Jewish 2021 Prayer Observances

JEWISH NEW YEAR PRAYER OBSERVANCES

‘Come With Me’ Invitation’

‘‘For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and currents on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring.” (Isaiah 44:3, ESV)

It was at the Feast of Tabernacle (Sukkot), an important Holy Festival in Jewish history, when Jesus pled for everyone to come and drink of Him. (John 7:37). He is the Living Water for all mankind who will heed the call to ‘come and drink’ from His Source of Life. A refreshing in a spiritually barren desert clime. The background to Jesus’ invitation is set in a context of recrimination towards our Lord. The age-old spiritual conflict between good and evil is being played out as the Spirit of Life, pours forth an invitation to the Living Waters that the people so desperately needed to refresh the letter of the law that was killing them in religion. “And He has qualified us as ministers of a New Covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6, BSB). By the promise of the New Covenant we are vivified in the overflow of the Spirit that generates new life. ‘Wherever the river flows, there will be swarms of living creatures and a great number of fish, because it flows there and makes the waters fresh; so wherever the river flows, everything will flourish.’ (Ezekiel 47:9, ESV)

These yearly Jewish observances are sacred holy days in the Ecclesiastes calendar from where God is thought to work from. The Spirit has dealt with me over previous years at these sacred times to spiritually discipline myself and spend time in consecration. Now, in 2020 He has instructed me to announce to the people to ‘Come With Me’ as an invitation to follow me as I follow the Lord Jesus on this incredibly unusual spiritual experience. Of course many will turn their noses up at the very idea that this should be the case. I do not think there is an alternative. Believe me, my spiritual journey has prepared me for this time. God only needs the one He chooses. That one with God is the majority. From hereon, I truly believe that the last chapter of our spiritual journey to heaven will be strategically coordinated. Just as the final chapter of slavery in Egypt for the Israelites was strategically coordinated by God through His chosen servant, Moses. To understand and to follow on to know what God is doing strategically in this end time will come from the mouth of JESUS, the Spirit of Prophecy to His chosen servants for this moment.

The 9th Hour Prayer

During my prophetic journey it was Spirit-revealed to me, the importance of the ecclesiastical order and its relevance in bringing about an end time healing ministry. The Spirit also instructed me in 2015 to make preparation for an ‘out of Egypt’ deliverance that He would bring about. God has also revealed and made known to me the significance of the 9th Hour Prayer time. It is just a simple instruction given to me and I try to follow through with it. Not everyday I pray at this time but when I am doing a special sacrifice or if I am praying about a need I will incorporate this special prayer time. Usually the Spirit reminds me as the time approaches. I do not need to be home to do it. I just keep a watch on the time. I will sit in a park, in a cafe over a cup of tea or just walking, observing the people and quietly pray for a short while and conclude by giving thanks. “So, is it important for us today to observe the 9th hour prayer watch?” Perhaps so! This is a dream I had 2 days into the 49 days of counting down for Pentecost/Shavuot 2020. ‘I was standing in a barber’s salon and as I looked at the clock on the wall it was 3pm. But the two hands on the clock were jarring together and the time stood still. Every time the smaller hand tried to move just past 3pm it was making a jarring sound. I said to the barber that the clock hands were stuck. He tried to prise them apart but could not fix it. Then he said it is probably to do with a problem upstairs. I looked up at the ceiling and it was then I was hearing a faint disturbance upstairs and noticing a slight tremor on the wall.

The next day I pondered over the dream as my attention was alerted to the 3pm timing. I quickly went through my old notes for information I had written, sometime in 2018 about the 9th hour prayer deliverance. At that moment, I knew instinctively that God was saying to me that I had forgotten to commence praying on the 9th hour each day over the 49 days of Pentecost into the 50th day. The hands being stuck at 3pm was an indication that something was wrong. There was a problem upstairs in the spirit realm. I repented for the oversight and commenced praying at 3pm from the next day, the 3rd day of the count down. Since doing that I have felt peace knowing that I was now praying at 3pm each day of the remaining 47 days of the Pentecost countdown. It is important for me anyway because God required that I understand these fundamental underpinning biblical principles and how they work for miracles and deliverance.

Let us go into Exodus 12 and take a look at the Passover reference to the 9th hour. God instructed Moses to say to Israel, ‘Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at evening’. Exodus 12:6). When God instituted the Feast of Unleavened Bread or Passover in Egypt on the eve of Israel’s deliverance, He commanded that the sacrificial lamb be killed at evening which is thought to be from about 3pm onwards. God’s chosen people would observe this sacred time as they prepare to leave Egypt the place of suffering and forced labour. This is corroborated in the New Testament when Jesus the Paschal Lamb was crucified. It was the 9th hour of the day when Jesus gave up His Spirit on the Cross after lingering and suffering in pain throughout the long day. The scriptures say, ‘And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” interpreted,, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Jesus was delivered at about 3pm. The fact that Jesus suffered for the greater part of the day and cried out about the 9th hour is intentionally significant.

There are other biblical references to the 9th hour deliverance, including Cornelius praying for his household’s salvation. Answer came at about the 9th hour for deliverance and salvation.

Lord Of The Sabbath

Strong’s (7673) ‘Sabbath’, gives an interpretation to ‘cease’, ‘desist from’ and ‘to rest’. In Creation, God worked for 6 days and rested on the 7th day. This founding principle is to be observed as a biblical model. The day comes when one ceases from living and desist from his physical life’s labour. Equally, there is an eternal rest secured under the New Covenant of Promise, instituted in the perpetual sacrifice obtained under the Blood of our Lord, flowing in the bowels of mercy and grace. What I am getting in my spirit is that God requires His people to understand that there is still yet a higher quality of rest in Him.

I believe we have missed the higher calling in Christ Jesus in our works. We have become complacent and over familiar with church life. In this season the Spirit of Truth will sit as the Refiner, to judge our works. The Spirit will strip away the need to be doing, working and exerting effort rather than resting at Jesus’ feet. Our righteous works becomes null and void, even unacceptable before God when it is conditioned on meeting expectations and organisational focused needs. In fact, we should not be expending such energy and time on Christians bloated and disabled on religion. Their sufficiency must be in Jesus Christ their Sabbath. There must also be a status quo shift to prioritising the harvesting of the end time souls out of Egypt (the world). When the time for harvesting of ripen crops is in season, in farming communities, it is a tradition for all hands to be ‘on the deck’ to bring in the bountiful yield. There is excitement and joy as communities collectively haul in the yield. It is the reward for hard labour.

Labouring in travail as we engage in what we are commissioned to do is the example set by our Lord. Often in scripture He would leave the disciples and crowd of followers to travail in prayer in Gethsemane. It is not about works otherwise we would boast on those less able. It is really about finding our rest, that place of intimacy in the Lord of the Sabbath. He will then instruct us how to do what He requires to be done and when.

Jesus is mankind’s Great Deliverer. His Ministry of Reconciliation is veiled in these symbols of Jewish Festivals. Let me take you to John 7. It is a scripture, poignant in bringing across the repetitive cycle of rejection, being misunderstood and the evil chatter that Jesus faced amongst His peers. The scriptures reveal here that even His brothers did not believe in Him. (John 7:5) “Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand.” (John 7:2, ESV). Jesus makes His way to Jerusalem to this great yearly Feast. He goes into the temple and begins teaching. A discourse unfolds as His enemies proffer that He has a demon. He cites Moses giving them the Law but that they were lawbreakers.

The angst of the religious leaders was always regarding Him breaking the Sabbath law. “If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well?” (John 7:23, ESV). Jesus is Lord of our Sabbath. These religious leaders were scholars who knew the law. Yet, the spiritual darkness grossly enveloping their spiritual sight left them focussing on the background rather than the object. Figuratively, Jesus sounds the shofar-call, lifting up His horn of salvation and cries, ’Come all ye that are heavy laden I will give you rest’. In Him we can find our rest through salvation and being delivered from the law of bondage. This understanding would almost always escape these religious folks who misjudged Jesus and showed disdain towards His Ministry of Reconciliation.

Blowing The Shofar

How fitting that Jesus should rise to the occasion of sounding the alarm on Zion’s Holy Hill, Jerusalem. He boldly announces His mandate to refresh the thirsty soul. “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” (38) ‘Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38, ESV). The opportunity is presented today to ‘Come With Me’ on this extraordinary journey of spiritual awakening as the promise of an imminent end-time flow is released upon our broken and sick world. Today, the Spirit has placed it in my spirit to blow the proverbial shofar. I hereby sound the alarm “Come, all of you who thirst, come to the waters;…’ (Isaiah 55:1, ESV). I announce, first to the people of Zion by sending forth this ‘Come With Me’ Invitation. Rivers of living water will flow out of your bellies to quench the thirsty soul. Get into the Spirit flow that will burst the banks of tradition and observances and collapse the walls of spiritual captivity. Do not reject our Lord’s Invitation to ‘Come and Drink of Me’. It is for the end time refreshing that is so vital in this dry clime.

In Genesis 22:13, we see the God of provision at work for Abraham. A ram is caught in the thicket by its horns, as Abraham prepares to sacrifice his only son Isaac. ‘Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son’. I have a preference for the (KJV) translation of Strong’s (5645) Hebrew, to draw reference to the word ‘thicket’ or ‘copse’. My thoughts are that of Jesus as the ram, the Holy Sacrifice provided from the foundation of the world. Jesus our Paschal Lamb, caught in the thicket of human life, experienced what we go through to bring credence to being the perfect sin offering. The ram was caught by his horns in the bush and would have struggled to be free. The horn depicts the strength of an animal and is a weapon as they struggle for territorial dominance. Jesus is our strength and He sets men free in the spiritual struggles. He has won the battle against the realms and territories of evil, taking them captive under His dominion. He is LORD and we can take hold of the horns of salvation at the altar, drawing upon His strength as we linger in His presence. “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold’ (Psalms 18:2, NIV).

At the Feast of Tabernacle in Jerusalem, Jesus’ invitation to the thirsty hearts to come and drink of Him would give strength to the weary, lift up the fallen and raise the spiritually dead. Joel pleaded, “Blow the ram’s horn in Zion; sound the alarm on My holy mountain! Let all who dwell in the land tremble, for the Day of the LORD is coming; indeed, it is near“ (Joel 2:1, BSB). The horn is therefore a symbol of spiritual warfare also. As the released Word is sounded in the atmosphere the territory becomes spiritually active. The cry of our Lord to come and drink of Him is causing the chaos in our world as the time for the healing rains sweeps in. It is time to arise out of sleep. The season of induced slumber by the enemy is over as the prophetic mantle stirs the lax spiritual environment. Those who are already aroused may be wondering, ‘What next Lord’? ‘Where do we go from here’? The time calls for penitent soul searching to be in the will of God.

The Body Of Christ

I am convinced, that like the desert church, the end time church has arrived at a pivotal juncture in the 7 church periods of history. We have evolved as splintered spiritual groups, denominations and individual entities in the fullness of time. The body of Christ has morphed beyond anything we could have imagined. It is a global collective platform of cultures, sects, ideologies, schools of thinking, diversely orthodox to charismatic and all that falls between these spectrums. We have a plethora of differentiations. It would appear to be a seamless tapestry work of religion. However, when the Spirit, the seven eyes of God zooms in, a chequered, frayed, poorly woven, mix-match and discolouration of our righteous works is revealed. Much effort has gone into our labour but under the scrupulous examination of the Spirit it is a fractured and hurting entity that falls short of Jesus’ kingdom quality, (Romans 12). I first preach to myself and at this point I pause to let my tears flow as I prayerfully ask for God’s mercy for the global body of Christ The Spirit urges me to sound an alarm that the body of Christ has got it so wrong. We are the generation who are privileged to live in the time of the rapture of the saints. Many of us will not experience death but will be caught up. A great demand, a fearful responsibility now rests upon this new generation of fresh leaders. A window of opportunity is being presented and we must get it right and set the House of God in divine order, under the leading of the Spirit. There is an end-time anointing of 7-fold magnitude for this season and under this prophetic mantle of velocity, we will see the perfecting of the saints accelerated beyond anything seen in the 7-church periods.

At this present time, I perceive in my spirit that the body of Christ, perhaps oblivious to many who are seeking to reinstate church life, is awaiting a fresh move of God. It will not be business as usual. It is in order for one to cease from their works and be still. To declare, ‘I do not know what to do Lord’. ‘Let me be still and wait on your next move for mankind’. I sound a scriptural shofar-warning; ’Tell the nations, God has roused Himself from His holy place’ (Zechariah 2:13)

This ‘COME WITH ME’ INVITATION is a call to a Spirit-led soul searching move of God. As we approach Rosh Hashanah 2022, it is not about celebrating this Jewish New Year per se. Rather, it is using the biblical text to road map the course ahead, as the Spirit reveals. From a Spirit-led enlightenment, I have drawn reference, from my limited understanding of the way God has dealt with the desert church through His chosen servant Moses. I sense a reversing of things as there will be a Spirit shift as God provides strategic leadership through His chosen servants for this time. The individual whom God has chosen, trained and prepared for this time with the healing and restoration mandate, will be ushered to the global platform shortly. I know that because of the fear, death and destruction occurring. It is an indication of an evil backlash to thwart the next move of God. The Spirit-demonstration of this healing mantle upon this chosen servant will unequivocally and without question, be of God. The world needs God’s intervention to dispel the spirits of fear, sickness and death and to bring healing, restoration and salvation for this time.

GWENDOLYN SMITH. #NEW PENTECOST. JUNE 2020