In the four days leading up to Pesach or Passover we are reminded how, in the Old Covenant, the lamb selected for sacrifice for each household was hidden for four days to represent the four Millennia between the Fall of Adam and the First Advent of Messiah. Each of these prophetic 'days' represents a thousand years.

Today is the third of those four days. How can we grasp such a vast expanse of time? Our consciousness of time in reality spans no more than our current age because we cannot yet conceive of anything that is 'longer'. We can only guess what it was like to be one of the early patriarchs who lived for centuries and indeed we know so very, very little about them. The first thousand years - from Adam to Methuselah (~4000-3000 BC) - we know almost nothing about, and even the second thousand years - from Methuselah to Noah (~3000-2000 BC) - we know practically nothing about save a few genealogies and short stories. All of that is compressed into the first 7 or 8 pages of a ~1,200 page-long Bible! The first two millennia were so far distant and so sketchily recorded that it would probably be true to say that we are virtually in total ignorance of it. Not until we come to the end of it and to Noah is any kind of meat put on the bones of early history, and even then it is tantalisingly sparse. This was the terrifying age of the nefilim.

The third millennium - which we remember today - takes us from Abraham to Solomon (~2000-1000 BC). The biblical account begins to thicken out as we start to see flesh-and-bone characters right down to their character warts. About half the Tanakh (Old Testament) covers this time period. We encounter the first of the prophets - Moses, Joshua and Samuel principally, with Nathan and one or two others. This was the time of the flowering of the Tehilim (Psalms) and wisdom literature such as Mishle (Proverbs) and one of the greatest discourses ever written on cause and effect in the universe in the form of the Book of Iyob (Job). There is even sensual romantic literature - Shir haShirim (Song of Songs) which is itself a prophetic picture of the relationship between Messiah and His allegorical Bride, Messianic Israel - the Body of Messiah. And though this time sees rising and falling - repentance leading to righteousness and rebellion leading to apostacy - it climaxes in the greatest Kingdom Israel has ever seen, the Kingdom of Solomon, which falls as rapidly as it rises because the wisest of men becomes its greatest fool. And all along we are reminded of the frailty of human life and the duplicity of the human soul.

The fourth millennium (~1000 BC to 0) is the tragic story of the irrepairable fall of Israel after its fracturing - of terrible wars, slavery and diaspora, with a brief return of a remnant permitted only to exist to see the fulfilment of prophecy for the first coming of Messiah. Occasionally there are glimpses on light inbetween but mostly there is nothing but rebuke from the prophets who proliferated during this period to meet the desperate needs of their days - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, Hosea, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. And though there is a message of hope embedded in these depressing condemnations of a wicked and adulterous people, the Light of Emet (Truth) and Hope does not arrive as it does with great explosive power until the first advent of Messiah Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself leading to the empowerment of another remnant of His people - the Messianic Israelites and their ingrafted Gentile brethren. Then, once the Great Work of the Cross has been accomplished and Messiah has returned to Heaven and the Besorah (Gospel) has spread far and wide, darkness once again descends, awaiting for new explosions of light in our own sixth millennium.

There is a curious tavnith (pattern) in these four millennia that leads me to ask the question: why has Yahweh given us so little in terms of historical writings for the first two of these? We apparently do not need them otherwise He would have ensured that our Tanakh's (Old Testaments) were twice as big as they are. The answer comes in part, I think, in examining the festivals that correspond to these four millennia:

The historically 'lean' periods of sacred history correspond, interestingly, to Pesach and Chag haMatzah which are connected with conception and gestation in the womb, both of which are invisible events to observers in the outside world even though there are outward 'signs' of these inward happenings. These also correspond spiritually to the time a soul is conceived in Messiah and gestates prior to the (usually) very visible New Birth at Yom haBikkurim, itself celebrated by an outer, visible ordinance of water-baptism. Prior to the New Birth, the soul is (by comparsion) 'dead', showing little or no activity, but upon the baptism of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) there is a sudden burst of spiritual life and fruitfulness (corresponding to 'Firstfruits'). Thus from Abraham onwards there is tremendous written (and therefore 'visible' to us) historical activity.

Today we are approaching the end of the sixth millennium, but of this and the fifth millennium will we not speak now. As we approach Passover in two day's time we are concerned about making a decision that will lead to invisible processes being activated within us that will continue to fruition if we do not abort them. From Passover to Firstfruits we shall be looking at these as we seek to better understand how Yahweh works in the soul that is properly yielded to Him and fully trusting in Messiah Yah'shua (Jesus). We will seek to understand what is actually not - as Protestantism teaches - a single event ('being saved') but a series of 'salvation events' that constitute a process leading to final salvation (or damnation). We shall be asking ourselves particularly what the FIRST CHOICE that sets off this supernatural proecss of inward change actually is.

May your soul become sensitisied to what the Ruach (Spirit) wishes to reveal during these coming spring festivals.

Comments from Readers