Lessons in the Ladder Days

Candace Long: I'm Candace Long with Lessons in the Ladder Days, offering biblical commentary to make sense of the times we're living in. Today's episode begins something very different for me. It's called Last Minute Instructions, Part 1: Miraculous Provisions. I suspect this may be my final series within Lessons in the Ladder Days, at least that is the way it appears to me now. I have no idea how many parts will be in it, but let me make three disclaimers right at the onset.

Number one, because of my heavy production schedule delivering the three-hour program Shabbat Shalom every week to my media partner WEEZ AM 590, my time is limited. As those of you know who have listened to me for any length of time, my sense of calling is to chronicle what it is like living in the sixth generation right before the Day of the Lord. None of us has walked this way before, so we don't have a script telling us exactly what's going to happen. Or do we?

What we have is God's word, which is filled with instructions of these final days. But they are hidden in the form of tavniot, or pictures—stories given to those who have eyes to see them and who are privileged to learn how to interpret this metaphorical language of the spirit. This language is also found in visions and dreams, where they too require knowing how to interpret them. My disclaimer is that this series is likely going to be more stream of consciousness. I no longer have the hours and hours that it takes to do a lot of editing, so be patient and learn to flow with my thoughts.

The second disclaimer is I'm going to bring in from time to time actual graphics that I have made available on our new homepage at shabbatshalomradio.com. You'll find this Candace Long handout at the top of the page. When you click on it, you'll see page after page of graphic illustrations that I created to use with students to take them deeper into understanding God's ways. So when I refer you to this handout, you can see what I'm discussing.

The third disclaimer is a request that you please respect my intellectual property. You are welcome to download my handout and use it for your own personal study, but I ask that you not share it with others or teach others using these illustrations. Everything you see here is protected by copyright laws. It's called intellectual property. Respecting the creative work of others is an important Levitical discipline that I want to make sure you understand. God will never bless us when we take what belongs to someone else and present it as our own. God is the one who creates, Satan steals and takes credit for it, and we are to walk in God's ways.

I am very conscious of where we are in God's timetable. After studying the biblical end of days for over 35 years, I believe that as of the spring of 2026, we are just months away before Messiah comes at the first resurrection. Yes, I said months. If I'm correct, then I have little time left on this earth because I know that I'll be going when He comes. Now, it would take too long to explain how I arrived at this belief, but this is where I want to encourage you to step up and do some work on your own so you will develop your own sense of where you are in God's timetable.

Let me say it this way: if you want to understand my thinking about these days, you must know these things deep in your heart. And to do that, you must study them, test them out, and see if they're true. You must learn to see God's times and seasons as I have been taught. If my teachings do not resonate with you, move on. It's okay, you will not hurt my feelings. This is your time to do your own research. Just don't go from person to person, podcast to podcast. Pull away and spend dedicated time with the Lord. He wants you to be prepared. Ask Him, "Father, I want to be where You are and busy doing what You put me here to do. Lead me to the right people to teach me about these days and prepare me for Your coming."

Now, to study deeper with me in this Last Minute Instructions series, you need to understand that I began Lessons in the Ladder Days with my first episode written in February of 2021 called "When Life Falls Apart." I want you to think of the entire list of topics as my personal chronicle of everything that we have experienced in the last five years, from the pandemic to the war with Iran to UFO classified documents being released. My programs are listed from the bottom in order of my chronicles and are always found at candacelong.com/podcasts. The ones at the top of the list are my latest. So if you want to learn more about the final seven years of the church age, for instance, I direct you to the seven-part series called "The Final Week of the Church Age" written in 2024. It will explain how this revelation came about.

Now let's just pause a minute so you can picture this. Click on my handout and go to page nine. At the bottom of the page, you will see two seven-year periods back-to-back beginning with the year 2020. The second period ends at 2033 and represents the seven-year tribulation that actually begins the Day of the Lord. Jews call this the birth pangs, and it is structured according to Daniel 9 called a biblical week of years where one day equals one year. This week of years is depicted right above it starting with the year 6001, meaning that this is what the first seven years look like after the world has reached 6,000 years.

As I was pondering the seven-year birth pangs, I asked myself, "What happens before those final seven years?" And it struck me that there has to be a very unique, similar seven-year period leading up to that, kind of like a dress rehearsal for the Day of the Lord. And all of a sudden it hit me that this would be the final seven years of the church age, the 2,000 years since the resurrection. My excitement grew as I began connecting some dots.

First of all, it would be just like God to give us—meaning followers of Jesus as the Messiah—a seven-year rehearsal of what Israel will have to endure during the birth pangs. After all, our Jewish forefathers lived out the entire journey of the wilderness to the kingdom for our benefit, so we would learn how to navigate this time. It stands to reason, then, that the Lord would have us live out these seven oppressive, horrible years on our way out of this world in order to encourage them. This sounded fair to me. So if I were on the right track, then I needed to examine these final seven years leading up to it.

On page 12 of my handout, you will see the graph I developed pinpointing 2020 during Passover as the start date of these final horrible seven years that we are in now. The Lord led me to develop a template and lay each date above the timeline chart showing what Jesus was doing that day leading up to His death on the 14th of Nisan. Now, for those of you who are without the graph, above the linear line are the Hebrew dates of Passover week with each day corresponding to the actual year, meaning that day one in Jesus' last seven days was the 8th of Nisan, and He was with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany. That day corresponds to the year 2020.

Thankfully, the New Testament gives us a historically based chronology showing exactly what Jesus was doing during each of these seven days leading up to His death on the 14th. This is where you will need to put in some time to study this graph. Once you see the incredible template called "Follow the Body," it tells us what He was doing during each day to instruct us in what we should be busy doing during our final seven years. And just so you know, this is what I have been doing. I am following the body every day.

For example, on the 12th of Nisan, representing Jesus' day five, He taught almost exclusively on the kingdom, telling us every imaginable parable of what it's like. That day on the graph corresponded to the year 2024 when a bulk of my teachings were written. What were they written about? The kingdom. He was teaching the masses, and that was the time I was led to expand my media presence on multiple radio stations.

As you can see on the graph, by the time we come to 2025, we learn that Jesus pulled away from the masses in order to teach His disciples. He narrowed His focus, and by following the body, I narrowed mine. I focused my media dollars on WEEZ radio because that station was the main one who got what I was doing. They bent over backwards to offer me prime time. Besides, Boston was the land where my forefathers came to this country, and I had been led sometime earlier to sow spiritual seed into the land of my forefathers. So I narrowed my focus in 2025 and began to envision Shabbat Shalom last year to provide those fully committed to the Lord with one year of Torah study to prepare them for entering the Messianic kingdom.

Now, before examining 2026, let me show you one of the primary confirmations that I was seeing this final week correctly. If these final seven years are structured as a biblical week of years, then something had to have happened exactly at the three-and-a-half-year mark. I want you to look at day four on this graph corresponding to the year 2023. Beginning from Nisan 8, the three-and-a-half-year mark was October 7, 2023. That was the exact day when Hamas attacked Israel, and the world has not been the same since that attack.

I want to share a significant dream from 2025 that actually inspired this series. I'm going to read from my dream journal written after waking up, and I'll insert some comments along the way. "This was an incredibly vivid dream that seemed to go on and on. My sense was a big performance had just taken place, and I and others were in a production meeting following the event. We were debriefing in a large room, and all of a sudden I noticed small, round, dime-shaped translucent coins all over the rug. I got down on my hands and knees and began collecting them, scooping them up into piles. Everyone else stood there watching me, clueless to what I was doing. I asked someone to bring me a container to put the pile in and then kept on picking up the coins. I found it strange that no one else was dashing to the floor to scoop up what was clear to me was translucent money. And looking back, though, I don't think anyone else knew what this was. The camera angle was on me, gathering the money into piles. I began organizing people to get together and decide what the needs were in that area, and then determine where the money should be directed. So while that was going on, three of the students came up to me and revealed personal needs that they had. So what was needed was to divide the money into one large gift for a community need, and a smaller part of it would help those among the group who expressed need."

The last scene that I recall was telling some of the witnesses that I had often heard about miraculous provision like this but had never personally witnessed it before. And suddenly, I am removed from the scene and I find myself in a vehicle with maybe two other people. And we're still talking about this miracle, but what seemed strange to me inside the dream was that I was not with the other people, the larger group. I didn't get to tell them goodbye, and it seems that I wanted to give last minute instructions. And the dream ended.

Let me share seven observations from the dream, which is the next step in interpreting a dream. And just so you know, I follow the dream interpretation steps that Joseph used in Genesis 41 when he interpreted Pharaoh's dream, and I start by asking questions. Observation one: what was the dreamer doing? That's always where you start to see what your role is in the dream because that relates to your calling. I was debriefing after some big event and seeing miraculous provision on the ground. Then, like a good Levite, I collected it and directed it to a worthwhile cause. And then poof, I was in another place, removed from any publicity or personal praise. I simply knew what to do and I did it as unto the Lord.

Observation number two: what were these translucent coins? Now, the language of a God dream is the same language of the spirit and the same language of the Torah. So what was this translucent provision that miraculously appeared on the ground? Manna. It miraculously appeared and sustained God's people every single day during the wilderness journey to the kingdom.

Observation number three: the Jewish commentaries explain that God gave three gifts to sustain the Jewish people during their wilderness journey. He gave them Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. Each one representing three separate blessings from God. Miriam represented the well of water. Aaron represented the pillar of cloud, which represented God's physical presence and divine protection. And Moses represented the manna, the heavenly food that sustained them throughout the journey.

Observation number four: I was led to Psalm 19, verses 7 through 11, which says, "The Torah of the Lord is perfect, turning back the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The mitzvot of the Lord are pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous. More to be desired are they than gold. By them is Your servant warned, and in keeping them there is great reward." Now, this marvelous passage defines the miraculous provision the Lord gave us to sustain us through what's coming: the Torah, the edut, the pikudi, the mitzvot, and the mishpatim. These are the five pillars of Judaism that govern God's kingdom and they carry with them yirat Adonai, the fear of the Lord.

Observation number five: I knew immediately that this was the key to unlocking the dream. For I was the only one in the dream who saw these translucent wafer-like coins on the floor and I knew their worth. Now notice from the dream there were only three out of the crowd of people who were watching me collect it and who actually came and asked for some of what I had collected. This told me that only a few will really want to learn how to spot the manna that will sustain us through what's coming.

Observation six: I studied Exodus 16 to learn more about the manna, and I noticed that the Lord instructed them to gather in twice as much on the sixth day. Another revelation hit me. I realized that's where we are. We are the sixth generation living at the end of the sixth day before the Day of the Lord, which is day seven. So what was the Lord saying? He instructed His people to collect twice as much on the sixth day. Why? Because He would provide nothing on day seven. Now, this is a huge revelation. If we are living during the sixth day, the admonition is to gather more bread that comes from heaven because very soon, nothing will come.

I realized that God had given me eyes to see the miraculous provision and revelation was scattered all over the floor. God is providing this revelatory flow now to sustain us during times of drought, which I believe are coming. And some of His Levites like me are given eyes to see it and collect it. Now once the manna was collected, then the people were told to prepare it before the Sabbath, which is a picture of the Day of the Lord. This preparation took time, for the women had to transform those wafers into something substantive to feed their families. In like manner, my calling has involved turning these nuggets of revelation into digital audio episodes and publications to help my family survive throughout the remainder of day six.

I felt a burst of excitement realizing that I have taken the time to memorialize everything that He has taught me in the Torah on this sixth day. I have six three-ring binders filled with 150 scripts that will sustain me every day during the season of drought that the world would experience on day seven when the birth pangs begin. This dream was not only affirmation for what I have done, but it is a word of wisdom for you to collect those things that He has been teaching you. On day seven, there will be no provision of food. God's presence will be hidden, and those who remain after Messiah comes at the first resurrection will be thrown into extreme distress.

So the final observation, number seven: what is my personal takeaway? First, the dream showed me that I will disappear suddenly, whether this was the rapture itself or whether God is telling me that I will go before that time. But my key takeaway is that the Father was showing me what my calling has been: to provide spiritual nourishment from the Torah for those who are left behind through Shabbat Shalom as well as Lessons in the Ladder Days.

I want to encourage you to store up solid teaching from the teachers that you respect for the time when the spiritual cupboard is bare. If you know that you will be taken when He comes, then your gathering of teachings is something tangible that you can leave behind for those you love. As an example, you can put teachings—mine or other teachers'—on a thumb drive and leave them to your family and friends who may be left behind. This gift will be worth far more than gold.

If you'd like to forward this episode to others, go to candacelong.com/podcasts and look for Last Minute Instructions, Part 1: Miraculous Provisions. If my teaching has meant a lot to you, would you consider a one-time donation to help me make one final radio push to reach others before I go? You'll find a donate button in the description notes to this episode or on my homepage at candacelong.com. You've been listening to Lessons in the Ladder Days. To be continued, Lord willing.