Year of the Shemitah Warns Economic Collapse? - By Pastor Mike Taylor -
http://www.churchofgod-usa.org/1/post/2015/01/year-of-the-shemitah-extols-economic-collapse.html
Isaiah 1:18 " Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
1:20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."
I have been reading a very interesting, although controversial book by Rabbi Jonathan Cahn by the title "Mysteries of the Shemitah". It is an expansion on his first book that I also read, the "Harbinger". In the first book of the "Harbinger" Jonathan Cahn analyzes the parallels of what happened to Israel and the "harbingers" of impending national collapse and what is happening right now in America. The parallels are uncanny and can only be said beyond coincidence. Oh, there are many critics of the first book, as there are critics of this book I've been reading, but let us explore what Rabbi Cahn is trying to convey to all who will listen with the spiritual mind, instead of just dismissing without discernment.
So what is this "Mystery of the Shemitah" and what does it mean? For the Israelite, it was given by God to use the land for 6 years, but each 7th year, the land was to lay fallow, or resting and anything that grew of it's own was for whomever wish to gather it. That included the poor, the widow, or the average man on the street. The products were for everyone. We know by reading our Bibles, that Israel was sent into exile for not following God's command and disobeyed the law of God for 70 consecutive Sabbath years, or for a total of 490 years and were warned by Jeremiah and other prophets that judgment was coming. But Israel rebuffed their words that came from God and persecuted and even killed the prophets for their warning, until God sent them into exile for 70 years. Now the critics emphasize that this covenant was for the nation of Israel and not for anyone else. So they scoff at the idea that God could use the same test for any other nation. But are they right? Let me state a few obvious things here:
1. Is our God the same yesterday, today and forever? Of course, He is.
2. Does God use the Old and the New Testament as learning tools for us today on how he deals with individuals and even nations who obey Him and those who disobey? Yes, He does.
3. If God dealt harshly with Israel, a nation that He was the center of their culture and they wandered away from His laws and commandments for living, then will He deal harshly with any other nation that does the same? Maybe, since God has not changed.
4. Are the Ten Commandments still in force today of how any individual is to live their life and if they are, what other commandments are still in force? (Matthew 5:18-19)
5:18 " For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
5. Finally, what were the Sabbath rest for the land designed for in the first place?
Let us consider what the last question, as the first four are obvious to the follower of Jesus Christ, even though most theologians can't grasp their eternal meaning. But what was the Year of the Shemitah, or a Sabbath rest for the land designed for? It was designed to let mankind know that their substance, their living, and their very breath came from God.
These were major economic laws given by God, designed to prevent undue wealth acquired through acquisition of farm land from accumulating in the hands of the rich while the poor become further impoverished. God repeatedly emphasizes that people are not to oppress one another (Leviticus 25:14, 17). Deuteronomy 15 says that following these economic laws would bring God's blessing (verses 4, 6, 10). God wants people to learn to be generous and compassionate-to have a "give" attitude rather than one of "get." So every 7th year, men were set free, debts were forgiven, and every man was equal in that they owed no one, but God. But greed and the pursuit of wealth and money clouds and interferes with giving thanks to God as men look to themselves to be their own god, and they don't need God Almighty.
What it required even further is repentance of sinning against God and humbling yourself before Him and growing close to Him, instead of growing further and further from following His way of life. That was the sin that Israel committed during those 490 years. The land rest was a symbol of national repentance and getting right with God. As Israel grew further and further from God and rejected God, they fell further and further into idolatry to even to burn their children in the fires of pagan gods. Finally, God had enough and banished them from their homeland for a national lesson in repentance and being humbled by force by an invading, foreign army of Babylonia.
BUT ISRAEL IS NOT THE U.S.A?
Israel was the only nation that was commanded to observe this year of the Shemitah and true we, the USA are NOT Israel, as many have pointed out, and never will be. We are NOT the New Israel or descendants of a scattered 10 lost tribes, BUT is there a lesson in something that is so prophetic in nature that can be applied to modern times we live in? Can this be used as a prophetic sign from God Almighty to any nation either in blessings or in curses as God warned?
Let me take a few points that jumped out at me when I read Rabbi Cahn's book and I wish to address them here and I'm paraphrasing in my own words. Such a prophetic sign could be given to any nation that in any way, matches the description and the attributes of ancient Israel. Those attributes would include the following:
1. Any nation that is in defiance of God's ways or judgments would be a candidate. Course that could cover a lot of nations, no matter what their religious practices be, whether Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or totally secular. But let's narrow it down a bit.
2. A nation that has known God, but has rejected His ways and turned away from Him. That could apply to many "Western" nations that have had the label "Christian", or is largely post-Christian. But let us narrow it down even further.
3. A nation that its foundation was laid upon the precepts of Almighty God found in the Ten Commandments and their laws were governed by His Word for the sole purpose of His glory and His attributes and to establish a nation "Under God". Now that narrows it down a whole lot. There are only TWO nations that have built their society, their government, their laws upon God's law. That would be Israel, and the United States of America!!
Our forefathers came to this land and envisioned a new government built upon the precepts of Almighty God when it was a fledgling colony in Massachusetts and from there, through the War of Independence and our founding documents beginning with the Declaration of Independence and then our Constitution, God and His Word was the mold that shaped our new nation, under God.
President Ronald Reagan spoke of that very important fact, who is but one of the leaders of our country, down through our history that recognized the importance of God in our society. He said " If we ever forget that we are a nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under".( AMEN.)
For the last 200 years, God has blessed this nation beyond any nation in all of history and the wealth of this nation has surpassed all nations upon this earth, past and present. But times have changed in the last 50 years, as our slide into idolatry has grown more pronounced and more anti-God in our schools, our universities, our halls of government, and in our very lives. God has been legislated out of the very foundation of our republic and "progressively" (I use that term tongue in cheek) God has been told that He is not welcome. We don't need God, we can handle ourselves. Oh, really and how has that been working out for you in the years of Obama, huh?
HAS GOD REMOVED HIS HAND FROM AMERICA?
Let us think for a moment, what would it look like in a society that has kicked God out of our everyday affairs. Since the beginning of our founding, God has had His hand on this nation and blessed us in business, in resources, in national security, militarily in our wars with victory, and every aspect that makes up the USA. No question of that, as the history books speak of how this nation became a lone superpower, and not by it's own might, but by the very Hand of God. Why was that? Because we honored Him, we prayed to Him, and we looked to Him for guidance. What would happen if God removed that protective hand and removed the protective hedge that He has placed around us? As Jonathan Cahn wrote in his book:
"What if God released "His grip" on the United States and He pulled away His protection from that nation, even for a moment? What if He allowed a nation so deafened and hardened itself to His calling voice, would now allow it to be "shaken"?
IMAGINE HOW GOD MIGHT GET THAT NATIONS ATTENTION
To a nation that has driven the God it once known out of its life (as this nation has), rejected His ways, defied His will, and hardened itself to His call, a Shemitah would be the opposite of blessing, it would be judgment. In Leviticus chapter 26, God gives blessings for following after God, but He also gives curses if they do not:
26:14 "But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;
26:15 And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:
26:16 I also will do this unto you;......."
God listed all the curses He would level at Israel in the next few verses, and as a warning, an example to us, (as the Bible was written down for the last days for us), as He said that He will utterly destroy that nation who does not fear or respect Him. But God is a merciful God, and before He passes judgment, He gives us warnings. As Jonathan Cahn so aptly illustrated, since the 1960s, God has been trying to get our attention.
It was shown that every 7 years of our modern time, since 1973, in a cycle of every 7 years, there has been an economic downturn that has affected the nations business found in the stock market on Wall Street and our financial structure. And the amazing thing, it all happened on the very year of remission of debts, and the freeing of obligations to another person, the year of the Shemitah. Each and every instance, Wall Street has taken a hit, and in some years, a huge smack-down of losing near half of it's worth. The cycle has been ominious in its destruction of a major portion of our national wealth and our GNP (Gross National Product), including prices for goods, and unemployment with major losses of jobs, due to businesses being forced to close.
These warnings have been growing louder and louder, as America has been isolated and protected on our shores through two World Wars and many foreign conflicts, as those conflicts never saw an attack on our soil, until.....you guessed it...September 11, 2001 (9/11). America's security and feelings of invincibility were shattered on that day. What once was the symbol of our economic might and wealth, lay in rubble as so many bricks and mangled steel upon itself, as the Twin Towers fell to the earth. Would it concern you that this was the Year of the Shemitah? Yes, 2001 was a Sabbath Year rest and I believe, a call to repentance for national idolatry. On the following days, the stock market crashed, due to the shaking of the economy and the fall of the Twin Towers due to this terrorist attack. Not only has the cycle of economic instability happened every 7 years, but now God was letting evil come against even our infrastructure and leveled one of the tallest buildings on earth, as a warning. America was shaken and filled the churches of the land, but it lasted only a few weeks and we went back to sleep. We continued in unrepentance and ignored a physical warning, I believe was allowed by God.
Next came 2008, and yet another Sabbath year. What happened then? We had another stock market crash that pretty well destroyed most of people's retirement that were based in the stock market. The stock market fell from over 14,000 points to a little more than 600 in days. It spelled an economic recession and the scrambling of the government to save businesses "too big to fail". Since then we have printed money out of thin air and the stock market is soaring again. We think all is well...is it? But if you think that, you lie to yourself and many people can feel something coming, a foreboding of doom.
WHAT MAY BE COMING?
Understand, I make no predictions or set dates of when God will do anything, but the coincidences keep building and a person that has money in the stock market might be feeling a little trepidation, right about now. Why? One indicator of our economic condition is our energy sector. That major source of energy is oil. Now oil has been upwards of 100+ bucks a barrel, and I didn't like it much, as gas has been expensive, but in the historical aspect of the price of oil that drops its price precipitously, (like a rock to the bottom of the lake fast), spells economic woes for a nation dependent on that energy source. Remember 2008, and 2001 as the price of oil did about the same as a precursor to a stock market crash? Now we all know, or should that the level of the stock market in 2015 is nothing but a bubble based on cheap money and interest rates. It's a house of cards that could implode any moment and the stock market make a drastic correction. Investors are making a sucker's bet that they can read the market. As in the past, it will catch them flat footed. First thing, these events have been extremely precise in 2001 and 2008 and for that matter, every stock market downturn has happened during the fall of the year, in what is called the month of Tishri, or the beginning day of the Feast of Trumpets, a Holy Day and month given to Israel. It's all happened either in September or October during that month with the end of the Sabbath year, or the Shemitah on the Elul 29 or the end of the Jewish year and Rosh Hashanah, or the Feast of Trumpets being the first day of the new Jewish year calendar.
We are now in the year 2015, and again a year of the Sabbath, or Shemitah. We see the stock market doing a zig-zag of up and down losses and increases, much like the last crashes that happened. When will the correction begin? If it does come, then how deep will it slide? How long will God allow us to continue in our idolatry to the god of wealth and greed? If the falling of the World Trade Center was a physical warning, along with monetary losses in the stock market, what could be a even more powerful warning? Since 1960s, America has been going down a slippery road and it became even more slippery, when we let the Supreme Court let stand a ruling called Roe V. Wade and the subsequent murder of now 60 million babies, inside and outside the womb. What in the past we called evil, we now call good. What was abhorred in the past, we now celebrate. Homosexual marriage, or that lifestyle was an a abomination that was not spoke of in public circles, but now we have parades for "Gay Pride" in all parts of the this country. and what was considered abnormal is now an "alternative lifestyle" and is glorified. Both are evil in the eyes of God and His Word condemns both. We are being warned.
Isaiah 5:20-26King James Version (KJV)
20 "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel."
As Jonathan Cahn testifies in his book, it is not about the land's Sabbath rest per se, but a call to repentance, a time of humbling, and a time to understand that God is the source of your very existence. As a nation, we must turn away from the path that we are on. God is a God of being unchangeable and what He has done in the past to any nation, so shall may He also do to ours. Now any nation on earth is deserving of the wrath of God, and believe me, brother, it is coming as the Tribulation drum beats grow louder and louder, but even as Israel was scourged and disciplined most severly by Almighty God, so may the USA be scourged and disciplined just as severely.
Why, you ask, would this be so? Because like Israel, the USA knew better. Of all lands upon the earth, we were the producers of missionaries, Bibles, and distributed the Word of God from one corner of the globe to the other. But now all we are famous for is pornography and lewd living. Our crime statistics are rampant. Race relations are to the point of a civil war between people of color and the white majority. We murder our unborn. The family, the foundation of a Christian society has been all but torn asunder and when the foundation goes, the nation goes as well. As Paul wrote and God warned us in 2nd Timothy:
3:1 "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
3:2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3:3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
3:4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
3:6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
3:7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
If that was ever a description of the majority of a population, this prophecy has been fulfilled in America.
Judgment is coming, my friend, make no mistake about that. When will it happen and what will lead up to it? Only God knows, but from historical accounts, and what is happening right now, I feel that like Rabbi Cahn, I am sounding a warning to all who will heed the trumpet call. It is time, no past time, to get right with God. What will happen in the end of 2015 and into the next year or two, only God knows. Will American collapse? Will her economy implode to where the ripple effect causes world-wide panic and other stock markets to also collapse? Will it usher in a "new world order" and be the trigger for a One World government? The puzzle of the end time events grows stronger and stronger. I wrote about another piece of the puzzle and it's on my website, concerning the time of the Blood Moon Tetrads and something BIG, I mean BIG happening to Israel based on the historical events surrounding this heavenly sign. We have two more this year, as two have already passed in 2014, and the first one of this year, (the third of the Tetrad) happens this spring on Passover...the last one will come this fall during the Feast of Tabernacles and smack dab in the middle of the month of Tishri and following the end of the Mystery of the Shemitah, the Sabbath year rest that we are in the middle of. What could be coming? Could it be war in the Middle East, leading to a possible 3rd World War? Could it be economic catastrophe to the USA homeland that puts the rest of the world into bankruptcy and chaos? Will the USA become a third world country that can't afford to help Israel any longer when the Gog-Magog war prophecy is fulfilled? Will we be ripe for invasion from a foreign nation, much like Babylonia invaded Israel and destroyed their nation and many lives? The symptoms of an end time prophecy coming to pass mount up to be unable to dismiss or ignore.
If what is suggested comes to pass, and friend, I use this in all humbleness, when literal "hell on earth" comes to roost in your own front yard, who will you call to? Will you cry out to Obama? I pray you have learned in the last 6 years that he is the LAST person you would cry out to. Will your government help you, your senator, or your congressman? No, my friend, nobody will come to your aid. When this scenario or any part of it does come to fruition, then there is only One that can help you. He is the Holy One of Israel, the Great I AM that I AM. God Almighty, through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
John 3: 16-18King James Version (KJV) 16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
Think not that you can weather the coming storm all by yourself. The Son of Man, Jesus Christ could be on the very cusp of His return. I make no prediction, but "No man knoweth the day or the hour" (Matthew 24:36) a term used for the "Feast of Trumpets" the sign of the King...King Jesus. Was Jesus giving us a clue to His coming? As He has warned us, we take Him seriously of all who call upon His name and will love His appearing. So come my Lord. We look up expecting our redemption as it draweth nigh.
This is Pastor Mike Taylor, praying that God reveals Himself to you, through His Son, Jesus Christ. If you need prayer, counseling, or just a listening ear, email me at realteam1999@sbcglobal.net. May God richly bless you all, till we meet at Jesus feet.......soon.
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