It revealed the time parameters of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 that lead to the creation of the modern state of Israel.
A half-century later in 1967, its impact was felt during the Six-Day War when Israeli forces advanced through the Old City toward the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, bringing Jerusalem's holiest site under Jewish control for the first time in 2,000 years.
Now, amid the Year of Jubilee—the "Super Shemitah"—many are asking what the 3rd manifestation of this 50-year biblical cycle will bring to the world.
Beginning in September and lasting through October 2016, New York Times best-selling author Rabbi Jonathan Cahn says the "Super Shemitah" cycle "doesn't have to continue, but if it did what would that mean?"
"In each of the two cycles, it meant war, war in the Middle East, war concerning the nation of Israel, ending with a major restoration of end-time prophecy," Cahn, author of The Harbinger and The Mystery of the Shemitah, told Charisma News. "Does the phenomenon of the seventh Shemitah and the prophetic Jubilee have to continue?
"No. It is enough that each of the central end-time restorations of the land, the land of Israel, and the city of Jerusalem, took place at the exact appointed parameters determined by the ancient mystery."
On the biblical calendar, every seventh year was a Shemitah or Sabbath year. But every seventh Shemitah ushered in a "Super Shemitah" known as the Year of Jubilee. The Jubilee was the year of restoration.
"If you lost your property, your ancestral home, your inheritance, your father's possession, your land, in the year of Jubilee, you got it back," Cahn says. "You were restored. Everyone is to return to his property and to his family."
If any people on earth have ever been especially separated from their ancestral home, it's the Jewish people. Nearly 2,000 years ago, the armies of Rome drove the Jewish people from the land of Israel and scattered them throughout the earth.
"For two thousand years, they wandered the earth hated, persecuted, nation-less, homeless," Cahn says. "And yet if the Jubilee belonged to any people, it belongs to the Jewish people. Could the Jubilee, the ancient year of restoration, the return to the land one has lost, to one's ancestral possession, actually hold the key to Israel's prophetic restoration and end-time events?"
Cahn's comments come as some are asking why the end of the Shemitah in September didn't result in economic calamity, war in the Middle East or the fulfillment of other end-time prophesies.
With regard to the end of the Shemitah in September, Cahn has pointed out that $11 trillion in global market wealth was wiped out during the Shemitah's last quarter, not to mention nearly half the value of China's financial markets. In addition, the "wave of terror" in Israel began with the outbreak of violence on the Temple Mount on September 13, Elul 29, the Shemitah's last day, the "day of shaking."
Jay Peroni, the chief investment officer at Faith-Based Investor and author of Blood Moons on Wall Street, says the global economy and markets are now exhibiting "very troubling signs." He says current market conditions and the economy seem to be following the same pattern of prior Shemitahs that marked the beginning of economic downturns that took place over the course of several months.
"Many have been saying that this year's Shemitah was uneventful," Peroni says. "To that, I say, 'You have to be kidding me!' Those who think that a Shemitah impacts only the U.S. stock market are sorely mistaken. We serve a God who is sovereign, consistent, and always in control. Is He predictable? No! If He were, He wouldn't be God. God moves how He wants to move. 2015 is no different.
"Though many assumed God would continue the pattern of the previous two Shemitahs and the U.S. markets would fall on schedule, this was not the case. The stock market dropped significantly in August and then rapidly recovered. However, this is following a classic stock market crash formula—the markets crash, quickly recover, and then the real drop happens. In November, the markets got close to their 2015 all-time highs, now we are seeing panic selling all over again."
In their book, Israel First! Your Key to Understanding the Blood Moons, Shemitah, Promises to Israel, and the Coming Jubilee, Orthodox Jew Gideon Ariel and evangelical Christian Bob O'Dell offer explanations "for the lack of a cataclysmic conclusion to the blood moons in Israel and the lack of a major Shemitah economic collapse in the United States."
Ariel and O'Dell, a former high-tech executive with Motorola and Wintegra, say the Year of Jubilee that began in September is "decisive to the United States and Israel relationship."
The book builds on Cahn's message with "cutting edge analysis." In fact, Ariel and O'Dell found an "80 percent correlation" between prior Shemitahs dating back to 1900 and stock market corrections of 20 percent or more.
They say the blood moons phenomenon since 1948 is marking a three-phase rebirth of Israel, as well as a three-phase peaking of power in the U.S. and "perhaps Western Civilization."
In the book, they propose the U.S. is now exactly halfway through a 28-year cycle composed of four seven-year periods that will determine the future of America. They claim Leviticus 26 foretold the "sudden terror" of September 11, 2001, the decline of power of the U.S. since the global recession in 2008, and that "lone-wolf terrorism and violence would initiate the new seven-year cycle in 2015 rather than for this cycle to begin with an economic collapse." As evidence, they cite the wave of violence against Jews in Israel that began on the first day of the Jubilee, along with the terrorist attacks in Paris last week.
"We found passages in Leviticus 26 that seem to describe the events of 9/11 fourteen years ago and the decline in U.S. power over the last seven years," O'Dell says. "We then said that if this pattern in Scripture is correct, the next seven years will also be predicted in Leviticus. And what might you suppose was the first phrase of the very first verse that was to apply to the seven years beginning in the fall of 2015?"
Lev. 26:22 begins: "I will let loose among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children."
"We suggest in Israel First! that this could be fulfilled by an increase in lone wolf terrorist attacks," O'Dell says. "Then came the college shootings in Oregon and elsewhere, the ISIS bomb killing one hundred at a peace rally in Turkey, and now the ISIS tragedy in Paris. Have you noticed in these attacks that most of the victims are young?"
Over the next seven years, they also warn that more economic hardship is coming, especially if the U.S. decides to "curse Israel" by agreeing to the creation of a Palestinian state.
"One of the main reasons that we tried to bring all these topics into one book is to unravel the confusion between what the phenomena is causing what to happen because it takes decades for it to take effect," O'Dell told Charisma News. "The blood moons, in our opinion, is a very long-term phenomenon. That's why we never expected something to happen on Sept. 28.
"However, when we look back at these four blood moons, we will say in the future that this was the time in which Israel graduated into adulthood. It will be a marker for Israel being able to stand up on its two feet without requiring a partnership with the United States. But it's going to take a long time for that transition to occur."
O'Dell says the blood moons tetrads are marking the rebirth of Israel in "three main phases"—the 1948 rebirth of the nation, the 1967 recapture of Jerusalem and what might occur during this "Super Shemitah" year.
"As far as specifically what might happen, it could be related to the temple, but we're just not sure yet," O'Dell says. "The big question before us all is will Israel take a major step forward in the next 12 months toward the reclamation of lands that He wants us to restore to the Jewish people. The way we see it is the Jews gave away the Temple Mount in 1967 right after they won it."
O'Dell says one of their big questions is whether "God might desire to restore freedom of prayer for Jews on the Temple Mount during the Jubilee year."
While many have been "hyper-focused" on the transition between the end of the Shemitah and the beginning of the Jubilee, O'Dell says people should be looking at what "God is doing in seven-year increments."
"We are not expecting an immediate financial meltdown because we found a model for the Shemitah in Leviticus that shows the stages of how God interacts with His people when they are moving away from him," O'Dell says.
Although prior Jubilees were marked by war and end-time restorations for Israel, Cahn says God "doesn't have to repeat or continue the mystery."
"Again, does it have to happen in this time period. No. On the other hand, it could. Either way we should be watchful," Cahn says. "And either way we can say this: God is on the throne. God is over and in charge of all things. He's the God of mercy and restoration. It's His will to restore. He never forgets His people. And when He makes a promise, He fulfills it. And when He does, He's perfectly on time."
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