Lessons in the Ladder Days

Candace Long: I’m Candace Long with Lessons in the Latter Days, offering biblical commentary to make sense of the times that we’re living in. Today’s episode is part two of the final week of the church age. It’s called 2024, the year of the Apostasia.

The other day I woke up on the Sabbath and prepared to study the assigned Torah portion as I always do. I glanced at my cell phone only to find a text from one of my students saying, "Tomorrow is Pentecost," and went on to describe what that day meant to her. I was sick at heart, and I texted back, "You're on the wrong schedule. Shavuot is June 12th, and we're still counting the Omer."

My text forced her to consult the Gregorian calendar and then the Hebrew calendar, and she saw her mistake. She wrote back and said, "I stand corrected, but I find myself going back and forth to what I have been taught and realigning with the biblical calendar. I wonder if God knows my heart and those who have good intentions but are not so specific on days, times, and seasons."

I knew then I needed to revisit this issue and lay out the error that most Christians are falling into and what will happen if it's not corrected. Today, I'm going to cover four things. Number one, I want to give you a visual picture of where I think we are on the timeline before the rapture.

Number two, why it matters if Christians are a little bit off with God's calendar. Number three, how this very issue fulfills an important prophecy in the New Testament. And number four, what will happen to Christians if they do not change course.

But first, a little story to set the stage. When I was actively flying and knew that I was going to be landing at an unfamiliar airport, I spent time studying the aviation map, especially all the landmarks around that airport so that I would be able to recognize it once I was in the air.

But once I was up there and on the final approach, locating that airport visually wasn't easy because nothing in that environment was familiar. I simply hadn't flown there before. In all my years of flying, no amount of flight planning ever really prepared me to recognize a new runway until I was right on top of it.

Studying biblical prophecies on the end of days is exactly like this. Only when you get right up on top of one of them do you have an "aha" moment and recognize where you are. Regarding this issue of the Apostasia, which is the Greek word that refers to the great falling away, I believe we have just flown over it.

If you don't recognize it and keep on going like normal, the warning is that you will lose the ability to get back on course before the rest of us land in the kingdom. It's that serious.

The other day, I spent several hours designing a graph to help me lay out the end of days as I see so many pieces coming together and began teaching using this graph. I'm going to describe just the first layer of it today. It consists of two seven-year periods back-to-back.

Each one is referred to as a biblical week of years. This is biblical terminology for an actual thing. A biblical week of years is a picture, or a tavnit, that is repeated many times in the Bible. It's found in the book of Daniel and refers to a week that is seven years long, one year for each day.

The one we're most familiar with in Daniel 9 is called the 70th week, which is the seven-year period at the very beginning of the Day of the Lord, which lasts 1,000 years. This is an important end-of-days timeline terminology I want to make sure you understand.

The expression "the Day of the Lord" lasts 1,000 years. But the first seven years of it has its own name. Daniel calls it the 70th week. It is known by most Christians as the seven-year tribulation. Jews refer to it as the birth pangs. This is when God's wrath is poured out to cleanse the earth of its filth.

In it, God concludes the final redemption story for the nation of Israel. So on my graph, I put another biblical week of years right before the 70th week because this one refers to the final seven years of what has been known as the church age.

This is the 2,000-year interruption of biblical history when Israel rejected or cut off their Messiah in 32 AD. We talked about this last time in part one. But there is a monumental event that ends the church age that I believe falls on Tishrei 1 in our year 2026, when Messiah comes for this part of his bride at what Christians call the rapture.

When millions of people all over the world suddenly disappear in the same second, this will trigger the onset of the Day of the Lord. Yes, I said 2026 because, according to my calculations, which I admit could be wrong, this date checks all the boxes.

A biblical week of years in the Bible is always divided into two three-and-a-half-year periods. The first half of the week is relatively mild compared to the final half, which is horribly intense. For instance, at the end of Daniel 9, it tells us that a leader will arise at the end of days and make a covenant with Israel at the beginning of the 70th week.

The first half will be relatively peaceful. But at the halfway point, all hell will break loose. This leader, the Antichrist, will turn against the Jews without mercy. He'll stop the sacrifices in the temple, put an image of himself on the altar, and demand to be worshipped.

This is the exact same pattern found in Daniel 11 when Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Rome doing this very same thing. The pattern repeated itself in two three-and-a-half-year periods, with the second half being more treacherous than the first, ending with the abomination of desolation and eventual destruction of the second temple.

Interestingly, we see this same pattern described by Jesus in Matthew 24 and still again in Revelation 13—same thing. What I want you to see here is that a repetitive tavnit, or a picture, is a prophetic signal to pay attention to.

This is exactly what happened to me in 2021 while I was celebrating Hanukkah and reading Daniel 11. At that time, we were a year into the pandemic. When I recognized the pattern, I came off the couch and began to break out the Hebrew meanings of words in Daniel 11 to look deeper.

And I saw it. We were living through every part of the pattern. The revelation was overwhelming to me. I'm not going to revisit it here because I've written about it in great detail in other episodes.

If you're new to this series, I refer you to two transcripts that I will link to in the description notes to this episode that will explain how billions of people fell into this snare: the episode "Uncovering the Ancient Snare, Part 5: The Abomination of Desolation" and the episode "Post-Pandemic Implications for Ministers." You'll find them both on my website at candacelong.com/podcast.

At this point, what I want you to see is by this picture playing out in front of me, I determined that the final week of the church age began during Hanukkah in 2020 when the vaccine rollout began. This event revealed a diabolical scheme to pollute the bodily temples of every Jew to such a degree that the Almighty would turn away from them.

You can read in the episodes mentioned how the highest echelons of power pulled this off. But for our purposes here, the final week of the church age began at Hanukkah of 2020. We're now in the middle of 2024, which places us about two and a half years away from the rapture.

I'm calling this episode 2024: The Year of the Apostasia. To understand what I mean by this, we need to examine three things. Number one: Where is 2024 relative to the final week, and are there confirmations of 2020 being the starting point?

Number two: What does Apostasia mean, and how is it manifesting? And number three: What happens next? Question number one: Where does 2024 fit into this timeline? Here are five events I want you to take note of which confirm my theory that this is the final week of the church age.

First, on March 11th, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. That was the 15th of Adar on the Hebrew calendar, the exact date Haman chose to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom. I believe God was announcing a globalist intent to pollute the bodily temples of every Jew in the world, and in so doing, turn God against them.

The second confirmation that I discovered was an alliance between Israel and Pfizer made during Hanukkah of 2020. Hanukkah is an important biblical festival referred to as the feast of the dedication of the temple.

The reason this is significant is that in all four instances where a biblical week of years is found, the trigger point beginning that week is always an alliance or an agreement or a covenant between Israel and some entity connected to the Roman Kingdom.

You need to know that such an alliance actually happened in 2020. Pfizer agreed to give Israel enough vaccine at a discounted price to inoculate the entire adult population in exchange for Israel giving Pfizer all of the biometric data collected on the Jewish population.

If you don't see a significance in that, what it means is that the final kingdom now has all of the DNA and medical data concerning every Jew. This is part of the ancient snare God warned His people about in the Torah right before they entered the kingdom. You'll find all of this teaching in my latest publication called "Uncovering the Ancient Snare." You'll find it at candacelong.com/store.

A third follow-up date to take note of was July 15th, 2022, when Israel reported administering enough doses to vaccinate 100 percent of the population. The date of that report was the 16th of Tammuz, known by devout Jews as the time of the breach.

This was the actual time on the Hebrew calendar when the physical walls of Jerusalem were breached by both Babylon and Rome, leading to the destruction of both temples. And sadly, it was this same date when the cellular walls were breached inside the bodies of every Jew who took the vaccine.

A fourth confirmation is what happened exactly three and a half years into the final week. Remember what happens at the midpoint of a biblical week? That's when something awful shifts and the enemy breaks through and turns against Israel.

This is exactly what happened on October 7th, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel. It was midweek to the day, and that day happened to be the festival of Sukkot, which celebrates God's divine protection over His people. Is that coincidence?

No. Was the Jewish nation as a whole celebrating Sukkot that day? No. The breakthrough happened at a music festival celebrating the trans community. Biblically interpreted, Israel's border was unattended because God's people left Him.

They defected, and that is the meaning of Apostasia. And now the nation is plunged into a season of war that Daniel said would continue all the way through the 70th week. The people's trust in the vaccine for their safety rather than the Lord opened the door for the enemy to break through their borders. And midway through the week was Israel's breach.

A fifth and final confirmation is the increase in wicked behavior resulting from the genetically altered material believed to be contained in the vaccines. Jesus said we would know the children of the devil by their fruit. So what has happened to our culture since 2020?

What greater evidence is there than the recent explosion of anti-Semitism? Since 1979, the Anti-Defamation League has tracked anti-Semitic incidents. In 2022, two years into this final week, they reported a 140 percent increase, which was the highest ever recorded. But when we got to 2023, the halfway point in our biblical week of years, that number doubled.

Question number two: What is Apostasia and how is it manifesting? We find the word in the New Testament in 2 Thessalonians 2. Let's start at the beginning of the chapter. Quote, "Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet him, we beg you, brethren, not to be quickly shaken in mind or excited, either by spirit or by word or by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed," unquote.

Three things I want to comment on. Number one: Paul uses the phrase "the Day of the Lord" because the people thought that day was right around the corner. Remember what that phrase means. The Day of the Lord is the 1,000-year kingdom. And that will be triggered by Jesus coming for his followers at the very last event of the church age, which I contend we are two and a half years away from.

Number two: Paul is saying that at that time, the son of perdition will be revealed. We'll know who he is, but not yet. Number three: Paul says that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first. And the word "rebellion" is the Greek word "Apostasia."

The word "Apostasia" means a departure from the truth. Once this falling away has occurred, that's when we can really see the man of sin close up. I want you to look carefully at how he describes this man of sin. Quote, "One who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God," unquote.

This is the language describing an abomination of desolation where the image of a false god somehow invades the temple and is set up on the spiritual altar. Isn't that what we've just seen? Isn't that the core of the ancient snare that has polluted the bodily temples of billions of people on the planet?

If that's true, wouldn't Satan himself go before the heavenly councils and say to the Almighty, "Look, I got my DNA inside your people. They wanted the vaccine. They looked to me to save them, not you." I can just see this scene play out where the enemy takes his seat in the temples of everyone who took the vaccine and proclaims to be their God.

If we, Christians and Jews, do not renounce our involvement with it and return to trust in the Lord God alone for our well-being, then Paul spells out the consequence in verse 11: "God will send upon them a strong delusion to make them believe what is false."

I invite you to please relisten to my episode called "God's Message in the 2024 Eclipse" because God put a billboard in the sky announcing the Apostasia that he sees over this country. Why the United States? Because we have the most Christians and the most Jews of any other country. The Lord was able to speak from the heavens to both groups whom he loves.

The date of the 2024 eclipse was the last day of Adar. This is a critical date to God because this date ushers in the new moon of Nissan. And that day, Nissan 1, sets the entire yearly calendar of Judaism by which God's people can determine the appointed times God has set to meet with him.

The reason this is so significant in 2024 is that through Nissan 1, God was announcing to the world that Holy Week would begin in 10 days. But wait a minute—Christians had already celebrated Easter 26 days before.

God hit the alarm button for people to wake up and see they are in danger of Apostasia. God was shouting to Christians from the heavens, "You're on the wrong path." In our passage in 2 Thessalonians, Paul gives us the way to get back on path and escape the danger of complete delusion.

He tells us in verse 15, quote, "Brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught," unquote. And what are the traditions? That word is "paradosis," and it refers to the Jewish traditionary law.

By following regular Torah study according to the Jewish calendar, this is how we are able to stand firm and keep from veering 26 days off course. A good majority of Jews in Israel have veered away from following the Torah. And goodness knows, Christians don't do it. They are content with their own traditions.

Unless there is a major repentance and turning back to God's magnetic north, the church as we know it will continue to veer off towards God knows where. A good pilot navigating these end-of-days must be able to recognize when our magnetic system has precessed. That means we've gotten off course, and we have to manually reset it.

In closing, I want to refer you to two important monographs in my online store to help you at this juncture. The first is "Uncovering the Ancient Snare" that will prepare you historically concerning the diabolical scheme that millions have fallen into.

The second monograph is called "Jewish Roots: God's Call to Reconnect." This is a critical word of warning that now is the time to return to the faith of our forefathers. We don't have much time left to get back on course. You'll find these monographs at candacelong.com/store.

I want to thank you for taking time to be with me today. You will find this episode, "The Final Week of the Church Age, Part 2," on my podcast page at candacelong.com. Join me next time as I continue this important series. I'm Candace Long, and you've been listening to Lessons in the Latter Days. God bless.