Shemini Atzeret Whirlwinds And The Global Spring

On Sunday night nine tornadoes descended on the Dallas area, destroying homes, businesses, and several churches, overturning cars, and cutting off power to nearly 200,000 residents (my family among them).  The same storm system caused additional tornadoes further east and northeast, into East Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri.  Chief among these whirlwinds was an EF3 that flattened a Home Depot and gutted Northway Church.  Yet after the dust had settled, the Cross was still standing.

The Cross of Christ will forever be the safest refuge from the storm of sin and death.  It will stand the test of time.  If you want safety and assurance, run to the Cross.

The timing of this storm was peculiar—it struck on Shemini Atzeret, the final biblically-mandated festival of the year.  Shemini Atzeret is the “Eighth Day Assembly” that comes immediately after the conclusion of Sukkot (“Tabernacles”).  The festival has both rapture and resurrection undertones, as God mandated the gathering of the people together on this day, and the number eight in the Bible represents newness and resurrection (eight people were saved in the Ark, Jesus was resurrected on the eighth day, and a new heavens and new earth will be created at the start of the eighth millennium).

Furthermore, the storm struck in the darkness while many were asleep.  It came like a thief in the night.  I found out about the impending EF3 just minutes before it passed by and had to “rapture” my sleeping wife and kids out of bed in the dead of night, tucking them away in an inner room and closing the door behind us.

Go, my people, enter your rooms
   and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
   until his wrath has passed by.
See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling
   to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed on it;
   the earth will conceal its slain no longer.

—Isaiah 26:20–21

How fitting for the day after the Festival of Tabernacles in which God’s people stay in small rooms or shelters called booths, hiding away under the protection of the Almighty.

Still no rapture—the main event—but there is a method to all this madness.  God is in control and significant events are occurring in a preordained pattern, on God’s appointed days.  It was this past June 9th, on Pentecost Sunday, that a freak, “unprecedented” windstorm tore through Dallas cutting power off to 300,000, toppling cranes, and tearing off roofs.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

—Acts 2:1–2

Why are these things happening to Dallas?  What might be the significance?  Israel’s calling code is 972.  The Dallas area code is 972.  Also, Dallas and Israel share the same latitude.  But what’s of much greater significance is that Dallas is the “buckle” on the Bible Belt and the center of evangelical Christianity in many ways.  Key ministries and seminaries are based here that influence the entire world.  And many of these ministries have their head in the sand in regards to prophecy.  They just won’t “go there.”  And in turn, much of the Church is asleep, because many shepherds aren’t shepherding.

Consider some other significant events in relation to the biblical festivals:

• Jesus was possibly conceived or born on Yom Teruah (the Festival of Trumpets) in 3 BC
• Jesus died on Passover
• Jesus was buried on Unleavened Bread
• Jesus rose again on First Fruits
• The Church came into being on the Pentecost after Christ’s death
• Israel’s first day of statehood occurred on Pentecost in 1948
• The Yom Kippur War began on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) in 1973
• From 2014 to 2015, four consecutive total lunar eclipses (“blood moons”) occurred on both Passover and Tabernacles of both years
• In 2017 an astronomical alignment described 2,000 years ago by the Apostle John in the first two verses of Revelation 12, occurred on the day after the Festival of Trumpets

This list doesn’t even scratch the surface, especially when you consider all of the significant Old Testament and Intertestamental events that occurred on the biblical festivals.  We are witnessing significant events happening on the festivals once again.  These are the days that God explicitly marked on His calendar, because they are the days on which many major prophetic events occur.

Going back to the freak storm that just struck on Shemini Atzeret, something of greater significance happened halfway around the world in Israel on the Sunday evening through Monday evening festival: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest serving Israeli leader in modern history, turned 70, which is the length of a biblical generation according to Psalm 90:10.  What a fitting reminder that the time of The Fig Tree Generation is nearing its end.  And just minutes after the festival concluded, Netanyahu returned the mandate to form a government to President Reuven Rivlin, who will pass the mandate to Benny Gantz.  One era has ended and a new one begins.

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The Global Spring

For the rapture of Christ’s Church to occur during a time of seeming normalcy, one would think things won’t spiral too much further than they already have.  The rapture itself is the trigger that will unleash the prophetic dominoes of economic collapse, global war, and the antichrist.  The rapture is the removal of the restrainer—the Holy Spirit-indwelt Church, which is presently restraining the forces of darkness in the world.

I bring this to your attention because of something I’m coining the “Global Spring.”  In December 2010 a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire in protest against the confiscation of his property, which set off the events that have come to be known as the Arab Spring.  The Arab Spring saw riots and revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa and a number of governments were overthrown.  The effects are still with us as civil wars continue to rage in Syria and Libya.  There have only been a handful of multinational revolutions in all of human history, including the Autumn of Nations in 1989, which led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the Spring of Nations in 1848, which touched nearly every country in Europe...

And now, dear friends, we are witnessing the beginning of something unparalleled that will span the entire globe.  The origins of this revolution are debatable, but the June 2016 Brexit vote may be a good starting point.  It is essentially an international populist movement against autocratic and oppressive government power, but there is a counter-revolution as well.  It spans both sides of the political aisle, and I would conjecture that once the rapture is thrown into the mix, this Global Spring will lead directly to the rise of antichrist.

Near the end of their kingdoms, when the rebels have reached the full measure of their sin, a ruthless king, skilled in intrigue, will come to the throne.

—Daniel 8:23

Just take a look at a few of these headlines:


Lebanon’s mass revolt against corruption and poverty continues

Spain’s Catalonia Crisis Just Got a Lot Worse

‘We are at war’: Chile’s president extends state of emergency after deadly riots

Opinion: Riots around the globe are linked by a common thread: frustration

Riots in Bolivia intensify as President Evo Morales nears outright victory

Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas as Protesters Defy Ban

March organisers hail ‘one of the greatest protest marches in British history’

Iraqi security forces killed 149 protesters, most by shots to head, chest: government inquiry

Yellow vest protests: Toulouse police use teargas on 1,000 marchers

Rage against the system: From Chile to Lebanon, why the sudden wave of protests?


I believe these are the events that will lead into the Tribulation and the rapture is what will throw a few million tons of fuel on this fire.  Things are quickly changing and the post-Revelation 12 Sign “intermission” must soon come to an end.

Why do the nations rage,
   and the peoples plot a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take a stand,
   and the rulers take counsel together,
   against Yahweh, and against His Anointed, saying,
“Let’s break their bonds apart,
   and cast their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens will laugh.
   The Lord will have them in derision.
Then He will speak to them in His anger,
   and terrify them in His wrath:
“Yet I have set my King on my holy hill of Zion.”
   I will tell of the decree:
Yahweh said to me, “You are my Son.
   Today I have become your Father.
Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance,
   the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron.
   You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
Now therefore be wise, you kings.
   Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
Serve Yahweh with fear,
   and rejoice with trembling.
Give sincere homage to the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish on the way,
   for His wrath will soon be kindled.
   Blessed are all those who take refuge in Him.

—Psalm 2

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