“Yes,” said the Oracle. “And so the Jubilee of 1967 would mark not only the return of Jerusalem but the beginning of an age of spiritual revival among the Jewish people. The return of Jerusalem would usher in a massive return of Jewish people to their Messiah, to Jesus, and the reappearance of Jewish believers and disciples in numbers not seen since the first century. Many of these revivals and movements would trace their beginnings to the year 1967. Others were born of the Jesus Movement. The Jesus Movement was birthed in the Summer of Love. And the Summer of Love began in 1967.”
“And in the year of return,” I said, “the year of Jubilee. And when in that year did the Summer of Love begin?”
“It all began in the month of June, the same month of the Six-Day War and the return of Jerusalem. Both returns and restorations began, after two thousand years, the same year, the same month.”
“You said you would tell me two mysteries. What was the other?”
“The other has to do with the man who convened the gathering of Jewish believers in 1867. His name was Carl August Ferdinand Schwartz. It has to do with his origins.”
“His origins?”
“When he was born.”
“When?”
“In the year 1817.”
“1817 . . . that would be the year of Jubilee . . . before the other Jubilees. So the mystery goes back even further.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle. “So in 1817 a child is born, destined to play a key part in the Jubilee of 1867, his fiftieth year . . . during which another child is born, John Patterson, destined to play a central part in the Jubilee of 1917, his fiftieth year . . . during which a third child is born, Shlomo Goren, destined to play a central part in the Jubilee of 1967, his fiftieth year . . . each one a piece of the puzzle . . . of the mystery . . . the mystery of return—where everything returns to the state in which it was at the beginning of the age—a Jewish land, a Jewish capital, a Jewish nation, Jewish soldiers, Jewish farmers . . . ”
“And Jewish disciples.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle. “Everything returns . . . but not all returns are by nature good.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is another return that has not yet been revealed to you, a return of a very different kind and nature.”
“What other return?”
“The dark Jubilee.”
“The next time we met, he would reveal it.”
“The dark Jubilee? It almost sounds scary.”
“A Jubilee unlike all the others.”
“And how was it revealed?”
“Through the awakening of a dragon.”
Chapter 58
THE DARK JUBILEE
I WOULDN’T HAVE made the journey at the time I did if not for the vision, if not for its disturbing and ominous nature. It was near sunset when I reached the Oracle’s tent. And it was at night, by the light of the campfire just outside his tent, that we spoke.”
“The dragon,” I said, “the red dragon in the ruins . . . ”
“Yes,” he said, “That will take us into another realm, that of the dark Jubilee.”
“The dark Jubilee—what is it?”
“A Jubilee that follows the same pattern as that which God gave to His people . . . and yet is not of God.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A Jubilee that parallels the Jubilee of Israel and that corresponds to it but is of the opposite nature, an anti-Jubilee, a Jubilee of darkness.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“The fate of Israel and the fate of the world are bound together. Israel is a microcosm of the world, and the world, the macrocosm of Israel. And so if Israel’s destiny is determined by the Jubilean mysteries . . . ”
“Then so too the destiny of the world?”
“Yes. The repercussions of the Jubilean mysteries always go beyond the borders of Israel and the Jewish people. They involve nations, world leaders, world events, world wars . . . ”
“But how do the Jubilean mysteries determine the world’s fate?”
“Two thousand years ago,” he said, “the center of Western civilization and world history was the Roman Empire. Into that empire came the word of God, the message of Messiah, the gospel. The empire was transformed, its faith, its culture, its institutions, its ethics and values, its worldview. The word that went forth from Jerusalem altered the course of Roman history, Western history, and world history. Western civilization would rest on a biblical foundation. It would become a civilization that aspired to biblical values, embraced biblical faith, and held to a biblical worldview. And as Western civilization expanded to become more and more synonymous with world civilization, its biblical underpinnings became part of world culture.”
“But how does this relate to the Jubilean mysteries?”
“In the Jubilee you return to the place from which you left. You return to your original state. So the Jewish people returned to their original state, to where they were at the beginning of the age, to a Jewish polity, as in the first century. Now, if the world’s future is also determined by the Jubilean mysteries, what would that mean?”
“That the world would also return?”
“To what?”
“To the state in which it existed at the beginning of the age?”
“Each shall return to his own possession,” said the Oracle. “If Israel returns to the state in which it existed at the beginning of the age, then so too must the world.”
“So the world must return to the state in which it existed at the beginning of the age. What exactly is that state?”
“The state of Rome. A state devoid of biblical foundations and alien to Judeo-Christian values and faith.”
“So then, according to the mystery, Western culture will become increasingly non-Christian?”
“It means we will witness the departure of Western civilization from its biblical foundation, a departure from the faith that defined it, a departure in spirituality, in morality and ethics, in culture, and worldview . . . ”
“What you just describe is already happening.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle. “It’s all part of the mystery of return, which in this case means a civilization dislodging itself and separating from the foundation on which it once rested.
“There have been times when such departures have taken place by force and rapidly, as in the case of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. But more often it happens step by step, the disestablishment of biblical authority, the unhinging of ethical moorings, the dechristianization of culture, the removal of God’s word, the overturning of values, the purging of God’s name. And do you know when this phenomenon became unmistakably manifest?”
“No.”
“In the days of the return, in the same era that saw the return of the Jewish people to Israel. So as Israel was returning to the state in which it existed at the beginning of the age, the world around it was doing the same, returning to its original state. And that original state was not only non-Christian but pagan.”
“So the mystery would reveal a return to pagan civilization.”
“Yes, to a modern version of it. When a civilization departs from biblical values, it will return to pagan ones. It will celebrate its new values as enlightened, secular, progressive, revolutionary, or just new, but they remain what they are.
“In the pagan world of the first century, children were killed in their mothers’ wombs. So as modern culture departs from its biblical foundations, it returns to the same pagan act. And as modern culture departs from its biblical foundations, it returns to pagan views and practices concerning sexuality, gender, and marriage.”
“It’s already happening,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, “and now you know why.”
“In my vision the dragon breathed on the stadium, and I heard cheers and screams. What did that represent?”
“The first-century civilization that surrounded Israel was not only non-Christian but anti-Christian. It warred against t
he faith and persecuted those who upheld it.”
“So if the modern world is returning to what it was at the beginning of the age, then will it turn increasingly anti-Christian?”
“Apart from divine intervention, it will again war against the faith and the word. And those who hold true to that which is biblical will be increasingly marginalized, delegitimized, ridiculed, vilified, and finally persecuted.”
“A return to Rome.”
“In a sense,” said the Oracle. “And Rome was not only an anti-Christian civilization but an anti-Israel civilization as well. So the Scriptures prophesy that in the end times the issue of Israel and Jerusalem will be the center of world controversy and the nations will gather to war against them.”
“So end-time prophecy is Jubilean.”
“It is,” he said, “but why do you say that?”
“Because the return is central to everything. Everything returns to where it was. And everything centers on the return even when it wars against it, as in the return of Israel.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “each shall return to his own possession—even the world itself.”
“A dark return,” I said. “Is there anything good that comes out of all this?”
“Most certainly.”
“What?”
“A return of a different nature.”
“What return?”
“That,” said the Oracle, “would be another mystery.”
“And that’s what you were shown next . . . the good.”
“Yes.”
“And what was it?”
“Another manifestation of the mystery, another return, very different from what I had just been shown me . . . and yet related to it.”
“And how was it revealed?”
“Through a stained-glass woman.”
Chapter 59
THE STAINED-GLASS METAMORPHOSIS
IT WAS LATE afternoon when I arrived at the Oracle’s tent. I had calculated that there would be enough time to share and then return to my tent before nightfall. But it didn’t turn out that way. When I entered his tent, he offered me a cup of tea and a plate of dried fruits. We spoke of everything but the vision. He asked me to share the story of my life. So I did. Before I knew it, the sun had set. Outside the tent the wind was picking up, beating against the curtains. But inside it was peaceful. He kindled clay oil lamps, seven of them, and distributed them evenly throughout the tent, I sensed that he was now ready to speak about the vision.”
“The stained-glass woman who journeyed to the ancient city . . . who was she, and what did it mean?”
“The city was Jerusalem,” he said. “Two thousand years ago the faith that would go out to all nations was birthed in the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem . . . a universal faith and a Jewish faith at the same time, born of Jewish soil, founded on the Jewish hope, built on the Jewish Scriptures, and centered on the Jewish Messiah. It was a radical faith, a revolutionary faith. It had no governmental sanction, no cultural support, and virtually no earthly resources. It had nothing to do with the status quo of its time but was a phenomenon separate, distinct, and contrary to the world. And the status quo waged war against it. It was born in persecution.
“And yet it was this form, as recorded in the Book of Acts, the original, most radical, most Jewish, least established, and most revolutionary form of what would become known as the Christian faith, that would overcome an empire and change the course of human history.
“The faith was never to have stayed inside the borders of its homeland. It was born to transcend them and go out to the world. So Jesus sent His disciples to all peoples and lands. But as it went out from Jerusalem and into the nations, something happened. The branches became increasingly estranged from the roots, and the roots from the branches. With the destruction of Jerusalem, the disappearance of Jewish believers, and more and more non-Jewish people becoming believers, what would be known as the church began to lose its connection to Israel, to it Jewish roots, to its ancestral heritage.
“And as the church departed from its ancestral land, its roots, and its origins, the power and glory recorded of the first believers likewise began to depart. At the same time, the church began gaining acceptance from the surrounding culture. And thus another transformation began. What was by nature a radical faith began moving increasingly toward the status quo, merging with the world, and losing the revolutionary power of its origins for the power of establishment.
“In time the church became an established part of Roman and Western civilization and all the more estranged from its Jewish origins and the Jewish people. What was born in Jerusalem was now joined to Rome, and what was birthed in the Spirit was now increasingly bound to the world.”
“So the departure from its Jewish roots and the departure from its radical nature happened at the same time.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “all part of the same departure from what had been in the beginning, the Book of Acts, the church’s long-lost possession.”
“So it was an exile,” I said, “the exile of the church from its ancestral possession.”
“And it paralleled the exile of the Jewish people. As the Jewish people became increasingly separated from their land, the church became increasingly separated from its ancestral roots. You see, the church is an Israel of spirit. The two are bound together. When one departs, so does the other.”
“What does the Jubilean mystery have to do with the church and the Christian faith?”
“Each shall return to his own possession. So the church must also return. It must return to that from which it departed at the beginning. If Israel is coming home, so too must the church, so too must the faith.”
“When?”
“The two departed together in the beginning,” he said, “and so together they must return in the end.”
“But if Israel is already returning, what does that mean for the church?”
“It means the church must increasingly return to its original form and nature. It means that the two-thousand-year-old separation between the church and Israel must come to an end. It’s already beginning. And just as in ancient times the destruction of Jerusalem sealed the separation of the two, so the restoration of Jerusalem in modern times has ushered in their reconciliation. Never since the first century have believers in Jesus and the nation of Israel been more closely joined together or the faith more strongly bound to its Jewish roots. It is also part of the mystery. It is the church’s Jubilean return.”
“Everything returning to where it was in the beginning.”
“Yes. In the beginning of the age there was an Israel in the world, and the faith was joined to it. And so there is again now an Israel in the world, and again the faith is returning to it. In the beginning of the age, in the gatherings of believers, Jesus’ true Hebrew name, Yeshua, was spoken. It is being spoken again. In the beginning of the age Jewish and Gentile believers were as one in Messiah. They are so again. And as the faith once turned from Jerusalem to Rome, so it now turns back to Jerusalem. The branches are returning to their roots and the roots to their branches, each to its own possession.”
“The stained-glass woman in my vision, she was the church.”
“Yes. And her journey and metamorphosis represented the return of the church to its roots, to Jerusalem.”
“So will it involve the whole church,” I asked, “and every Christian?”
“Not all who are called by those names . . . but the true, the remnant.”
“And what about the other loss,” I asked, “the church’s departure from the revolutionary state of its origins?”
“There is a return to that as well,” he replied.
“How so?”
“The mystery of reversal,” said the Oracle. “It was as the church became established, a part of the status quo, and joined to the world that it lost its radical nature and its revolutionary power. So in order to return to what was lost, it must be separated from the status quo and disestablish
ed from the world.”
“How?”
“It’s already happening,” he replied. “In the same era in which the Jewish people began separating from the nations to return to their homeland, a parallel phenomenon took place, the separation of the faith from mainstream culture, the disestablishment of the church, and the dechristianization of Western civilization.”
“In the vision, as the woman returned to Jerusalem, she lost her jewels, her riches, and ornamentations, and ended up clothed in the simple garments of Bible times. So it’s the opposite phenomenon of what took place at the beginning.”
“Yes, the return of the faith to its original state. What you saw was the woman leaving the trappings of two thousand years to come home.”
“You said that the church was born in persecution. Does that mean persecution is part of the return?”
“It does.”
“But that’s not a good thing.”
“Yes and no,” he said. “It is another double-edged sword, a necessary part of the mystery, the ushering in of the return. The church must decrease in worldly power that it might increase in the power of God. For all things must return to the state in which they were at the beginning of the age, the Jewish people, the world, the faith, and the church.”
“And so that means . . . ?”
“It means the return to the Book of Acts ... the return of true disciples, apostles, and messengers of God, the return of the radical and revolutionary witness that once stood distinct from the world and shined into the darkness the light of God. It means the return of the power that once broke down ancient walls, made kingdoms shake, opened prison doors, set captives free, turned the world upside down, changed the course of human history, and overcame all things. That,” said the Oracle, “is the ancestral possession of this faith. That is its inheritance and its Jubilean return. Each shall return. So too the faith. . . So too it must return to its own possession.”
“The best of times and the worst of times.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “the times when gray disappears, when the dark grows darker and the light shines all the brighter . . . And for those who choose to shine, it is the time of greatness.”
The Oracle Page 28