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. If you're a new listener, I want you to know what makes me and this show a little different.

Many times, I will start writing an episode only to have the direction totally upended by the Lord, basically saying, "No, this is what I want you to teach." These are His topics and He often intervenes like through a dream to point me to a new direction.

I live what I describe as a Levitical lifestyle—a consecrated one, a world of quiet, free from distraction so that I can be attentive to His leading 24/7. That is my commitment to you who take the time to listen.

Another thing that sets me apart from other teachers is that everything that I teach comes from my study of the Torah, which I have been doing since 2005. I spend every Sabbath before the Lord studying the Torah and every episode in this series has been inspired by what God has graciously taught me there.

I need to pass on a word of warning. There are many who are teaching what I consider to be strange things concerning these days. Just the other night, I was watching an interview on a topic I was interested in, only to find myself in the middle of a conspiracy theory that you had to have gotten hooked into years ago to make any sense of what the person was saying.

I turned it off. It reminded me of a TV series that was popular a few years back called *Lost*, about a group of survivors of an international flight who ended up a thousand miles off course and crashed on a mysterious island.

Now, as a screenwriter myself for many years, I like stories that are well-developed, and I remember after watching the first couple of episodes thinking, "Hmm, this storyline has possibilities." As time went on, though, the show became impossible to follow.

Heaven help you if you missed an episode because from there on, nothing made sense. And like many other viewers, I quit watching. It wasn't well-written. I call this form of storytelling a "contrived narrative," meaning it was written specifically to hook viewers into watching for the sole purpose of getting you addicted to a false narrative. This is the danger I see today with believers listening to contrived narratives about the end times.

The biblical narrative known as *Yom Acharit*, which is Hebrew for "latter days," was written by Almighty God starting in the book of Genesis. The day of the Lord is His day, His kingdom, and He knows all about it. From the ancient past, He has prepared His children with every sign, every clue, every mystery hidden and sealed.

In the book of Daniel, chapter 12, the angel tells the prophet, "Shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end." This tells us that until the time of the end, no one can understand these times; they've been sealed, hidden, locked up in the heavenly storehouses carefully guarded by angels.

But when we come to that *moed*, the appointed time, God says that covering will be removed and insights we never imagined will be revealed. I believe we are at that time because of the sheer amount of revelation I have been getting, and I'm not alone, concerning these end of days.

I believe I have seen these things because my first priority is to study the Torah. That's where the meaning of God's metaphorical language of pictures is revealed, and I teach you how to see these pictures for yourself. I have no book to sell, no one is paying me to write and produce and buy time on expensive radio stations.

The last thing I'll share is to explain that the assignments God often gives me are difficult ones, such as the one I'm starting now, requiring a long time of research and waiting until all the pieces come together so that what I am shown first makes sense to me and then I can share it.

This series is called "Uncovering the Ancient Snare, Part 1." It was inspired by a recent Torah study at the very end of Deuteronomy before the children of Israel entered the land. This part of Scripture is especially important because it was at the end of Moses' life, and God's people were just weeks away from entering the land.

Over the years studying Judaism, I have learned that this 40-year journey to the promised land is a picture, a *tavnit*, that foreshadows exactly what will happen to the generation about ready to step into the day of the Lord at the end of the age.

I'm convinced this is us. That we are just a few years away and God is uncovering something for us to see now as a critical warning to our generation. Today in Part 1, we're going to identify and examine what this ancient snare is, so let's begin.

Deuteronomy 26 starts out with Moses telling the people, "When you come into the land, which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance..." Now let me say this again: "When you come into the land." Now this is a clue given to teach us something of critical importance prior to being taken out of this world and into the kingdom. So listen to this last thing that God gave Moses to say to the people before going in: "Remember what Amalek did to you."

Those six words came out of nowhere. Remember what Amalek did to you. It made no sense when I was reading it. I hadn't heard the word Amalek in a long time. Why would God have Moses mention that name now, during an entire section of reminding the people how to perform all of the various laws, offerings, and sacrifices, and before the lengthy section at the end of the book on the curses and blessings? And yet here, sandwiched in between all this, are these six words: "Remember what Amalek did to you."

Now this is when you know God is saying something. Why bring up Amalek? What does he have to do with anything? Why bring it up now? I spent days and weeks making sense of this and discovered there are a lot of pieces to unpack concerning this topic. Right now, I do not know how many parts there will be to this series, but these are seven overall objectives that I'm going to try to address.

Number one, I will explain who Amalek is and why he is the only one mentioned in the whole Bible toward whom the Lord swore eternal hatred and the promise of annihilation. Number two, you're going to see how Amalek fits into the timeline of God, not only in the generation of Amalek, but how his descendants showed up throughout biblical history and especially what is playing out now before the day of the Lord.

Number three, I will trace the history of a global conspiracy that spans thousands of years aimed at defiling millions of people in order to disqualify them from entering the kingdom. Number four, I will unlock the meaning of key Torah passages that many believers have ignored and dismissed and caused many to become ensnared by a huge deception.

Number five, I will show you how Amalek's influence has separated believer from believer and revealed the telltale sign of this alienation. Number six, I will show you how Amalek figures into Israel's plans to rebuild the third temple and welcome the Antichrist believing he is the Messiah.

And number seven, if you find that you or someone you know has been caught in this ancient snare, I will walk you through the biblical steps that God has provided to set you free. And because we are so close to the kingdom, time is of the essence. So let's turn now to find the answer as to why God introduced this name as a major warning. Who is Amalek?

The prophet Daniel says Rome is the foundation of the final world kingdom that will be in power before the day of the Lord, and from this man's lineage, the Antichrist will come. That's where we are going to find the origin of Amalek. You see the patriarch and founder of Rome heading up this final kingdom of the New World Order is found in the book of Genesis and is the grandfather of Amalek.

His name is Esau. Now to understand more about Amalek, we have to know who Esau really was. As you recall, Esau was the firstborn son of Isaac, and his grandfather was Abraham. He came from an illustrious heritage. But what happened to him?

God devoted an entire chapter from the Torah, Genesis 36, to Esau's descendants. His firstborn, Eliphaz, had a child by a woman named Timna. Now the biblical records explain that she was so desperate to connect to the bloodline of Abraham, she agreed to become a concubine, and the child that she bore was named Amalek, whom the Torah describes as an eternal enemy of Israel.

Overall, many of Esau's descendants were products of incest and illegitimacy. For example, his father-in-law, Anah, was a native of Mount Seir. The ancient Book of Jasher records that Anah crossbred a donkey with a mare and created mules. Anah himself was illegitimate, for he is called Zibeon's brother in one verse and Zibeon's son in another, indicating that Zibeon committed incest with his own mother.

Thus, the illegitimate Anah introduced into the world a tainted animal that came from a forbidden form of breeding. We also learn from Jasher that Esau's grandson, Zepho, rose to power and the people of Kittim, which later became known as Rome, took Zepho as their leader and hired him to fight their battles. Zepho became very rich and powerful and ended up uniting all of Italy and became the first Roman king and ruled for 50 years.

So the bottom line is that Amalek's origin was the result of rebellion against God's family order, which the Almighty established to protect the holiness of the seed of the children of God. Esau rebelled against that, gave in to his lust, and Timna relinquished her reputation as a woman to do whatever it took to have a child that was connected to Abraham and Isaac. The bloodline of Esau became tainted and defiled, and there is a great lesson here of what has happened to the bloodlines of those who belong to the Lord but who lust after something forbidden.

The next time we find Amalek is in Exodus 17. This was a particularly difficult part of the wilderness journey where there was no water and the people began complaining and murmuring against Moses. This happened at two places: Massah, which means testing, and Meribah, which means strife. Moses writes, "Then came Amalek and fought with Israel at Rephidim."

The open door to Amalek is complaint against God's provisions. Amalek was a powerful warrior, and hatred for Israel burned within him. This is the battle you may recall where Aaron and Hur had to stand on either side of Moses to hold his arms up. Whenever his arms were up, Israel prevailed, but when he got tired and put down his arms, Amalek prevailed. This too is a *tavnit*, showing us that the reason Israel won the war was because Moses had help from those committed to stand with him.

Now after this battle, the Lord told Moses, "Write this for a memorial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." And Moses built an altar and called it Jehovah Nissi, which means the Lord is my banner, for he said, "Because the Lord has sworn that he will have war with Amalek from generation to generation."

Now I want you to notice that Israel had many battles against many armies and leaders, so we need to ask why this one was so grievous to God. This was unlike any other war, and God is saying here that it will be continual, meaning that the wicked seed or offspring of the bloodline will show up in a future generation and try to annihilate Israel. This is an important clue the Lord is giving us—there is something that sets apart this war and this enemy, Amalek, from all the others. And he's telling us beginning in Exodus that this war will be eternal and will manifest again before the day of the Lord.

The next time we find Amalek is in Numbers 24, when the false prophet Balaam prophesies to the king of Moab what Israel will do to his people, Moab, in the latter days. "There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a scepter will rise out of Israel and will smite the corners of Moab and destroy all the children. And Edom, which is another name for Esau, and Mount Seir shall be dispossessed. And when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable and said, 'Amalek was the first of the nations, but his latter end shall be that he perish forever.'"

So we learn from this that Amalek personifies the warlike strength of Esau, and his hatred for Israel and his memory will perish forever. In Deuteronomy 25, we come now to the warning that inspired this episode. Here is the entire passage: "Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you when you were faint and weary and cut off at your rear all who lagged behind you, and he did not fear God."

"Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all of your enemies roundabout in the land which the Lord gives you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget."

So here we have this strange warning that God gave Moses to tell the people just weeks away from entering the kingdom. Now this is a very big clue, and there are layers of meaning that God wants us to dig out as if searching for treasure. And what I have learned over my years of studying the Torah is that when I hear a nudge from the Lord that something is here to pay attention to, and when I do the work to search out the treasure, God rewards with incredible insight.

So I want you to notice three things that made Amalek so despicable to God. Number one, he attacked Israel when they were coming out of Egypt. God's people could not have been more broken than they were then. And God was in the midst of glorifying His mighty hand of deliverance, and Amalek came up and tried to steal that glory away and weaken the Lord in the eyes of the people.

Number two, Amalek and his troops did not fear God. Now this is Abraham's great-grandson we're talking about here, which tells us that neither Amalek's father or grandfather, Esau, taught him a proper regard for the Lord. And number three is a phrase that Moses recorded right before he died: "You shall not forget." Now this phrase has prophetic significance in our generation. It's an amazing part of the story which we'll look at in Part 2.

The last passage we'll look at in Part 1 is found in the book of Judges. Now this book fast-forwards us from the end of Deuteronomy to where we find the Jews. They're in the promised land and they are taking territory. Here's a condensed version of what is recorded in Judges 2: "And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work which the Lord had done for Israel."

"And all that generation were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work which he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and went after the gods of the peoples who were roundabout them and bowed down to them and they provoked the Lord to anger."

What did God do? We read in Judges 3, "Now these are the nations which the Lord left in the land to test Israel by them, to test everyone in Israel who had no experience of war." Now one of the nations God left in the land was Amalek. We read, "These nations were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would listen and take heed to the commandments of the Lord." These are the 613 things that God set up as His Torah. Would this generation uphold this covenant or dismiss it? This is a huge warning for our generation today.

The lesson I see here is that Amalek comes at a critical time of testing, and especially so in our country right now before the kingdom begins. I'm of the older generation. My namesake was one of the founding fathers of this country. I was part of the Jesus movement in the 1970s. I heard stories of my forefathers who struggled during the Great Depression, and I'm seeing many in my generation battle dementia.

Now I do not believe this is by chance. I have no data to back up my gut feeling that my generation is being targeted because we carry within us the institutional memories of faith in the God of Israel. The younger generation, broadly speaking, does not have this. They are not familiar with the level of spiritual warfare that we grew up on. Thus, they are vulnerable to bowing down to powers and authorities whose god is not the Lord.

Have no doubt, Amalek is among us and God is using him to sift us to see who will follow the Lord's ways or who will follow today's gods. We are in the battle of our lives by a force of wickedness who crept into the bloodline of faith illicitly. And this battle is unto death. Amalek's snare is set right now to entrap billions, to keep you from entering the kingdom. And the only way that we will prevail is to hold up the arms of Moses and return to the study of Torah.

In my online store, you will find an important 17-page monograph called *Jewish Roots: God's Call to Reconnect*. You will learn why the enemy cut off Christianity from the faith of our fathers and how we can reconnect to it. I'll put a link to it in the description notes to this episode: "Uncovering the Ancient Snare, Part 1."

I want to thank you so much for being with me today. We will continue with Part 2 next time. But you'll find all of my episodes at candacelong.com/podcast. If you subscribe, I will send you links to all of my resources to help you find your destined place in these end times. I'm Candace Long. I hope you join me again next time for Lessons in the Latter Days. God bless.