Hanukkah -- The Eighth Feast of the Bible
16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Hanukkah is taken from the same root as Enoch who was a type of the rapture. His son was Methuselah which was a prophesy that when he dies the end comes. Enoch is then raptured, after that Methuselah died, Noah gets on the boat and the flood comes. So then, Enoch is part of "the days of Noah" which the Lord likened the end of the age to.
Noah spelled backwards (in Hebrew) is grace. Interestingly it is like the days of Noah are being played in reverse. Jesus rose from the dead the same day the ark came to rest on the mountain whose name means "reverse the curse". That was the start of the age of grace. The church age is like Noah and his family riding in the ark for the last 2,000 years. It has been likened to riding in a washing machine. The Bible says that it rained for 40 days and nights, well that ended on the first day of Hanukkah, so if we are going in reverse you can guess that the rain begins on the first day of Hanukkah which is December 18. Interestingly this is the same day that the Lord prophesies He will shake the earth yet once more.
What is also interesting is that this year the 8th day of Hanukkah is Christmas which is also the Lord's day.
Now consider this, there were 7 appointed feasts in the Old Testament and then we had Hanukkah, the 8th feast which was not an appointed OT feast, however, the pattern took place and according to Paul
Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
The fulness of the time refers to Hanukkah as this is what set the stage for the Lord to be sent the first time.
There are 9 lamps on the Hanukkah lamp, two more than the Menorah, that is the church (7) + the two witnesses. The New Testament is 27 books or 3 x 9, the triune version of the Hanukkah lamp.
The age of grace began with Jesus being rejected and cut off by the Jews and the temple being destroyed. Therefore this age is all about the "rededication" of the temple.
Having Antiochus (the antichrist) set himself up in the temple as god and sacrifice a pig illustrates how man (or the apostate church or the Jews) have enthroned Satan in their heart and been defiled. So Hanukkah is also about salvation, restoration, repenting and returning to the Lord.
Hanukkah also gives us a whole new perspective on the parable of the ten virgins and what it means that for some the oil was running out. The reason the oil didn't run out on Hanukkah was because they had the word that God was with them mixed with faith.
We have always felt that the rapture should take place on an appointed feast as a way to send a message to the Jews. Hanukkah is an appointed feast that would send that message. However, Jesus said that "no one knew the day or the hour" at the time of His earthly ministry. That would be true of Christmas, a holiday that had not been set up yet. For this to be the 8th day of Hanukkah signifying a new beginning would send a message to the Jews while also sending a message to the apostate church that is left behind on Christmas (a holiday which for them is about worshipping idols and practicing fornication).
However, I have felt that we should get a 7 day warning just like Noah did when Methuselah died. So if the Lord does shake the earth again on December 18th that would be our seven day warning. Also, like Smyrna we might get 10 days of trial, and so that might begin today. We are seeing terrible things happening to those standing for righteousness in Brazil, Iran and China.