By Karen Y. Stevens

 

All of us have secret ideas that we don’t really want to share.

I have admitted to being a closet doomsdayer.  I love the idea of the Rapture.  I can’t wait for Jesus to return, so I am always looking for signs that the day is near.

The Greek word for rapture is Harpazo, which means to be snatched up or transported by lofty emotions.  It can also mean the state of mind resulting from feelings of high emotion; joyous ecstasy.  Strange we would have a word that could stand for “being taken up” and “experiencing joy”, all at the same time.  Sounds exactly like the Rapture.

In my mind, I feel I’m not ready, but we must all feel that way?  Never living up to what we should be doing.  Don’t let Satan bury this lie in your soul.  It will just grow and fester.  Just keep asking for forgiveness and keep trying to do better.

What brought all this up was the moving of the Israeli Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  I watched the news when it all happened back in May, but I did not understand the significance.  Big deal – the embassy gets moved?  What I did not realize, is they normally put the embassies in the State Capital.  Duh!  Technically, embassies can be anywhere they want.  However, the logic for embassies to be in the capital is because it is more convenient for foreign officials to meet and communicate with federal government officials, which are normally found in capital cities.

I recently took the time to research it, and now understand the significance, but it is still very complicated to explain.  First of all, I know God loves symbolism and all this has a lot to do with that.  God decided Jerusalem was the capital of Israel more than 3,000 years ago during the time of King David.

Speed forward to the good ole USA, there was a “Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995” and is a public law of the United States that passed by the post-Republican Revolution 104th Congress, on October 23, 1995. The proposed law was adopted by the Senate and the House and the Act became law without a presidential signature on November 8, 1995. The Act recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city.

Every President before Trump chose to block this law instead of putting it into force, for one reason or another.  One of Trumps campaign promises was to make this happen, so he did.  The rub was that Palestine does not want Jerusalem recognized as the Capital, or as an undivided city, and by moving the Embassy to Jerusalem it made a proclamation of just that, therefore putting it back to the way God proclaimed it to be.

I could tell you a lot more, but this is it, in a nutshell.  It’s all about perception.

The Palestinians want to officially divide the city and make East Jerusalem (where the Temple Mount is located) the capital of a future Palestinian state. The United States proclaimed Jerusalem was the capital in 1995, and the recent move in May of this year, solidified that declaration.

According to the book of Revelation’s, the Jewish people have to take control of the Temple Mount, which the Islamic Muslims have.  The Jewish people are not allowed to pray, sing or worship in the Temple, which makes this a huge step in history, and one step closer in my secret doomsdayer diary!

 

Karen Y. Stevens is the founder of Orange County Christian Writers Guild