rebirth, exactly 50 years to the day before Israel’s founding documents were published.

Israel is God’s timepiece for Jesus’ return!

In that day I will restore David’s fallen shelter— I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins— and will rebuild it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the Lord, who will do these things. “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills, and I will bring my people Israel back from exile. They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

-Amos 9:11-15 (NIV)

1948: Israel comes back into the land on May 14th and Ben Gurion the Prime Minister declares it.

May 15th is Saturday (Sabbath): the Parasha is Amos 9:11-15.

Is there a return to God by Israel? 180,300 Christians in Israel—and growing. There are more Arab Christians living in Israel than Jewish Christians.

It appears that we are in the third consecutive Jubilee. 1867 kickstarted it, but the trumpet did not blow until—1917—1967—2017.

Did 2017 launch the third and final Jubilee?

What is the Ultimate Jubilee?

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

-Revelation 21:1-4 (NIV)

What could we expect to see in the Ultimate Jubilee?

A major turning away from God is many places.

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

-1 Timothy 4:1 (NIV)

A major turning to God in Israel.

A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code…

-Romans 2:28-29A (NIV)

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 (NIV)

Many fall away and there is a great revival and return to God. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.

-Acts 3:19-21 (NIV)

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.”

-Romans 11:25-26 (NIV)

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.

-Revelation 7:9-10 (NIV)

• Are Jews returning to God through Yeshua? Yes.

• Are people in the West returning to God? Yes.

• Are many turning away from God? Yes.

The devil will do everything he can to prevent the people of God from returning to the land and returning to God. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

-Revelation 20:10 (NIV)

A Challenge to You:

1. Speak the good news of the Gospel as often as you can, as passionately as you can, and as gently as you can.

2. Live every day as if the Ultimate Jubilee begins tomorrow.

Devote yourself to prayer, the reading of the word, and to the community of believers.

3. Watch your back!

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

-Ephesians 6:12 (NIV)

Stop chasing the foreign gods.

4. Come home! Return to the land.

Your inheritance is found in Christ and Christ alone.

Make a Decision