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. This series is all about God's biblical times and seasons and how they help us navigate safely to the kingdom. Today's topic is called "The Hidden Signal in the Hebrew month of Nissan, Part 1." Today I'm going to show you how God signaled the world for Messiah's first coming. Next time in Part 2, I'll show you how He'll use this same signal to point the way to when Messiah will return.

The first month of spring in Hebrew is called Nissan. It's spelled N-I-S-S-A-N. It's not pronounced like the car, Nissan. It's Nissan. Now, if you're looking at spring through a Christian lens, it's all about Easter: clothes, bunnies, eggs, Easter service, Easter dinner. And the general belief is that once Easter comes, that's pretty much it biblically—nothing else really going on. But seen through the lens of our Jewish forefathers, nothing could be further from the truth. Because the crucifixion and resurrection are not the end of the story; they are the beginning.

Let me expand your thinking about what Christians call Easter. The word Easter comes from a pagan Roman festival having to do with the goddess Ishtar. It is not a celebration that Jesus would have attended. One of the fastest-growing movements going on right now among believers is a hunger to connect with our Jewish roots. I'm part of this movement. It's one of my biggest priorities.

So let me talk to you today about this important season, because in it we find four of the seven appointed festivals that God instructed His people to celebrate. Four of them. Can you name them? Are you celebrating them? Here they are in order: First is Pesach, or Passover. Second is Hag HaMatzot, or Feast of Unleavened Bread. Number three is Bikkurim, or First Fruits.

These three happen all in one week—the week that Christians celebrate as Holy Week or Easter week. But after that, we have 49 days called "Counting the Omer," followed by festival number four called Shavuot, also known as the Feast of Weeks because it comes after a seven-weeks-long journey. Shavuot is the destination point for the journey that we know as the Exodus. It begins at Pesach and ends at Shavuot.

Now, if all this sounds foreign to you, you're in a sad state of affairs because you are missing incredible lessons that not only prepared the world for Messiah's first coming but also instructs us in how to live in the tumultuous times before the Day of the Lord, which is now. From the beginning of our biblical history, the first month of the year was Tishrei, the holiest month of the year, beginning with Tishrei 1.

And if you do not know that date, I want to seal it in your brain. Tishrei 1 is regarded in Jewish doctrine as the very day that God created heaven and earth. It is considered to be the birthday of the world. And if you remember anything about this series, the cornerstone doctrine regarding God's times and seasons is seen in what's called the seven-day plan of God. In the book of Genesis, God gave us a tafnit, which is a picture which lays out the entire plan of human history for those who can see it.

God gave us six days followed by a seventh day which is different, called the Sabbath, and He set it apart as holy, consecrated, a time to be with Him. So every week, those of us who follow the Torah rehearse this picture as we light the Shabbat candles on Friday night, inviting Him to enlighten our minds and hearts and then spend the Sabbath with the Lord as He instructs us in the Torah. This is what sets us apart as God's people. This is our 4,000-year biblical heritage.

Here's the metaphorical interpretation of this seven-day plan. The biblical doctrine is this: God gave man six days, each day lasting 1,000 years. So mankind is given 6,000 years after which comes the seventh day, also 1,000 years long. And this is what's called the Kingdom, the Day of the Lord, or the day that is all Sabbath. The Kingdom begins exactly when the world has been in existence for 6,000 years. That's Tishrei 1. And from my studies, I believe we are in the last seven-year period before that day.

So this seven-day plan of God picture was set in stone in the book of Genesis. And now we come to the book of Exodus, which shows us another picture. It tells the story of how God called Moses to deliver His people from an oppressive culture and bring them to meet Him at Mount Sinai. The narrative beginning in Exodus 1 flows freely, telling us how all this happened until we come to Exodus 12.

And it's here in verse 1 where God does something startling. He interrupts the story, the list of all the plagues that He was pouring out on Egypt right before the death of the firstborn. I want to read you this divine interruption, but I'll abbreviate the passage a little for the sake of time and break it down into two sections so we can look at it more closely. First, you need to see the big picture.

In the natural, the Exodus, as it's called, is the historical record of how God delivered His people and brought them to Himself, where He was betrothed to them and they received all of His ways. Metaphorically, then, you should be able to see that the Exodus is a picture—an exact outline of the journey of God's people through life to a specific destination where a marriage ceremony will take place and we will live with Him in His Kingdom, which God has prepared for eternity.

So let's examine each section of this passage, first in the natural and then we'll look at how it may apply to us today. For those of you who may not understand God's metaphorical language, I want you to know that this passage alone teaches three huge lessons. Number one: the way of salvation. Number two: how to prepare our families to be extracted from an evil world system and qualify for the journey to the Kingdom. And number three: how to guarantee our safety from every plague and threat that we will face along the way. That's all here in this one paragraph in the Torah.

Here's section one, quote: "The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 'This month,' which was the month of Nissan, 'shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you,'" unquote. Let's break this down. When chapter 12 opens, it says they were in the land of Egypt. God's people were not living in their destined place—the land that God told them about, a land of promise with God as the Lord. No, they weren't there.

They were enslaved to an ungodly world system that served many gods. The people in leadership did not know the Lord and hated them. Our forefathers have always looked at this period as a tafnit that teaches His people about the transition from an oppressive ungodly culture to a future place where Messiah will be King. God started their 40-year wilderness journey at this very time, deep into the oppression, in the month of Nissan.

Now, this month started God's time clock for His people. It was a signal. Now, I want you to notice in this sentence that God repeats two things. He says the same thing twice. This is significant because God does not repeat something by chance. Repetition is a pattern of speech in Hebrew that He uses for emphasis. So here's this sentence again: "This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you."

God is drawing attention to the month of Nissan for His people. Not everyone is going to see this. It is a hidden signal. He wants His people to see that this month starts a 40-year journey to the Kingdom. I see this as a tafnit. I've said before that the numbers God uses are significant, and the sages freely add a zero or two to find deeper meanings. Let me explain. God says this journey to the Kingdom will last 40 years.

Now, this could easily refer to a journey that is four days long or 4,000 years long. Now I want you to listen closely; this is deep. In the seven-day plan of God, the Exodus happened during day two from creation. So metaphorically, in four more days or 4,000 more years, that's when God's people will arrive at the Kingdom. And when would that be? 4,000 plus 2,000 for day two equals the year 6,000.

Now I want you to begin to see that throughout scripture, God always points His people to the Kingdom. That is our destination. A second insight is that because Nissan is now shifted to become the first month of the year, that makes the month of Tishrei, that used to be the first month, that makes it now the seventh month, which is a picture for the seventh day because that's when the Day of the Lord begins, when the world has completed 6,000 years. Coincidence? No, not with God's language.

When we hit Tishrei 1 in the year 6,001, after the 6,000th year is completed, two simultaneous events occur. Number one: the resurrection, also called the Rapture, where the righteous are extracted out of here in the twinkling of an eye by Messiah and taken to heaven for seven years. And number two: at this exact moment, the birth pangs, or tribulation, begin when God's judgment is poured out on the world for seven years.

So what we are living now is a journey. The time clock begins in month one when our forefathers were being delivered from Egypt, and it ends at month seven, 4,000 years later. God is pointing us to the seventh month, Tishrei 1, which is also called the Feast of Trumpets and the Festival of the Coronation of the King. Every year, the month of Tishrei is celebrated with the remaining three Jewish festivals—the times that we are to meet with God and rehearse the final days.

This seventh month begins with Rosh Hashanah on the first of Tishrei. It is a holy convocation called a Mikra, which is a rehearsal for the resurrection. When we celebrate Rosh Hashanah every year, we rehearse this end-times event and learn more what we will experience on that day at Tishrei 1 in the year 6,001. This is Jewish doctrine, and if you are not celebrating these festivals, you are not properly prepared for the Kingdom.

Now, this next observation is not a "thus saith the Lord," but I sense a significance here I need to mention. This seven months between Nissan and Tishrei could be a tafnit in that we may have seven more years until the Day of the Lord. Now, I'm saying this because this year in 2023, Holy Week was the same week celebrated by Christians, Jews, and Muslims—all descendants of Abraham. The same week.

Now, this ancestral alignment with Holy Week rarely happens. So this could be a clue that we have seven more years. But even if not, Tishrei 1 will always be a sign for us: the seventh month, the seventh day, for God's people to wait for with great expectation. Now let's move to section two where God gives very specific instruction regarding two dates to take note of in the month of Nissan.

Quote: "Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month," that's the tenth of Nissan, "they shall take every man a lamb according to their fathers' houses, without blemish, and keep it until the fourteenth day when the whole congregation shall kill their lambs, take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel," which is the top of the door, "and eat the lambs with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. This is the Lord's Passover, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you upon the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt."

Now several things need commentary. First of all, God says tell all the congregation of Israel. Now most believers tend to think he's talking about all the Jews, but that is not true. Not every Jew listened to Moses or received him as the one that God sent to deliver them. Most of the Jewish people had no desire to listen to instructions about killing a lamb and preparing to leave where they were.

Now it would take me too long to go into, but the Torah and the oral records in the Talmud and the Mishnah explain that only 20% of the Jewish people left at the Exodus. 80% of all the Jews stayed behind. Now, this really speaks to us today because this same thing is what happened in the days of Noah. Only a small percentage of people ever made it through the flood because they were not listening to the warnings and preparations God had given.

Only a small percentage of the Jews started out on this Exodus journey, and an even smaller number actually made it to the Kingdom. This is the picture God is drawing here. If we want to make it through our journey to the Kingdom, we'd better be listening to how God outlined for His people then and do those things now, and not make up our own traditions.

Our forefathers, the Jews, acted out these pictures step by step because God is communicating here His life-saving instructions to those who choose to hear Him. Now, this section is all about the decision to leave where they were and follow God's instruction. And this small 20% took a big leap, and they listened to Moses tell them: "Choose a lamb for your family on the 10th of Nissan and bring that lamb into the home and take care of it, examining it carefully to make sure it had no blemish. For if it did, that lamb would not be accepted as a sacrifice."

Now, this was radical. They'd never heard of such a thing. The sacrifice of the Passover lamb was so important that God rearranged the entire calendar and have the Jews rehearse it every year by celebrating Pesach and the Feast of Unleavened Bread so it would become a tafnit ingrained in us who are living at the end of the ages. It took a lot for these families to say: "I believe Moses has been called to deliver us. I'm going to do as he said."

That lamb had to be killed on the exact time: mid-afternoon on the 14th of Nissan, and its blood applied to the top and sides of the door of the home. This was God's escape plan. The only way His children could be transported from slavery to the land that He promised. The blood of that lamb qualified the people to be passed over by the angel of death and taken by divine intervention out of bondage.

Now, those who have accepted Jesus as the Passover lamb understand this part of the season well. Jesus fulfilled every requirement laid out in the Torah. He was chosen by the nation on the 10th of Nissan, the date he rode a donkey into Jerusalem. He was then inspected for four days by the authorities and found to be without blemish and crucified on the afternoon of the 14th of Nissan.

But what I want you to see is that God gave Moses the assignment of describing the Passover lamb in such detail that we today are able to receive Jesus as that lamb because he fulfilled everything written about him. But there is something that I've been concerned about for a long time, and I want to ask you a question before we close. If the Father was so specific about Messiah's first coming and how we can receive his blood and apply it to our homes, why wouldn't we trust Moses to tell us how to make it through the rest of the journey to the Kingdom?

My concern and my exhortation is that the journey to the Kingdom did not stop at Pesach because that very evening when the lamb was killed began the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which taught them how to prepare for the journey. This festival was a rehearsal too, given by God to how to leave and what to expect. My concern is that most Christians are not prepared for this part of the journey to the Kingdom because they have not fully aligned with Israel.

Many appear to have built an altar there at the place of the sacrifice of the lamb, and that's where they stayed. And they said: "We'll take Jesus, but you Jews can have Moses." Now, this is a dangerous position which the Torah does not support. The call of God for Jesus was to give his life for us as the Passover lamb. But the call for Moses was to impart God's lessons on how to navigate the entire journey to the Kingdom. That part was not Jesus' assignment.

This entire episode was inspired by the hidden signal found in the calendar shift that Moses wrote about in Exodus 12 to point to the significance of the month of Nissan to prepare the way for the coming of Messiah. Next time in Part 2, I'll show you how God will use this same signal to point the way to his return. So the takeaway for today is this: we cannot get to the Kingdom without the lamb and without Moses' direction. That is the teaching of the Torah.

I encourage you to consider reconnecting with our Jewish forefathers. And you might say: "I don't know how to do that." I have been reconnecting since 2006, and helping you do this is part of my calling. I wrote about my journey in a 17-page monograph called *Jewish Roots: God's Call to Reconnect*. You'll find it in my online store at candacelong.com.

I'll put a link to it in the description notes to this episode, and it will teach you practically how to reconnect and how Jesus and Moses properly relate to one another. God entrusted Jesus to prepare the way to the Father, and he entrusted Moses to get us to the Kingdom safely. I want to thank you for listening today. If you'd like to share this episode, you'll find it on my podcast page at candacelong.com/podcasts. And if you subscribe to my website, I'll update you on all the latest resources and training opportunities. I hope you join me again next time for Lessons in the Latter Days. God bless.