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. Before beginning today's episode, I feel the need to describe the timeline we are in right now because prophecies are being fulfilled so quickly. In my recent series, The Final Week of the Church Age, I present evidence from 35 years of research that the final seven years of the church age began in 2020. That's the 2,000-year period since the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah.

I presented a template showing how our final seven years seem to parallel the last seven days of Jesus's earthly life. It shows us where we are and what is coming next. Because the year 2025 actually began on the Hebraic New Year of October 3rd, 2024, this means that we are already halfway through day six. To me, this signifies that we could be less than two years away from the Rapture.

What I want to show you is today's disconnect, which is very disturbing to me. I'm going to use two recent events to illustrate what I'm talking about. Yesterday, I spent several hours listening to a breaking news report on what's going on in Israel by Messianic Rabbi Itzhak Shapira, who showed video of the recent bombings in Yemen, saying Israel just issued a threat to Iran that they are next.

He then revealed prophecies in Obadiah, Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Talmud predicting the fires in Yemen will be the beginning signal of the coming of Messiah. These scriptures identify Yemen will catch fire and ignite what's called Jacob's Trouble through expanded conflict with Persia, which is modern-day Iran. You may recall that Jacob's Trouble is a term referring to the seven-year birth pangs, which Christians call the Tribulation. What is the biblical event that triggers the birth pangs? The Rapture.

The Rabbi ended the video with tears welling in his eyes and he said, "So many of my people will be shocked at how close Messiah's coming is." The second event happened a little over a week ago when I made a major presentation to high-level media executives on the needs that I see that must be addressed, given how close we are to Jesus coming for us. Following the presentation, I looked at their faces and I saw three deer in headlights.

Finally, the leader spoke and he said, "To be quite honest, you've presented things I have never even thought of before, ever." Long pause. "Can you send us this proposal so we can have time to reflect on it?" I'm telling you this because this disconnect by longtime Christian business executives is a serious matter. So many of us who see what's happening and know that we have been sent out by God to get His bride ready, and we are met with deaf ears by millions of Christians.

My prayer today is that you will listen to what I have been given to teach. Today I begin a multi-part series called Lessons from Exodus 12. You see, since my last episode, Recognizing a Divine Interruption, I could not shake the question in my spirit as to why God interrupted Exodus to change the calendar and make the month of Nisan the first month of the year instead of the seventh month, which is where it had been for 2,000 years. That interruption wouldn't leave me alone, and I have been in the trenches of research for weeks now to know why.

Let me give you a 70,000-foot perspective of what I learned. Historically, God's interruption at Exodus 12 accomplished four things, and I want you to please take note of them because they are very important. Number one, the interruption identified the remnant who were found worthy to leave Egypt and follow Moses. Number two, it specified the exact time to leave and step-by-step instructions to experience God's miraculous deliverance.

Number three, it consecrated this remnant and prepared them to meet the Lord at Mount Sinai. Number four, it taught them the Passover laws God entrusted them to steward as a sacred charge, promising that if they followed the laws, they would get to the kingdom safely. Exodus 12 is a beautiful and important taproot if you have eyes to see it because it was meant for us today. How do we know this? From the wording that God used in Exodus 12:1-2.

Let me show you. I'm using the transliteration directly from the Hebrew: "Hashem said to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying: This month shall be for you the beginning of the months; the first it is for you of the months of the year." Here are six observations. Observation number one: they were still in the land. Hashem said to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt. They hadn't left yet. Whatever God said was meant to prepare them for what was to come.

The children of Israel had been doing their thing in the land of Goshen during the whole year that God poured out nine plagues on Egypt. They watched them all unfold. They lived it out in real-time and were kept safe. The sages estimate that since they had been there 210 years, the Hebrew population had increased to about 15 million living in Goshen and working in Egypt. Thanks to Hollywood, we picture these people in chains working in forced labor camps with foremen cracking whips over their backs.

But that wasn't the case according to Orthodox Rabbi Alon Anava. Yes, it was backbreaking work, but they weren't prisoners. They were chained mentally and emotionally to a labor-intensive culture ruled by a leader who was determined to make Egypt great and needed the Hebrews to make it happen. It wasn't a life of freedom and personal satisfaction. They had children and families. They did what they had to do to survive and put food on the table.

God interrupted their lives right here to tell them He was coming to deliver them away from that bondage, but most of them were not listening. Observation number two: the verse says that God is speaking to Moses and Aaron. These two were privy to God's ways and were the stewards of all of His instructions. They, and they alone, held the keys and the roadmap to a land that God promised would be theirs.

I want you to notice how God uses the phrase "for you," as in "this month shall be for you the beginning of months." Right here, He is separating the people. He is speaking only to those who are listening to Moses. He's not issuing an executive order for everyone in the land to obey; He's speaking only to the remnant, introducing them to a new calendar that He is establishing for eternity. This is the critical point because just as He separated the mass of people into two groups then, He is separating right now the mass of people who claim to be followers of Jesus.

Which group we're in is determined by what each person does with the first month, which is the month of Nisan. Group number one was the small group who listened to Moses and followed the instructions. Group two was the larger group who were so involved in what they had going on that they didn't bother to listen to Moses. So every instruction that came next was only for group number one. How many people are we talking about?

The Torah tells us a few verses later that those who left Egypt were 600,000 men plus their wives and children, and this is estimated to be about three million people. The sages tell us this amounted to 20% or one-fifth of the people. Let's do the math. If three million represent 20% of the nation, that means the 80% who were not listening were some 12 million people. This means only the small group got the instructions on their deliverance, and those who were not listening would not be delivered.

Observation number three: this smaller group believed what Moses was saying. They observed his walk with God and how everything he said came to pass. He said God would turn the water to blood; He did. Bring forth frogs; He did. Call forth the hail and locusts; they came. So his credibility with that 20% grew all that year while Egypt was experiencing judgment. Now what God was about to do next was give this small group a roadmap of four things they needed to do to prepare for their deliverance, each event assigned to a specific day in the month of Nisan.

If they missed Nisan and the specific day in Nisan, they would miss the deliverance. But the way God spoke to them was strange, and it signals something else I want you to note. He said, "This month, Nisan, shall be for you the beginning of months," and notice that He says the same thing again, only slightly different: "The first it is for you of the months of the year." That brings us to observation four: God said the same thing twice.

Over the years that I've been studying Torah, I have learned that every single word matters to God. He would not interrupt an entire narrative for no reason, and he wouldn't say it twice. Repeating something is a signal. It tells us that whatever He is about to announce will happen two different times. First, it occurs historically then, and that same thing will happen again right before the Day of the Lord. Observation five is to take note of where God's people were in their journey when this interruption took place.

They had just witnessed nine plagues. In Exodus 11, the chapter right before, the Lord told Moses to expect one more plague, the worst one yet: the death of the firstborn of both families and animals throughout the whole country. Not one family would escape death to someone close to them. After that, Pharaoh would drive them out, and God would deliver them in such a miraculous way that the whole world would know that God is the master of all creation.

Observation six: we now come to Exodus 12, where the Lord proceeds to give them very specific instructions to lead them step-by-step in what to do after this final plague, which would lead to the Exodus. I want to stop here and remind you what the word Exodus means. In the natural, an Exodus is a mass departure of people from one location to another. It was an appointed time for God to come take His people in a miraculous way out of a wicked kingdom and bring them to meet with Him and learn to become a nation of priests.

They would be His governing arm in the whole world. I have a question for you: Has God been warning us and interrupting our lives to point our attention to the month of Nisan? The answer is yes. God has interrupted our daily lives over the last several years, each time pointing us to the month of Nisan. Why? Because an Exodus is exactly what the Rapture is, and because He's coming soon, He needs to prepare us for that event.

He wants us to be with Him. The Rapture, which is technically referred to as the Redemption or the first resurrection, is an appointed time when Messiah comes to the clouds and miraculously plucks His Gentile bride out of a godless kingdom and brings us to where He is in the heavenly kingdom. We will remain with Him there for seven years and learn how to help Jesus rule His kingdom on earth.

I want to show you that since 2022, God has interrupted our lives through four heavenly events that I have written about in depth and will link to in today's description notes. The first event was the lunar eclipse in 2022 that fell on Election Day, November 8th. The message was that we have to elect or choose between God's ways or the world's. Will we be led by the sun, which represents the world, or the moon, which God created to establish all of the appointed times to meet with His people every year?

If we dismiss those times, we are flying blind in these latter days. Number two, the second event was a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. April 8th fell on the last day of the month of Adar, which signaled the new moon of the month of Nisan, announcing that it would begin at sundown. So God was saying Nisan is here to all of the Christians and Jews living in America.

Therefore, it was time to prepare for the Passover ten days later on the 10th of Nisan. But there was a problem. Christians had already celebrated Holy Week 26 days before. So God's message became more urgent: Christians, you're on the wrong path. The third event was a tornado streak that devastated America's heartland beginning just 17 days later on April 25, 2024.

I discuss it in great detail in the episode God's Incredible EF3 Message to America. The takeaway in that event was that heaven's violent sifting targeted the heart of our country's grain fields, and the grain represents us. The tornadoes began on April 25th, which was the 17th of Nisan. This was the exact date Jesus was taken from the earth at the resurrection. That was His Exodus and the exact day and time when the Jews were delivered at the Red Sea.

That was their Exodus. Two redemptions on the same day in Nisan, a double confirmation which foreshadows our Exodus at the Rapture. Once again, God's plumb line was Nisan. Finally, the fourth event was the lunar eclipse that occurred this past March 13, 2025, which happened to be the 13th of Adar, which is the first day of the festival of Purim. The entire month of Adar was always set apart to prepare the entire infrastructure for the people to go up to Jerusalem to worship God at Passover with their offerings.

Every road, bridge, and path had to be cleared, repaired, and the land cleansed of anything that could defile the people. Adar was devoted to preparing the way for them to go up to Jerusalem, which is a code phrase in Hebrew for the resurrection. In other words, this is metaphorical language for God pointing to the month of Adar to make our preparations to go up. But there's more. Adar 13th was the day that Queen Esther called for a fast because that day Haman chose to annihilate every Jew in the empire one year from that day.

From the perspective of our final week calendar, Adar 13 fell during Jesus's day six, His last working day, ending with the Last Supper with His disciples the night before He was bound, killed, and removed from the planet. I cannot tell you how heartbroken I was celebrating Passover this year on April 13th, one week before Christians celebrated Easter in droves.

I saw God waving His arms to get them to follow His ways and celebrate Pesach, and I had been warning and instructing the entire year before. But it appeared as if the pied piper of Hellenism was too strong, and it grieved me. My personal feeling is that this series on Exodus 12 will show the divine interruption to be a final warning to those who are on the fence.

Before closing, I want to leave you with four takeaways and exhortations based on where we've been since 2020, and I'll do my best to interpret what is likely to happen during our remaining time living in the church age. Number one, I believe we have one more Passover to celebrate before the Rapture, and I urge you with everything in me to avoid celebrating Easter and attend a Seder to prepare yourself properly for the kingdom.

Number two, I anticipate that in the year 2026 or during Nisan of 2027, we will experience something life-shattering causing sudden deaths on a global scale. This would mirror the final plague in Egypt. This will not affect those who are paying attention and following the instructions written in Exodus 12, which we'll discuss more in-depth next time. Because you see, God is preparing those of us who are listening for our Exodus. I believe it will be during a catastrophe of global magnitude.

Our Exodus, of course, is right on the heels of this, and He has been working to prepare us in so many ways because He wants us with Him. Number three, this is a major time of separation. If you choose to pay attention, the Lord will be separating you from others who follow Hellenism. They will not understand no matter how much you talk with them because these instructions are no longer for them. They are only for you.

Number four, no matter what situation you find yourself in, if the Rapture has not happened yet, then He wants you to carry God's light and do everything you can to shine the path for others and make the world a better place while there is still day. That is our charge. It's not to go off and cocoon in a closet. Yes, we need our safe places to regroup spiritually because the spiritual ground is shifting all over the world.

During His final discourse at the Passover Seder, Jesus said, and I paraphrase and condense: "When I go to prepare a place for you, which is the infrastructure being built now to transport millions from the earth to the heavenly kingdom, I will come again and I will take you to myself that where I am you may be also. I am the way, the Derech. If you love me, you will keep my commandments, my mitzvot. These include the instructions that the Father gave to Moses in Exodus 12. The hour is coming where whoever kills you or trashes you with their tongues will think he's doing God a favor. But when their hour comes, you will remember I told you of them. I have overcome the world."

There was a lot in this episode, and it took a long time to pull together from weeks of research. I encourage you to listen to it again because of its significance and because I believe Exodus 12 to be God's final warning to His people. I do not want you to be left behind to endure the birth pangs, and I'm working day and night to pass on these instructions. Next time in part two, I'll continue dealing with issues that Christians are wrestling with in all this.

Please feel free to write me and ask questions. You can reach me at info@candacelong.com. If you want to refer this episode to others, go to candacelong.com/podcast and look for this episode, Lessons From Exodus 12, Part 1. I'm Candace Long, and I hope you join me again next time for Lessons in the Ladder Days. God bless.