THE SEALED CITY, JERUSALEM
THE SEALED CITY, JERUSALEM
Sunday, July 16, 2017, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Zechariah 1:14b: Thus says the Lord of hosts; I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.
Jerusalem is a sealed city in a sealed Zion. God gave Zechariah significant spiritual truths related to the past and future of Jerusalem. Eight night visions came to Zechariah on the 8th month, 519 B.C., one for each day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
I attended a conference at In His Presence Church on Friday night and Saturday morning. The guest minister is Pastor Steve Cioccolanti from Australia. He quickened to my Spirit the Book of Zechariah. He ministered on the flying scroll.
Zech 5: 1-4: Then I turned, and lifted up my eyes, and looked and behold a flying scroll. He said to me. What do you see? I answered, I see a flying scroll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. Then he said to me, this is the curse that goes forth over the face of the whole earth; for every one that steals shall be cut off as on that side according to it. I will bring it forth, says the LORD of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and the house of him that swears falsely by my name; and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.
The Hebrew word for scroll is magillah. The magillah is an oval container in which a rolled scroll is stored. The magillah size would be equal to 20 ft. x 10 ft. Pastor Steve then showed us a photo of an SS-1Scud missile, which is in the shape of a magillah.
During the teaching my ears were alert that he thought those prophecies which have been sealed are now being unsealed. He did not expound on that subject, but my Spirit was quickened.
C. R. Oliver: “What happens in Jerusalem affects the whole world. The flying scroll illustrates a sealed destiny on those who seek to steal the spiritual truths of God and those who wrongfully swear by Him and are not from Him. Both groups will find themselves destroyed by the sealed scroll that covers the whole earth.”
Christian you carry the authority to appropriate the power of the Cross by Faith and the Holy Spirit to break every curse.
The first vision in Chapter 1: 8-12 pictures a man riding a red horse and standing among the myrtle trees. The man is Yehovah (The Angel of the Lord). Myrtle trees were used to build the booths of the Feast of Tabernacles. The messages of this book are based on Tabernacle Truths.
Zechariah’s prophecies illumine the message of Haggai, who was used to mobilize a people to rebuild the Temple by showing they were the chosen of God for the task. Listeners to Zechariah’s words would understand their efforts were just a part of the seal on Jerusalem. They would be part of the sum for the seal of Jerusalem.
In no way could their efforts be equated to the Last Days Jerusalem, which would house the Temple coming down from God. Just as Solomon’s Temple and Jerusalem fell to ruins, so their efforts would fail in history, but ultimately God would bring a New Jerusalem and a New Temple and culminate the seal of the city.
“Carolyn teach New Jerusalem as purity.” New Jerusalem is a spiritual temple and the 9th temple of the Bible.
8th Temple: “Know you not that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” (1 Cor. 3:16). “For you are the temple of the living God; as God said, I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.”
9th Temple: “For we know if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Cor. 5:1)
Zerubbabel’s temple was the 5th temple. The efforts of God’s people in carrying out the rebuilding of the Temple and the city itself would be rewarded by the Messiah bringing his glory into it. Jerusalem would not fade into oblivion; it would emerge victorious above all other landmarks in the world. Just as the Feast of Tabernacles then and now lies outside the brick and mortar realm, so the future of Jerusalem is outside brick and mortar efforts.
God told Zerubbabel, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit. (Zech 4:6)
Weaving between the rebuilding efforts of 520 BC, and the future glory of the Messiah’s Temple in the sealed City, Zechariah’s words presented a monumental portrayal about the importance of untold generations as they interact with Jerusalem. Those who curse it, or cause it difficulty, will meet the judgment of God. Those who bless it, and seek to do the will of God in it, will find prosperity and have the seal of God’s blessing.
Every aspect of the sealed city was explored by the Lord in His interaction with the prophet. The Temple within it, the people who would occupy it, and the nations which surround it are affected by the seal on it. God himself will always intervene and do so until the seal is perfected.
Zech 1:17: My cities shall again spread out through prosperity; the Lord will again comfort Zion and will again choose Jerusalem.
In 2017, all who visit Zion will see the fulfillment of this prophecy of prosperity over Israel.
Not one inch of its territory will be sacrificed in the fullness of time, as evidenced by the surveyor’s line and the measuring stick, nor will any infringement be tolerated.
This is the law of the temple: All the surrounding area on top of the mountain will be most holy. Such is the law of the temple.” (Ezekiel 43: 10-12)
Zech 14:21: In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts.
The Canaanite spirit is all unclean sex spirits. The Lord will separate out of His Church all who will not repent of their unclean sexual spirits.
Oppressors will arise, but they will meet competent craftsmen.
Zech. 1:18-21: Then I lifted up my eyes, and saw, behold four horns. I said to the angel that talked with me, what are these? He answered me. These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Then the Lord showed me four carpenters. Then said I, What have these come to do” He spoke, saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head, but these are come to frighten them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.
The four horns (rulers/military power) did attack Jerusalem (The Babylonian, Media-Persia, Greek and Roman Empires). The prophet said the craftsmen would cut the four horns and they have. (Nearly every Western nation is an affiliate of the fourth horn {Roman Empire}. This horn and those associated with it have affected almost all the known world, thus any word against the fourth horn was understood to pertain to most of the Gentile world.)
Israel is God’s stage where he plays out all He is doing in the earth. What happens in Jerusalem affects the whole world.
Zech 5:6: The angel that talked with me went forth, and said to me. Lift up your eyes, and see what is this that goes forth? I said, what is it? He said, this is an ephah (basket) that goes forth. He said, moreover, this is their resemblance through all the earth. There was lifted up a talent of lead. This is the woman that sits in the midst of the ephah. This is wickedness. He cast it into the midst of the basket; and he cast the weight of lead (sealed) upon the mouth. Then I lifted up my eyes; and looked. Behold there came two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings; like the wings of a stork; and they lifted up the basket between the earth and the heaven. I asked the angel, where are they taking the basket? He said, to build it a house in the land of Shinar; and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.
C. R. Oliver: “Wickedness, personified in the woman and her sealed basket relates to false religions, more especially Islam. The package was supernaturally taken out of Jerusalem and ferried to Babylon (modern Iraq) where the totality was planted and based.”
This has not yet been fulfilled because Islam and other false religions still occupy Israel and Jerusalem.
Ultimately, the Lord will reveal the seal on Jerusalem to the world and take possession of that Holy City.
Zech. 2:5: “I will be a wall of fire all around her, and I will be the glory in her midst.
Those who come to His city will either be provided for and protected or destroyed. (Hence, the admonition to those remaining in ancient Babylon to leave that land and get under the seal of the Blood of Jesus Christ.)
Zech 2: 11-12: Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day and they shall become My people. I will dwell in your midst…the Lord will take possession of Judah as his inheritance in the Holy Land, and will again choose Jerusalem.
The 520 B.C. (5th Temple) as a building was different than the temple of Solomon (4th. Temple). Even though the aged returnees wept at the discrepancy between the two, God showed them a new day had dawned. Their building would have its own unique glory as the Messiah came and glorified it.
The train of history had to move forward to the time when that which was tainted, compromised and stained, through iniquity, would pass away to make room for the New Jerusalem, the City of God and the New Temple, The Body of Christ.
To show the discrepancy between the 520 B.C. Jerusalem and the future Jerusalem, Zechariah portrayed the investiture and ultimate crowning of Joshua, the high priest. The 520 B.C. temple was a continuation of the old covenant. The New Temple would not be. First, Joshua, the priest representing the “520 bunch,” had to be cleansed and changed. Jesus, the High Priest of the true Temple which replaced theirs was indeed a “wondrous sign”.
Zech 3:8: Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your fellows that sit before you for they are men wondered at for, behold I will bring forth My servant the BRANCH.
Jesus would not wear the tainted garments of the previous priesthood. His priesthood was Holy and without sin. The 520 Joshua clearly views the engraved stone of seven eyes, which is the Branch (the greater High Priest). With Him all the iniquity of the land would be removed in a day. After Him, there would be no need of the original priesthood. His was perfect. Similarly the glorious High Priest was invested with a crown, making him the first true King-Priest, an unheard of office in 520 B.C.
Zech 6: 12-13: Behold the Man whose name is the BRANCH! He shall sit and rule on His throne; so He shall be priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
The sealed King-Priest is reigning in both positions. He is raising up a company of King-Priests who will rule with Him. When this company is prepared, the finality of the seal on Jerusalem and the Temple will be perfected. This scene connects with the two anointed ones who supplied the oil for the spiritual lamp stand in the Holy Temple. C. R. Oliver’s view of these two anointed ones is Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who both had not arrived on earth at the time of Zechariah.
Additional seals began to manifest themselves in symbolic form in Zechariah’s prophecy. The sealed history of Jerusalem continued to be projected. Zerubbabel, post-Babylon’s engineer, stood symbolic of the great Zerubbabel (the Messiah) whose plumb line would set Jerusalem’s recovery after the “time of the Gentiles.”
The people began to question Zechariah about their traditions. When viewed in the light of the glorious future of Jerusalem and the New Temple, their traditions seem like fables.
They questioned Zechariah about executing an upcoming memorial celebration.
Zech 7:3, 5-6: Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?...Before Zechariah could field the question, God answered tersely, Did you really fast for Me… or for yourselves?
Many of us fast for vanity. Knowing that most of the traditions of organized religion satisfy some other requirement than ministering to God, the question must be asked to every generation, not just the 520 crowd.
Israel’s disregard for God’s word during the time of their former prosperity led them to incorporate idolatry into their religious structure.
This repeated idolatry would ultimately cause their downfall again as they rejected the Messiah and once more felt the wrath of God. They would be scattered.
7:14: It is to come to pass, that as He cried, they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, says the Lord of hosts I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not…
They would hear the sound of the wailing shepherd 11:3; 11:13: Weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver and the Lord said to me, Throw it to the potter…
Hearing worthless shepherds instead of the Holy God always resulted in judgment!
Zech: 9:9: Behold your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.
(So it will be at the end, when the Last Days are upon the world and the time has come for Messiah to usher in His day, the prophet Zechariah will have been set aside for a long time---but the seal of Jerusalem will not have been set aside.)
Current society has pictured the modern state of Israel as the repository of all end-time prophecy, which shows ignorance of Zechariah’s work.
The Seal is upon Jerusalem and all things radiate from that face.
Zechariah wrote about the 520 Bunch:
8:13: I will save you, and you shall be a blessing.
8: 14-15: Just as I promised to punish you when your fathers provoked Me to wrath, says the Lord of hosts, And I would not relent, So again these days I am determined to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.
To the End Time Bunch:
8:22: Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord.
10:3: For the Lord of hosts will visit his flock, the house of Judah.
The nations who will come against the Seal and the Sealer will discover they have hit God’s time seal.
14:7: It shall be one day which is known to the Lord.
14:3: Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations.
14:5c: The Lord shall come and all the saints with thee.
The Seal on Jerusalem will be perfected and its people will be sealed with it.
8:3: Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth, the Mountain of the Lord of Hosts, the Holy Mountain.
14:20-21: In that day, HOLINESS TO THE LORD shall be engraved on the bells of the horses…Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the Lord of hosts.
Holiness perfects the seal. Only those who are righteous will partake of the Kingdom of God.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. – quote from Steve Cioccolanti; I entered into the labors of C. R. Oliver, Sealed Unto His Coming. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Pastor Cioccolanti or C. R. Oliver.