Sid: My guest by way of telephone I’m speaking to him at his home outside of Akron, Ohio is Rick Neill. We’re interviewing him on his brand new book, literally just off the press, “Ultimate Glory.” The thing that excites me about this book Mishpocha is there’ve been many scenarios on how the end time events will be, but you know none of these scenarios are really and truly based on the Old Covenant festivals. As I explained on yesterday’s broadcast God Himself tells us that these festivals, or the Hebrew word is these God appointments or holy convocations. In the Hebrew holy convocation means rehearsals. So God is already telling us if you’d like to know how the play ends look at the rehearsal. Most Christians don’t have a clue about their Hebraic roots because they were stolen and replaced with Greco-Roman roots. That’s why there’s so much confusion and controversy in the last days, but God does not want it to be a mystery to His children. So on yesterday’s broadcast we found out that the feasts are divided into 2 seasons so to speak. There’s the spring feast which were perfect shadows of the first coming of the Messiah, and then there are the fall feasts which again are perfect shadows of the return of the Messiah. Now one of the things that God… Rick really thinking along these lines has to do with the understanding of a wedding. A wedding, a Jewish wedding in the east is so different than what we have as weddings, even Jewish weddings or all kinds of weddings here in the west. So when we look at the parables of the Messiah the people when He said that they knew in cultural context what He was talking about, but today we put His words in our 21st century western cultural context and get the wrong conclusions. So let’s start at the beginning again to understand what a Jewish wedding was like in the times that Jesus wrote all of these parables about the last days. Rick?
Rick: The things the Lord really used to get me started down this line there is something He stirred inside of me about the word mansion. What is turned out to be was we understand in the west the word mansion to mean like a 23 room estate with managed gardens, but the Hebrew word for mansion is more of an intimate place for the bride and the groom, a bridal chamber. Once He started me down that line of thinking He began to show me other things and how it works out is that with the wedding the way that it is Biblically, the bridegroom would come and propose a wedding covenant for the bride. He would come and set a goblet, or a glass of wine before the bride and before the bride’s father. He would propose a marriage covenant and he would in that covenant state what he would be willing to pay for the hand of his bride. The father would look over the covenant and it would be presented to the young lady and often times the young lady would be making her decision on whether or not to marry this bridegroom without even ever having seen him. But the proposal of marriage would be made and if she would receive the proposal, if she said “Yes” she would drink from the cup. The drinking of the cup they were considered betrothed, that doesn’t really mean engaged the way we think of it. What it means is that they were married but they were not to be together yet, they were husband and wife at that point but they couldn’t be intimate because at that point when she said “Yes” by taking and drinking of the cup the bridegroom was told that she had accepted his offer and he would go home to his father’s house and he would begin to prepare the mansion, the bridal suite. It would be the father’s decision, not he son’s decision as to when the bridal suite was finished. The son would work on the bridal suite when it was finally finished the father would give the okay to the son to go and sweep away his bride, to go in the middle of the night and to take her away, to catch her away. Well while this building was taking place of the mansion the bride would keep herself pure. Once she drank of that cup there was a veil to be worn over her face. From that day on that veil spoke of the fact that she is separate, she is to be separate onto her bridegroom that she is spoken for that the price has been paid for her, and that she is already spoken for. So she would each night go to bed and take her lamp with her because she did not know what night the bridegroom would be coming for her. She would take the oil and take the lamp, so that when the building was finished and the bridegroom did come that the best man would come with the bridegroom and with a shout he would awaken the bride and take away the bride and they would be whisked back to the bridal chamber, or the mansion, where the marriage would be consummated at that point.
Sid: The thing that’s so amazing in our understanding is here in the west we combine the wedding ceremony and the wedding feast, but how was it in Biblical days?
Rick: The wedding ceremony itself wasn’t going to happen until after the marriage was consummated because as they came back to the mansion when they came there the best man would wait outside the door after the marriage is consummated, and once the marriage is consummated the sheet that had blood on it from the first time that they made love would be shown as a sign of virginity, sign of purity which would mean that the wedding would proceed. Because at that point if the bride herself was not a virgin she was eligible to be stoned, that’s in Deuteronomy 22 that’s one of the ones that really got me started down this line. The whole idea of the wedding… the first emphasis is of a catching away, or the surprise taking away by the bridegroom. Then the next emphasis is on purity, that if the bride who the bridegroom comes for has not kept herself pure that she would be cut off at that point.
Sid: How does this pan out with the current thinking of say a little prayer with Billy, live like the world and when you die you have a life insurance policy to go to heaven, once you say that prayer no one can ever take your life insurance policy to heaven away?
Rick: The key to salvation is lordship, it’s relationship with Jesus. In Matthew 7 Jesus said “Not everyone who says to Me ‘Lord, Lord’ but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.” We can also see this in how Jesus addresses the 7 churches in Revelations where He talks about “I know your works.” The whole emphasis on Passover and the early feast days was on faith that we get into the kingdom by faith. Now our lifestyle once we enter by faith must be a lifestyle of faithfulness. That the Lord has called us to follow His Lordship that we can’t call Him Lord and ignore His dictates to our lives. That He has a specific destiny birth in everyone of us, that we have a specific target a specific destiny that we each are to fulfill for our Lord and as He walks us down there it’s the works, it’s the obedience, it’s doing what the Lord says that keeps us in fellowship with Him and we can’t ignore Jesus and call Him Lord.
Sid: The message I’ve been getting is the prophetic word I’ve been getting is “It’s time for separation.” What would that mean to you?
Rick: To me that is to lay down anything that is coming between Jesus and me. It doesn’t have to be black backsliding sin it can be in my case, my personal case, sports could become an idol in my life…
Sid: Now if sports was not an idol He wouldn’t tell you to lay it down.
Rick: No now there is nothing sinful about watching a football game, but where the problem comes in when I let that become too big a part of my life; when I spend more time investing my time in football than I do in reading the word and fellowshipping with the Lord, and interceding for His people. When I let things become more important than Jesus then that’s when He will come and tell us to separate that those things are sucking life. He has an awesome destiny set before me for my life and He has an awesome destiny set before you for your life. But there are also booby traps that the enemy tries to get in there to get us off track to suck that life of God out of us to where we will be spending our energy and resources in wrong areas.
Sid: You know when I read your book “Ultimate Glory” and read what the shadows of the fall feasts show I think it would cause someone to be very nervous if they understood what’s going to happen on the Day of Atonement.
Rick: I agree, I agree. Those who have a very shallow relationship with the Lord, those who believe they just have to say a prayer and they’ll go to heaven when they die that these feasts days, these fall feast days are really going to shake them up. But on the other hand those who have a heart to really serve the Lord, those who have really made Jesus Christ their Lord those who really want to fulfill their destiny, those who want to walk in Godliness, those who want to fulfill everything the Lord has predestined for them, these fall feast days will birth such hope in their hearts. That’s what it’s done in me.
Sid: I’ll just give our Mishpocha a little clue, we’re about ready to walk into the greatest revival the world has ever seen. The question is not whether we are going to walk into or not, the question is are you going to walk into it?
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth