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 we're living in. At long last, I'm finally able to get back to the series that I began three months ago. Today is part three of the last year of the church age.

As with every other episode I have produced within the Lessons in the Latter Days series, it takes me a while to experience when we are entering a new phase on our way to the redemption. The other evening, I had dinner with a ministry colleague, and we both expressed astonishment over how degraded our culture has become.

By way of introduction, I want to introduce you to an aeronautical term that is relevant. It's called situational awareness. Here's the definition from the pilot's handbook of aeronautical knowledge: "Situational awareness is the acute perception and understanding of all the factors and conditions within five elements: the flight, the pilot, the aircraft, the environment, and the type of operation you're in. Monitoring radio communications for traffic, weather, and ATC communication helps the pilot develop a mental picture of what is happening."

To boil this down, when we are navigating to a specific destination—in our case, we are on our way to the kingdom—and the journey gets murky and unclear, it is critical to stop and get input from multiple sources who understand better than we do what's going on and how we proceed.

This is no ordinary journey. It is reserved for the sixth generation living right before the Day of the Lord. We've never been this way before, and something very strange is happening. Thankfully, we have a Heavenly Father who understands our angst, and I want to share with you what I've been learning.

Just as a pilot consults three sources—radio communications, the weather, and air traffic control—so I bring you input from three sources that I have been consulting. The first source is a recent teaching by Orthodox Israeli Rabbi Alon Anava on January 7th. Second is a disturbing dream I had six days later on January 13th. And third is critical perspective from the Torah portion we are studying right now.

I'm saving the Torah commentary for last, not because it is least important, but because when you see how the first two sources relate to the Torah portion of where we are today, I believe it will all gel for you as it did for me. Today's outline is threefold. First, I'll report on these three sources for insight as we each are like children in the backseat of a vehicle not mature enough to drive, so we keep asking, "How much further?"

Secondly, I will offer commentary on what to do in light of where we are on God's timetable. And finally, I will conclude by answering the question: What did the 20 percent of the Jews who left at the Exodus do to merit going? This may seem like a strange ending, but the sages tell us that at the time of the Exodus, the children of Israel were at the 49th level of impurity, meaning their lives were a mess.

They were a hair's breadth away from being annihilated. They were not shining examples of godliness and spirituality, and that should give us comfort right there. So we will learn what good works they did that merited their deliverance.

Source number one is a teaching that Rabbi Anava gave on January 7th when current events prompted him to speak out. He opened with the first chapter of Shemot, which is the Book of Exodus, verse 8: "Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph."

Leadership is shifting. Mamdani was just sworn in as mayor of New York City, where we find the largest concentration of Jews in the world, apart from Israel. Mamdani swore his oath on the Quran, and one of his first declarations was to remove all security from synagogues in the city.

The Jewish people are now fair game to whatever raging mob might target them. To Anava, this is a dangerous shift. The situation has prompted him to make yet another trip to the United States before Purim to give what may be a final warning to American Jews that now is the time they must relocate to Israel; they are no longer safe here.

He quoted from Rabbi Yohanan, who was an important Jewish sage from the Second Temple period who wrote about the world to come. This comes from the Talmud, Sanhedrin tractate, page 97a: "During the generation in which Messiah comes, Torah scholars decrease, and as for the rest of the people, their eyes fail with sorrow and grief, and troubles increase. And the harsh decrees will be introduced. Before the first passes, the second quickly comes."

Let me break this out briefly. He says troubles increase. This word "troubles" is the Hebrew "tsarot," which is the word used for birth pangs. Increasingly more oppressive problems, as labor pains intensify one right after another. Now, we've studied where the birth pangs are relative to where we are now, and we're not there yet because, as we've learned throughout this series, the event that triggers the birth pangs is at the very end of the 2,000-year Church Age, and Messiah comes to the clouds to gather up those he is taking in the first resurrection.

We're still here, so the birth pangs has not come yet. But Anava, who is not Messianic but a devout Orthodox Jew, sees the birth pangs almost here. Anava said, "All these wars we're seeing are distractions to keep our minds there while they, the Erev Rav, are planning something big. We are reading a script that happened already 3,000 years ago."

He then quoted from the Zohar concerning Exodus, which says, "After all these troubles, tsarot, all the nations will come against Israel." Anava explained there are two levels of nations that we're dealing with. The seven nations are different from the 70 nations of the world, and we're talking about the seven nations that are enemies of Israel.

And we will know these seven because they will come together as a coalition, and this coalition will awaken some harsh decrees. The appointed time that we are celebrating next is Purim, which is March 2nd and 3rd this year. Anava explained that Haman linked decrees together against the Jews and turned everyone against them, and then tried to group all the Jews together in one location so they could be annihilated.

This is the tactic Hitler used. It is a narrow, constricted place. His teaching came less than a week after Trump invaded Venezuela, which has been an ally of Iran, and he was reminded of a prophecy in the Midrash that says, "Before Messiah comes, there will be friction between the king of Persia and the king of Arabia." These refer to Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The result is that the Arab king will go to the king of Edom, and then the king of Persia, Iran, will rise upon them and destroy half the world. Anava very much sees President Trump as the king of Edom, and we're seeing him stirring up skirmishes with Iran by his actions in Venezuela.

Anava sees these tsarot, troubles, will continue to increase and worsen the closer we come to the birth pangs. He believes that 2020 began a spiral from which the world as we know it would not recover. His timeline coincides with what my 35-year research has pinpointed as the beginning of the final week of the Church Age, so we're talking about the same time frame here.

He is coming to America to plead for his people, for he believes that the signs are too eerily similar to what happened in Nazi Germany. If terrorist attacks increase dramatically in American cities and these disturbances do damage and cost them millions of dollars, Anava said, "What I see increasing is people turning against Jews, saying, 'Because of you, we have terror attacks in our cities.' That's when the public sentiment will turn dramatically. This is all going to get worse: more terror attacks, more wars. My entire tour is how to prepare yourself. Most people are not prepared for the day when the switch turns off, including audio. Doing teshuvah is the only thing that's going to save you."

Let's move to source number two and then consult the Torah for perspective. On January 13th, I woke up in the middle of a disturbing dream. I fought against breaking it out because it was so horrible. I had been in a very peaceful state with the Lord before going to bed. Let me read from my journal.

"This was a slimy, dark dream where I found myself in a situation where there was no option to get out. I was expected to play my part and do what was expected of me. The people around me were all shady and dark; there was no light. It was as if we were in a prearranged narrative. My sense was that I had to try to carry on and not compromise myself and my integrity," and the dream ended.

Now, before I share the dream's interpretation, I want to point out a phrase from my journal. I wrote, "It was as if we were in a prearranged narrative." Anava said something similar: "We are reading a script that happened 3,000 years ago." Now, what I want you to see is that a Spirit-filled, Torah-observant Gentile and an Orthodox Jewish rabbi are seeing the same thing.

Now, let me introduce the Torah portion to bring this all together. It took me several hours to properly break out this dream, and the final step was to study the Torah portion of Anava's teaching as well as my dream. The parashah, or portion, for this teaching was Shemot, the beginning of the Book of Exodus. My dream fell on Vayera, the next portion in Exodus.

Now, just to give you perspective, one of the central themes of Exodus is found in Genesis 45:9, when Joseph sent word to his father Jacob saying, "God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me." Now, the phrase "come down" is the Hebrew word "yarad," which means to descend, to go to a lower region.

The sages say this has a metaphorical meaning. Israel is about to descend into a spiritual abyss. Jacob was a prophet; he knew what this meant. Israel was going into exile and he was troubled; he was worried what would become of his family. In the next chapter, he stopped on his way to Egypt and offered a sacrifice, and God spoke to him in a vision and said, "Don't be afraid. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again."

This is a powerful prophetic word. The Lord is saying, "I will yarad with you. I will descend into that scary place with you and your descendants, and I will bring you up again. I will cause you to arise and ascend."

The Lord began to speak to my spirit, and he said, "This is Egypt that you experienced in your dream. You and this generation are going to experience everything Israel felt. I am showing you the cloud of darkness that has been cast all over the land. Your only hope is the Lord's return. You must cling to me and cry out for mercy and for deliverance. But the promise that I gave to Jacob I give to your generation: I will go down with you and I will bring you up." And the word "up" means to rise.

Let me return to Rabbi Anava's teaching now and share what he advised to do. He said, "This is no time to quit; just acclimate yourself to a new GPS route. The time is going faster than you imagine, and you feel like nothing is getting done. Don't fall asleep while you're on the watch."

Now, does this remind you of something? It should. This is exactly what Jesus said to the three disciples he took with him into Gethsemane before being arrested. We find the scene in Matthew 26:36. He told them to sit there and wait, and then went off to pray agonizing prayers to the Father. He came back and found them sleeping, and he said, "Could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation."

He went off to pray again and returned and found them sleeping again, and he said, "Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." Now, just moments later, when Judas led the mob to arrest him, as recorded in Luke's Gospel chapter 22, Jesus said to the chief priests and captains of the temple and elders, "When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour and the power of darkness."

We have descended into Egypt, an appointed time called an hour of darkness in the Gospels. That word means a short season. It is when the power of darkness has been cast over the atmosphere, and those who are spiritually sensitive feel it. It is constricting, unsettling, and no one seems to have the answers to fix things because there is chaos everywhere.

Anava says this is when we cling to Hashem and confess our sins to him, quoting Psalm 51:19 saying, "My lips of confession will serve as bulls on the altar." This Psalm 51 is all about pouring our hearts to the Lord, for he desires truth in the inner being.

We are in the hour of darkness. And when did this happen in Jesus' life? On his last day, which is the title of this teaching. The last year of the Church Age is patterned after Jesus' last day on earth. And by following his body from 2020, this is where we are in 2026, and we have just entered into this hour of darkness.

Now, for devout Jews living throughout the world, this is a dangerous time right before the birth pangs. The Talmud as well as the prophet Daniel says that once the birth pangs officially begin, there are seven years, known as the 70th week, until Messiah comes to establish his kingdom on earth.

Anava believes that the water broke in birth pangs terminology in 2020, which tells you how close we are. We are in the sixth year. Anava told us of a man who called him from France asking if he should cut off his beard. Rabbi Anava said, "If you're afraid to show who you are as a Torah-observant Jew, don't live there. Come to Israel."

"If Hashem is putting pressure on you wherever you are and you're afraid to wear a kippah or tzitzit or be circumcised, to put a mezuzah on the door, eat kosher, celebrate Pesach and Hanukkah and honor the Sabbath, then Hashem is saying: don't live in fear. This is the signal to come home."

Listen to this abbreviated prophecy from Ezekiel 11: "Though I removed them far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them in the countries where they have gone. I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered."

We are witnessing this prophecy today. If you are an observant Jew listening to me, do not miss this time of divine prompting. If you are feeling unrest in your spirit, Hashem is calling you back home for your safety. I will put a link to Rabbi Anava's website for more information on how to return home.

Before we close, I want to share an important section from his teaching concerning the distinction that God made between Egypt and Goshen before the Exodus. He separated his people whom he was coming for. As I mentioned earlier, the children of Israel were at a very low spiritual level. They had no merit within themselves before God to warrant being delivered except circumcision.

Anava explained, "We know that only 20 percent went out of Egypt. So what was the merit of that 20 percent? Number one: they didn't change their name to blend into the Egyptian society. Number two: they did not change their tongue. They spoke Hebrew and did not adopt the Egyptian language. Number three: they did not hide how they look. They looked like observant Jews as the Torah instructed."

The Midrash explains further that they had two additional merits going for them. First, they did not do Lashon Hara, which is talking bad about others or about what God is making you live through. Nothing negative came out of their mouths. And secondly, not one of them was found guilty of sexually immoral behavior.

Now, because he is speaking from an Orthodox Jewish perspective, I want to add another merit that they had to qualify to leave. Anava wouldn't see this one because he is Jewish, but this last merit is that those living in Goshen were connected to their Jewish roots. They recognized Moses was sent to them because he used the exact words God had spoken to Abraham Avinu, their father.

So they received Moses as their deliverer and agreed to leave everything they knew and follow him out of Egypt. Now, our only hope as we endure this season of figuratively living in Egypt before our exodus is to cling to the Lord our God and cry out for Messiah to come and deliver us.

The Father is allowing us to feel what our forefathers felt. The Lord said very clearly to me, "The deliverer can only come when my people cry out. They must be so desperate they cry the prayer in Psalm 82: 'Arise, O God, come judge the earth, because you will inherit the nations.'"

"Those whom I have called, I am sworn by my covenant to safeguard for the sake of their forefathers. Return to study the Torah and follow every word that I gave Moses to say to lead them. Your deliverance out of this world depends upon how desperate you are to learn what I spoke to Moses and hang on to his words."

"Tell my people that by following Moses, they are not abandoning Jesus, for Paul taught in 1st Corinthians 10 that they will drink from the supernatural rock which follows them, and that rock is Messiah."

I hope that this teaching has been helpful. If you'd like to share it with others, go to CandaceLong.com/podcasts and look for the episode "The Last Year of the Church Age, Part 3." I will provide links to resources mentioned in the description notes to this episode.

I invite you to consider studying the Torah with us every week on my new program, Shabbat Shalom, which airs each week on ShabbatShalomRadio.com. Check our website for details. This program is produced in response to a huge need that Gentiles and Jews have to rebuild the foundations of our faith before entering the kingdom. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Candace Long, and you've been listening to Lessons in the Latter Days. God bless.