Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and welcome back for the 11th part of the series, The Return of the Elijah Prophets.

Last week we looked at the work of Amos, Hosea and Isaiah surrounding the tribulations of Samaria (Israel) and Jerusalem (Judah) and I might have included the navi (prophet) Micah who was ministering whilst Samaria was still standing, albeit threatened (Mic.1:6), with the approach of the Assyrian armies discernable in Micah 1:10ff in 701 BC as in Isaiah 1:7ff. We might make mention of one interesting thing in the matter of prophetic focus and timing because whereas Isaiah sees Jerusalem as about to be spared Micah sees it as about to be destroyed (Mic.3:12, quoted in Jer.26:16-19) whereas it was destroyed a century later. That is because they are describing two separate events in the same timeline.

We now move on to Hezekiah's son, Manasseh (687-642 BC) and to a dark period in Judah's history when the nation was a vassal state of Assyria. He was followed by the boy king Josiah in 640 BC but by this time the great and mighty Assyrian Empire was tottering. Although supported by Egypt for a while, it was finally overcome by the rising star of Babylonia in 605 BC. You can imagine what it must have been like for the little Kingdom of Judah caught up in these world events. An idea of how spiritually bereft of light the nation had been is gained by examining an event that took place in 612 when a copy of the Torah (Law) was found in the temple while the workmen were there busily carrying out changes to the temple to get rid of Assyrian influence (2 Ki.22). The discovery of the scroll inspired Josiah to initiate immediate reforms showing not only his spiritual integrity but also his complete independence from the Assyrians. Unfortunately in 609 he tried to stop the Egyptians on their way to help the Assyrians passing through his land and was killed in Megiddo, the site of a future battle to be fought (Armageddon - Rev.16:16). The Egyptians then put Jehoiakim on the throne as a puppet and for a while he ruled as their vassal.

Something very interesting happened in the first year of Josiah's reign, a subtle spirit of idolatry had arisen out of a man-made superstition. You see, a belief had arisen in Judah that Jerusalem and the Temple could never be destroyed, no matter what, because Yahweh's hand was forever upon them. Yahweh sent the navi (prophet) Jeremiah into this situation (Jer.7;26). Do you remember a similar incident, years before in the days of the Judges, when another superstition had arisen whereby it was believed that so long as the Ark of the Covenant was taken into battle against the Philistines (1 Sam.4), no matter the spiritual darkness of the people, and that it would serve as a talisman and give them victory?

A similar notion was propagated in the fictional action-adventure set in 1936 starring Harrison Fold and directed by Steven Spielberg (who was Jewish) called Raiders of the Lost Ark in which the nazis try to get control of the Ark of the Covenant from which they hope to control and manipulate a supernatural power for their dark ends? In the end Indiana Jones stops them and the Ark burns all the nazis up, you will remember. Though the movie was a blockbuster and 'ripping yarn' is perpetuated occultic ideas, being one of many Hollywood movies to implant a false religion of witchcraft in the minds of their viewers. The Judahite mindset of the early 600's BC was unfortunately similar.

Now don't get me wrong. The Judeans of Josiah's reign were religious alright, adhering to the letter of the Torah (Law) found in that Scroll in the temple (probably the Book of Deuteronomy), but their hearts were all wrong. Neither the leaders nor the people had had a change of heart in spite of the difficulties of the recent past with their Egyptian overlords, and before that, their Assyrian masters. To regard Jerusalem as a kind of 'lucky charm' guaranteeing safety and security was a rejection of the authority and supremacy of Yahweh-Elohim, and only the destruction of Jersualem would teach them this because their hearts had become hardened to the point that they were unwilling to take the initiative in repenting of their own accord.

Then the fatal blow came. In 605 BC the Babylonians defeated not only the Assyrians but also the Egyptians and the rest of the story you all know. Judah fell to the Babylonians and the deportations began. Nevertheless Jehoiakim and many of his advisers looked for an opportunity to rebel, hoping that Egypt would help them. What did Jeremiah do? He relayed to them Yahweh's instruction: remain loyal to Babylon which they, in their defiant nationalistic frame-of-mind, regarded as treason to the state! It was this that led to Jeremiah being persecuted, which we have already talked about. And when Jerusalem was captured by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC, Jeremiah continued to tell them the Davar Elohim (Word of God) - to submit, when advising Zedekiah, the king whom Nebuchadnezzar had put on the throne. Well, the king was torn between what Yahweh demanded through Jeremiah and the advice of his nobles. In the end, foolishly, with an attitude of defiant self-righteousness (which these days in the movies is commonly depicted as 'noble'), Zedekiah took the advice of his advisers and rebelled. The result of that foolish decision was that both the city and the temple were destroyed in 587 BC. Jeremiah remained in Jerusalem, advising acceptance of the situation as the punishment of Elohim (God) until he was finally taken by friends to Egypt where he still continued to prophesy the success of the Babylonians, even against Egypt, as evets proved him to be right.

Compare that attitude to the attitude of the man-pleasing attitude of the many false 'prophets' of today who follow the desires of their own hearts rather than the will of Yahweh. The true nevi'im (prophets) are rarely heard of or accepted, and are invariably persecuted. The unpopular things I have been led to relay about the fate of corporatist-controlled America and Europe, with their assenting populations who have been bribed with the promise of 'free stuff' (socialism) and 'greatness' (conservatism), have been pretty much ignored, because it's not what either 'marxists' or 'patriots' want to hear. Yet the situation in our time is little different from the day of Manasseh, Josiah, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. The same fallen human behaviour patterns are being exhibited. Nothing is new.

The various 'minor' nevi'im (prophets) seem to home into specific areas touched on by the 'major' nevi'im (prophets) like Isaiah and Jeremiah. Take Zephaniah. He specifically condemns the practices which were prevalent either under Manasseh or before Josiah had reached an age or capacitity to carry out reformd. Nahum, by contrast, is wholly occupied with the downfall of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, which took place in 612 BC. Thus each navi (prophet) has his own particular area of 'specialisation' even though their ministries very much overlap. Habakkuk views the Babylonians as coming to punish Judah and so he was most likely a contemporary of Jeremiah and ministered between 609 and 600.

As one of the 'major' nevi'im (prophets), Ezekiel also had a specialised ministry (592-587 BC). By the time he is prophesying, the expulsion is over and he is looking forwards into the future of the exiles. He himself was carried away captive by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC and like Jeremiah he understood from Yahweh that the destruction of Jerusalem was inevitable, though in his case he was speaking to his fellow-exiles. At once the city falls in 587 BC - once the blow of Yahweh's wrath at apostacy and rebellion has been delivered, his message is exclusively one of hope and renewal. Once the punishment has been executed - once justice has been served - the way is open for Yahweh to restore her.

This is an important principle of divine justice and mercy that must be understood. Unrepented sin leads to harm of some sort and to a redemptive prison sentence of fixed duration. But once the start of the prison sentence - in this case, exile - has started, the heart of the Creator is always restoration. There is an intriciate interplay between Justice and Mercy, Yahweh never just punishing, His heart longing to make things good again. Indeed, in the grander prophetic picture, the hopes of renewal, after punishment, in the earlier nevi'im (prophets) could now be fulfilled and Yahweh would gather His people to bring them back to their own land again.

From this we can understand much about our own time. It is a mistake to believe that Yahweh only ever worked like this in the 'Old Testament' and that this order has somehow been overturned in the 'New Testament' (and after) and replaced by 'something else'. Yet we see the same pattern being fulfilled over and over again in the nations in the era of the New Covenant too - even our own day. There is to be, and now is, a Second Exodus and return to the Promised Land.

Don't ever get the idea that the current multi-denominational confusion in the Body of Messiah, which is ever splitting more and more, in spite of some unions being effected, is ever acceptable to Elohim (God) as any more than a temporary expediency. There is this unspoken 'idea' in Protestant Christendom, at least, that multi-denominationalism is somehow 'OK' but not ideal. Ecumenical Councils have been created to bring some semblance of order and unity but in reality there have been instruments of subversion by Marxist forces trying to destroy Christianity. The 'United Methodist Church' has just split creating a conservative 'Global Methodist Church', and the liberal, woke Episcopalian Church in America has had a split-off in the little conservative Anglican Church of North America. But it's worse - ecumenism now embraces all the pagan religions of the world too with the common denominator between Christian denominations progressively getting more and more dilute.

This morning I was shown an unexpected vision which I think you'll find interesting. As most of you know, my health has been degenerating rapidly of late, and getting worse. This has caused me much tribulation of soul and much questioning. To suffer is bad enough but to not know the purpose of it, as Job's experiences remind us, can be even worse. It turned out that his suffering was purposeful after all, though he did not learn of it until toward the end of his misery. And so it is with all of us. Some of the nevi'im (prophets) of Israel had to suffer along with those they were calling to repentance, as we know from Jeremiah at least, and Ezekiel had to share exile in a foreign pagan land with his people in order to encourage them, whereas Jeremiah was granted his liberty - sort of - after he had delivered his message and suffered incarceration and the like.

I have long come to suspect, and now believe, that the nevi'im (prophets), in order to convery Yahweh's Davar (Word) accurately and with understanding had to suffer in some way in order to make those heart connections that are so important for a messenger of Elohim (God). The most effective messengers share in the tribulations of those to whom they are trying to minister. We as parents certainly do the same with our children when they go off the rails, and vice versa sometimes.

So what happened last night and this morning was this. I was deserately in search of pain relief and the rest that comes from adequate sleep and had tried a new medical stratagem that had failed. So by early morning I was desperate. As I arose at 8.40 am this morning after an essentially failed attempt to sleep more, Yahweh opened a vision up to me, one that filled me with astonishment. I saw a very large menorah or seven-armed candlearbre standing in a plinth. I could not tell what metal it was made of, it could have been of gold or brass, I suppose. Around it was darkness. There were no flames in the lamps at the top of each of the seven arms but rather there were sudden flashes of light all around it bursting onto the scene and illuminating both the menorah and the darkened surroundings. Out of the main body of the menorah streaks of bright light shot out, twisting and turning in no apparent direction that I could at first tell, but again illuminating the surroundings. And although the flashes and winding columns of fire were apparently random, I could tell there was an intelligence behind them, for together they created this awesome display. This continued anabated until the vision closed (see illustration at beginning of article).

As I said, I was astonished and 101 questions poured out of my mind. Finally, when I myself had quietened down inside, I realised three things with great clarity:

• 1. This was a depiction of my own pain - physical and emotional - and my attempt to make sense out of it, for it is a lot easier to suffer if you know what or whom you are suffering for;
• 2. My own experience was itself a prophetic representation of the presently constituted Body of Christ - disorganised, disunited, and yet Yahweh was working here and there bringing forth this light in a blinding flash which lasted only a very short time, or this streak of inspiration, of lesser intensity, that lasted longer but which had no apparrent goal or end; and
• 3. As all this settled in my mind, I was given a picture of someone trying to kick-start a motorbike, leading to brief ignitions that then petered out until the final 'kick' caused the engine to roar into life.

Now the thing about a motorcycle is that it is a carefully crafted piece of integrated engineering. You can't just throw together bits and pieces randomly and expect a Harley Davidson to appear. The Kingdom of our Elohim is no different but what we have in the present 'Body', so-called - a misrepresentation of Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 12, incidentally, because the Body of Christ is not a patchwork quilt of unmatching denominations who sometimes barely fit together, if at all, on certain levels - is chaos. That is what I was seeing but the seven lamps of the menorah remained unlit. Rather, it was spluttering out bits of light and truth in ungainly fits that were not a part of a whole scheme. That is why denominations arise and fall, and new ones keep appearing, as each in turn tried to enact the Kingdom life but in a lawless, Torahless way. And that is why Christendom is continually changing. Yes, certain truths have remained constant throughout the centuries in most churches but that isn't enough. It's enough to keep flickering candles going but Yahweh wants a blazing menorah with seven lights burning in synchrony and all the time, as we're taught by the symbolic purpose of that candelstick in the former temple (see Mystery of the Holy Menorah).

The present 'system' has to be shattered and make way for the fullness of the Kingdom before Messiah returns. That is why the churches have been beaten up over the centuries so that new light and truth can burst forth, albeit it briefly before being extinguished in public, at any rate, by persecution. So we can learn a lot from the Tanakh (Old Testament) nevi'im (prophets) because together they paint a very clear picture of how Yahweh works and why He does what He does.

In the case of the classical prophets which we're discussing, as far as Jerusalem (and earlier, Samaria) is concerned, punishment has been effected (the destruction of nominal religion by the removal of its outer forms like the temple) but always followed by a new historical situation arising to make restoration possible. That is the substance of Isaiah 40-55. The Babylonian Empire would eventially decline when Nebuchadnezzar, who had become a Yahwist like Daniel after going through his own punative ordeal, died in about 562 BC. His successors were weak, as we saw earlier in this series and there was a new star on the horizon.

Which brings us to a certain Persian called Cyrus who was conquering in all directions. Isaiah was shown this man's activities by Yahweh, either by direct revelation or in vision or both, and was told that he would be the instrument in Yahweh's hands for the restoration of Judah (Is.44:28; 45;1ff.). His prophecies are full of tiqveh (hope) that the Judahites would return to Zion, brought there by Elohim (God) just as surely as Elohim (God) had brought Moses and His people out of Egypt. This same hope in our day is ours too. This new event Isaiah saw would form the basis of the future life of Judah just as the Exodus had been its basis, for some at least, in the days before the Exile.

Babylon fell to Cyrus in 538 AD and permission was given to the Judahites, along with other captives, to return to their homelands. Meanwhile, the people left in Judah throughout the 50 years of the exile were in a very poor state, with no leadership and few resources. The Edomites were continually preying upon them from the south and the little book of Obadiah is Yahweh's warning to those Edomites for so taking advantage of the weakness of Judah. Yahweh always punishes the bullies who hurt the weak and vulnerable.

A word about Cyrus. Many of the false 'prophets' in our own day were claiming that Trump was another Cyrus who would 'make America great again'. And I was repeatedly told to say that he was not, that the Cyrus of our day was another man entirely who, though no angel (like the pagan Cyrus himself), was nevertheless Yahweh's political instrument in our time, a man that the élites constantly demonised and tried to blame for America's woes. I speak, of course, of Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation. Trump has gone but Putin remains, as I was told to say he would on numerous occasions.

Back to the days of the original Cyrus. Though some Judahites returned to Jerusalem and Judah in 538 BC to fulfil vitally important messianic prophecies (so that Messiah could be born, die and be resurrected), many were content to stay behind in the relatively more comfortable conditions of Babylon. Those who did return soon found that conditions in the Holy Land robbed them of the ability to reconstruct the nation, its capital and its temple. And into this situation came the 'minor' nevi'im (prophets) Haggai and Zechariah, urging the people to rebuild the temple as a prelude to the prosperity for Judah which Elohim (God) would then grant. They seemed to have envisaged the governor Zerubbabel as being the new leader of the vstate at first (Hag.2:10; Zech.4:2-6; 6:9). Either that, or he and Joshua, the cohen (priest), ruling jointly. As things turned out, however, from now on it was the Cohen Gadol or High Priest who was the effective ruler in Judah.

We learn from this piece of history that only a minority or remnant are willing to be pioneers and suffer hardship for the sake of bthe Kingdom. Nevertheless, they are the ones who inherit the final and glorious rewards of the faithful. The ones who stayed behind in Babylon are like those who prefer the creature comforts of the pagan culture surrounding them, to be 'acceped' and fully integrate, and lose much of their spiritual and national identity in the process. So there's a warning here not to choose the easy life for short-term rewards but to be willing to make sacrifices for an eternal inheritance.

It's hard to know for sure when the prophecies in Malachi and Joel were spoken. I am of the belief that the nevi'im (prophets) Nehemiah and Malachi were contemporaries with the Book of Malachi possibly being written after Nehemiah returned to Persia in 433 BC or during his second period as governor. The dating of Joel is a big unknown though the nature of his message does not require that we know. The compiler of the prophetic books presumably placed the Book of Malachi last in the Tanakh (Old Testament) because this was the end of prophecy pending the coming of a new Elijah (Mal.4:5), even though later writers tried to mimic the nevi'im (prophets) of old by writing lots of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical book that have enamoured those individuals and denominations (like the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox) not content with what Yahweh has already given about which nearly all denominations are agreed.

Which brings me to an important point as we wind up today's message. The prophetic books we have been very summarily looking at contain teaching which is not directly related to historical events and circumstances which makes them timeless as far as theological value is concerned. Nevertheless - and this is something I am forced to stress time and time again - all that these nevi'im (prophets) say and do must be seen in the first place against the background of these events. Only then may we go on and draw from them further lessons for our own faith and for our own times. I'll have more to say about this another time.

Finally, if we ask the question, 'Where did the nevi'im (prophets) proclaim their message?, the simple answer must be: wherever they could gather a crowd of people to hear them. These days we also use the Internet a great deal to reach as wide an audience as we can. Amos apparently chose the sanctuary at Bethel. Isaiah addressed the people in Jerusalem and met King Ahaz "at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field" (Is.7:3, NRSV) wherever that was. No doubt he gave his advice to Hezekiah in the king's court. Jeremiah certainly spoke in the temple court (Jer.7) but also gave private advice to the king from prison or the guardroom. At the same time he performed his prophetic actions in various places in and around Jerusalem and finally prophesied in Egypt to those who were with him there. Ezekiel in Babylon could obviously no longer use the temple courts or the king's court in Jerusalem. Instead he seems to have gathered the nobles and leaders in or near his own house (Ezek.8:1).

Thus there was no special 'prophet's corner' like Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, London. Wherever men and women could be found who needed to hear the Davar Elohim (Word of God) the nevi'im (prophets) were there to proclaim it, not in a vacuum, but in the context of the historical circumstances in which they and their people found themselves. Likewise in our day the modern Elijah Prophets will do their own thing, whether on the Internet, in the streets, before governments, or even in the strongholds of the underground élites which they will access by supernatural means, to the élites' dismay, by transmaterialisation as the apostle Philip was transported to Azotus, or by other means.

Many of the nevi'im (prophets) of old foresaw and had to foretell the downfall of Samaria and Jerusalem interpreting the events in advance as the Mishpat Yahweh or Judgment of Elohim (God) upon His rebellious people. Thence they turned to the future that lay ahead for Judah if only she would be the people of Elohim (God) and, in obedience, act accordingly. This she would not and thus the baked clay pot was shattered, never to be reassembled. Instead, Yahweh would turn to rebellious Ephraim, whose soft clay pot could yet be remoulded through repentance and be made useful again for Kingdom service. And that is where we are today.

Next week, Yah willing and health permitting, we shall look at the formation and shaping of the navi's (prophet's) words which for many of you will be new. I hope, at the very least, today's message will have spurred your interest in reading the nevi'im (prophets), both the 'major' and the 'minor', and that you will derive much inspiration from them. Yahweh bless you in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name. Amen.

Acknowledgments