"The Future History of the Church, Part 3" - Elijah Then and Now (page 1 of 16)

Elijah Then and Now

There is much more that I could say about this, but let me put it to you this way: we must understand Elijah.

King Ahab covets the vineyard – the Antichrist enters the beautiful land in Nahum – but he can't get the vineyard too easily. So Queen Jezebel tries to get possession of the vineyard for him. This brings her into conflict with Eliahu HaNawbe, Elijah the Prophet. In the Last Days the Antichrist wants the vineyard and goes to the false religious system to get it. This somehow results in a conflict with Elijah. Elijah, Elisha, Samuel, and John the Baptist are all connected. Midrashically there are ways to connect things that the church doesn't think of because they're reading a Jewish book with a Greek mindset. Whenever you see things happening in the same geographical location in the Bible, there is a midrashic connection between those events. Where does the ministry of John the Baptist take place? On the plain of Jericho. This is the same location in which the ministry of Elijah ends and the ministry of Elisha begins. Samuel was the last of the judges, but the first of the prophets. John the Baptist was the last figure of the Old Testament but the first figure of the New Testament; when the Apostles looked for someone to replace Judas they didn't search out someone who was with Jesus from the beginning, but rather someone who was with them from John's ministry. (Acts 1:21-22) John was the pivotal figure; he was transitional. The New Testament era begins with John, not with Jesus.

John the Baptist and Samuel have similar circumstances surrounding their births. Wherever you see people born under similar supernatural circumstances there is a midrashic connection. Elijah, Elisha, and John had the same spirit. So the wicked woman turns the king against Elijah; the same happens with Herodias and King Herod: the wicked woman turns the king against John the Baptist. It is a pattern; the same things happen again and again. What happened in both these cases is somehow what happens when Elijah comes again in the end. There is a lot more that could be said about this, but it is very complicated.

Let's look at the book of Amos 8:11:

"'Days are coming', declares the Lord, 'when I will send a famine on the land. Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather a famine for the hearing of the Word of God.'"

Remember that the physical reflects the spiritual: when the Temple veil was torn, the physical event reflected a spiritual one. Jesus said there would be famines in the Last Days, (Mt. 24:7) but the physical famines are only reflections of a spiritual one. There had been no prophet in Israel for over 400 years when John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah to feed God's people during the famine, preparing for the Messiah to come.

There is going to be a famine in the end; but somehow, God's people in the spirit of Elijah are going to be fed and prepared for the Messiah to come. The way Elijah stopped the rain is the same way that the Holy Spirit will be absent from the world when the outpouring stops. Yet Elijah fed the Gentile woman supernaturally; she is a type of the church as are many Gentile women in the Bible such as the Queen of Sheba. Remember that Jesus said the Queen of Sheba came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. (Mt. 12:42)

God's people are fed during the famine. On the Jewish calendar you have outpourings of rain and harvests. A Jew reading Revelation 10 and 11 would have called it a midrash on Joshua. You've got the same numerical pattern in both: in Revelation, the seven seals with the seventh seal having seven trumpets, a numerical subset. Those trumpets correspond to the Feast of Trumpets which corresponds with the last Trumpet and the trumpet blown on Yom Kippur – all of these things fit together, though I cannot go into it now. Anyway, you have seven with the seventh having a subset of seven. Then there is silence in heaven for half an hour. (For me that may be the most confusing verse in the Bible – how can a human measurement of time be applied to eternity? I don't understand that verse.) Next there come these two witnesses who are spoken of in Zechariah. The last Trumpet is blown, and the text says "This kingdom has become the kingdom of our God and of His Messiah."

Now, let's look at what happened at the capture of Jericho. They marched around the city seven times, once a day for seven days, but on the seventh day they had to march around it seven times. There you have the same numerical pattern present in Revelation. The two spies in Joshua were sent to Jericho to rescue the Gentile woman, Rahab, before the judgment came. They prefigure the ministry of the two witnesses in Revelation. Revelation midrashically replays the text of Joshua, though you won't find that in any commentary that I know of, because people with Greek minds wrote them all.

Moses fed the children of Israel to prepare them for the Exodus from Egypt. Joseph fed the whole world during the famine, but Moses fed all Israel to prepare them to leave Egypt. This, again, is a type of the Resurrection/Rapture. There was darkness on the first Passover, and only the Jews had lights on in their houses in order to eat the Passover. When Jesus faced His last days, He fed His disciples and prepared them for what was coming. In Acts 20, before Paul leaves for his last days, he goes to an upper room, breaks bread, and feeds the disciples. It says in Acts 20 that there were many lamps in the room; the eye is the lamp of the body. If the eye is sound, as Scripture says, the body will also be sound. (Mt. 6:22) In Zephaniah 1 there is an allusion to the Jewish Passover Bedichat Chametz, during which each person's house is searched by its inhabitants for leaven. Here in Zephaniah it says,

"I will search Jerusalem with many lamps, purging leaven".

Leaven is a figure of sin in the Bible (1 Co. 5:6-8). Jews had to get all leaven out of the house before they could eat the Passover, just as we are supposed to get rid of the leaven in our lives before we come to the Lord's Table. Once again, the old-time Brethren have a much more Jewish understanding of the Lord's Supper than other Christians do.

"I will search Jerusalem with lamps," (Zeph. 1:12).

There will be a purging of the leaven from Zion through right teaching in the Last Days before Jesus comes.

"The eye is the lamp of the body," (Mt. 6:22).

Think of the armor in Ephesians 6, quoted from Isaiah. It says in Nahum and in Isaiah 52,

"How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news".

Ephesians 6 admonishes us to

"Put on the shoes of the preparation of the Gospel of peace".

The church is a body; its feet are its evangelists. But the eye is the lamp of the body; this refers to teachers, who see and give the light. Somehow, the ministry of Elijah is going to put the oil into the lamps of the teachers in the Last Days. Jesus fed the Apostles, who then took the bread when He fed the 5,000 and fed the people in groups of 50. 50 is the number of the Holy Spirit, of Pentecost. Elijah, through Obadiah, also fed the sons of the prophets in groups of 50. The food comes from one source, but then is broken down and given to several groups. I don't fully understand this, but that is the pattern, and somehow it will happen like that.

Elijah is going to feed the other teachers in the Last Days – whoever Elijah is, or however you understand it. Whether “Elijah” is a man, a movement, two people, or something else is something I won't go into. I will only teach something once I have understood it definitively and the Holy Spirit hasn't shown me fully what this means or how it works. James says, "Let few of you be teachers"; (James 3:1) God will hold me more accountable than He will those of you who are not teachers. Therefore I will not teach anything doctrinally until I am sure that God has shown it to me.

The Maccabees, in Daniel 11, are similar to Elijah in this way:

"Those who have understanding among the people will give insight to the many."

In Proverbs we saw that the wicked woman had truth that was like a two-edged sword, and she was smoother than oil. This is the nature of seduction. If people lack God's wisdom, they're going to be vulnerable; since we have something that is sharper than a two-edged sword, so will they. We will have the oil of anointing and they will have something even smoother. Not better, but it will be a counterfeit. With diamonds, if you don't have a professional eye, you cannot tell a counterfeit from a genuine stone. Some false diamonds, made of polished glass and worthless, can look so real that only a jeweler can tell it is false. There are some false diamonds that are such good reproductions that even the experts have a hard time spotting them initially and have to do all kinds of cauterization tests. In the same way, if Christians today are sucked in by things that are obviously erroneous – if they are fooled by a guy like Rick Godwin, who claims that Matthew 24 is not about the Last Days – what will they do when convincing lies confront them? If you can't stand on the dry land, how will you persevere in the thicket of the Jordan? (Jer. 12:5) Again, if people are fooled by name-it-and-claim-it nonsense, what will they do when the real deception comes?

There will be a schism within the church in the Last Days, with a number of things that will divide it. One factor will be the churches that compromise and the ones that do not. Another thing dividing the church will be the role and calling of God upon Israel. A third thing will be the authority of Scripture and the way in which it is interpreted. Those are three of the issues that are going to divide; there may well be others. What happens with Elijah teaches about this tribulation.

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