Taking Hold

In those days, ten people speaking the languages of the Gentiles will take hold of the corner of the garment of a Jew and say: We want to walk with you, because we have heard that Elohim is with you. ~ Zechariah 8:23

We are living in the Pre-Millennial dispensation of time. The Messiah’s crucifixion and resurrection took place nearly thousand years ago. The Church arose, fell into apostasy, and cycled up and down through spiritual highs and lows in the past twenty centuries. As every decade passes, we notice that the prophecies that were revealed through the ancients are coming to pass.

People are generally interested in when ‘the end’ will come. When will the Messiah return? When will the thousand-year reign of Elohim upon the earth begin?

There have been many who scrutinize world politics watching for clues that help establish our location on the prophetic time-line. It is true that we can see in geopolitics several trends that indicate that the ‘last days’ are here: that the ‘end times’ is a series of events currently in progress. Indeed, Scriptures do provide insight into national and international events that signal that the latter day ‘work of the Father’ is underway. Hundreds of thousands of Native People of the Americas are bursting through borders, and rushing into the United States, then rising to prominence – in fulfillment of prophecies in the Nephite Records. Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Iraq are nations that occupy the lands once part of the kingdoms of Babylon and Assyria. They are the ‘kingdoms of the north’, bearing down upon Israel, just as foretold by the prophets. There are technological methods that can mark every human and locate his position on the planet; there are beast-like computer systems; there are multiple plagues that are poised to devastate as much as one-third of the population of the planet.

Those are examples of physical trends, and circumstantial signs that point to the ‘last days’.

What about spiritual trends? People interested in eschatology [the study of end-time events] often fixate their attention on political, technological, or catastrophic ‘signs’ in current events, but not on what the Scripture says must happen in a spiritual sense in the Pre-Millennial dispensation of time.

What did Yahweh inspire the prophets to declare about the spiritual events of the Last Days?

One of the most important spiritual trends that must develop in the Last Days was concisely mentioned by the prophet Zechariah.

“The time will come when people will say, Let us go plead Yahweh’s favor, and seek out Yahweh Sabaoth [Yahweh of Hosts].  Yes, many peoples and great Gentile nations will seek out Yahweh Sabaoth in Jerusalem, and pray before Yahweh. In those days, ten people speaking the languages of the Gentiles will take hold of the corner of the garment [kanaph] of a Jew and say, We want to walk with you, because we have heard that Elohim is with you.” [Zechariah 8:21-23]

Gentiles [non-Israelites] will, in the Last Days, seek the favor and Yahweh [Heavenly Father]. In so doing, they will look toward Jerusalem and the Jews. They will realize that some ‘ingredients’ they are lacking are to be found with the People of the Covenant.

Prophecy does not say that righteous Gentiles look toward Rome, New York City, Salt Lake City, or Mecca for instruction in Yahweh’s ways. Scripture does not say that the Gentiles will take hold of other Gentiles to learn more depth about God. They will not look to the Baptists or Mormons or Jehovahs Witnesses for doctrine - but to the Jews!

The ways of Yahweh are not to be found among the churches that are built upon heathen foundations! Churches that adopted the days of worship and holidays from Gentile customs are not upholding the ways of the God of Israel.

What is the significance of the Gentiles taking hold of the corner of the garment of a Jew? The corner is the kanaph, and sometimes translated as ‘wings’. Attached to the kanaph of a tallit [prayer shawl] of a Jew is a tzit-tzit or fringe. Those fringes are placed there for the purpose of reminding one of the Commandments of Yahweh. [Numbers 15:38-39]

Prophecy declares plainly that in the Last Days, there will be Gentiles – a few at first, but gradually many – who will look toward Jerusalem and toward the Jews, and will take hold of the doctrines of the Tanakh and the Commandments of Yahweh, and learn of His ways.

Those are the keys that open the doors to the highest realms of the kingdom: faith in Elohim, and pursuit of Torah.

Isaiah wrote something very similar to Zechariah: “It will happen in the Last Days that the Mountain of Yahweh’s House [the Kingdom of Yahweh] will rise higher than all the other mountains [governments and kingdoms of the earth]. Gentile nations will stream to it, saying, Come, let us go up to the Mountain of Yahweh, to the House of the Elohim of Jacob [Israel], that He may teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths. For the Torah [Law] will issue from Zion¹ and the Word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.” [Isaiah 2:3] The righteous Gentiles will turn toward the One whose Kingdom will shine from Jerusalem – toward the Elohim of Israel for direction. The Righteous in the Last Days will not seek after the gods and goddesses of Egypt, of India, or Japan. The Righteous will seek the Torah – the Law of Yahweh – instead of the doctrinal fables of the Gentiles, the myths of the heathens, and the traditions of Gentile [non-Israelite] cultures.

Furthermore, Isaiah wrote of the critical importance of observing the Sabbath. In the Last Days, he was inspired by Yahweh to write, people would “take hold of [His] Covenant” [56:4] People will increase their righteousness, and earn the highest rewards in the Kingdom through Sabbath-keeping. Even heathens and people who have been spiritual outcasts will be given great status and rewards because they honor the Sabbath day. [Isaiah 56:5-7]

The Messiah commanded His followers to study and search the prophecies of Isaiah.

Those who stand in the gap for Israel, and restore the old paths of righteousness in the Last Days are numbered among those who respect and honor the Sabbath. [Isaiah 58:12-14]

One way in which Yahweh described the spiritually rebellious in the Last Days is that they eat things that He has called ‘unclean’, such as pork, and shrimp, and rodents. [Isaiah 65:4, 66:17] In other ways, they “choose their own delusions”, and their souls delight in things which Yahweh has labeled “abominable”. [Isaiah 66:3-4]

During that Pre-Millennial and Millennial time, His people will observe the new moons and the Sabbath [66:23] In Zechariah 14:16 we read that when the Messiah returns, all the world will keep the Feast of Tabernacles [Zechariah 14:16]

Can we be headed in the wrong direction? We who intend to heed the Torah, look to the Kingdom of Yahweh that was centered in Jerusalem, if we sanctify the Sabbath, avoid unclean foods, shun gentile traditions, and keep the Feast of Tabernacles? Yahweh, through Isaiah and Zechariah and other prophets say that those are the spiritual behaviors of the Righteous in the Last Days. When someone does those things, with the love of the Messiah in their heart, they will be honored and lifted up by the Father – even though they may be cast off by others, and rejected and hated by other Christians, and labeled as a cult [Isaiah 66:5]

According to the word of Yahweh, those spiritual practices must be restored in the Last Days. Loving the Torah. Observing the Commandments of Yahweh instead of the rules of the heathen gods. Refraining from cultural traditions. Seeking to learn the things Yahweh revealed to Judah and all Israel when He covenanted with them. Yahweh says these doctrines and laws must be restored in the Pre-Millennial time. Exaltation is promised to those who help restore the Old Paths.

David Bruce Clark
Lion of God Ministries
PO Box 33  Oak Grove MO 64075
www.lionofgod.com

¹Note that whomever or wherever the reader believes Zion to be, in the original Hebrew text the declaration is that Torah will emanate from it.