Hanukkah holds hidden secrets to end-time prophecy

Hanukkah holds hidden secrets to end-time prophecy Eight-day festival began Sunday at sundown

Most Christians think of Hanukkah as "that nice little Jewish holiday," but they miss the deeper meaning, says best-selling author and Messianic Jewish Rabbi Jonathan Cahn. They picture Jewish families spinning dreidels, lighting menorahs and eating fried potato pancakes. But there's more to this eight-day holiday, which begins at sundown Sunday. "It actually holds a big, prophetic end-time revelation," Cahn said. "It's a heavy holiday." And it keeps getting heavier as time progresses and biblical prophecies about the end times inch closer to being fulfilled. "If anything, over the course of the last year, America and much of the West has moved closer to the scenario foreshadowed in the days of the Maccabees" and the Hanukkah end-time events, said Cahn. He believes Hanukkah presents a preview of the end times events, the spirit that will envelop the world, and the strategies for Christian endurance more than any other biblical holiday. "It foreshadows the Antichrist, the abomination that causes desolation, the calling of evil good and good evil, the removing of God from the public square, the banning of God's Word, sexual immorality, and the persecution of God's people," he told WND. "It also reveals the strategy that end-time believers need to know that might overcome all these things. "We are fast approaching a day when believers can be thrown in jail and the majority of Americans applaud it," he continued. "It is all the more crucial that we be prepared, vigilant, wise, and prepared that we might live victoriously for such a time as this." Jesus celebrated Hanukkah as described in John 10:22-23, when He "walked in the temple in Solomon's porch" during the "Feast of Dedication." A revolutionary act The word Hanukkah means "dedication" and revolves around a historic and improbable revolution, Cahn explains in his documentary film, "The Hanukkah EndTime Mystery." The holiday celebrates the story of the Maccabean revolt against Greek oppression in the period between the Old and New Testaments. This revolt was predicted by Daniel more than 300 years before it occurred, and the miraculous success of that revolution was still being celebrated during the time of Jesus' earthly ministry. If it had not been successful, the Jewish religion and culture would have been wiped out, and the Messiah could not have been born into a devout Jewish family as predicted by the Old Testament prophets. Daniel 12 speaks of a period when "there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, and at that time your people shall be delivered. … But you Daniel close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end." "How long shall the fulfillment of these wonders be?" Daniel asks. The angel answers saying his prophecies would be sealed until the end of the age, but when the time comes, "the wise will understand." Cahn believes Hanukkah and the Maccabees are best understood in light of prophecies by Daniel and the apostle John in Revelation. "You could not know salvation. You could not have Christmas (the birth of Christ). You would not have the New Testament, without Hanukkah," he said. The Syrian Greek dictator, Antiochus Epiphanes, was hell bent on destroying Jewish culture and faith. Without the revolt, without Hanukkah, there would have been no Virgin Mary, no Joseph, to hear and humbly obey the voice of God. Daniel prophesied about Antiochus Epiphanes or "God manifest" arising from the north and invading the Holy Land. Much like the Islamic State has declared war on Jews and Christians today, Antiochus set out to erase every trace, every memory that could lead anyone to the one true God or the history of his people. Families circumcised their sons secretly. They observed Sabbath secretly. To be caught meant certain death. "And he comes into the temple with a mission to defile it, slaughters a pig, sets up an idol in the temple, and launches an all-out war on the Bible," Cahn said. The Jews had a choice. Offer sacrifices to the idols or die. In today's Western culture, the preferred god is no longer Zeus. It's secularism. Every teaching is tolerated, even blessed by the state, except one. The world's major religions are taught to children in public schools as being equal. Cahn sees the seeds of Christian persecution already planted in America, and likely to grow in the coming years. Christians, he said, will find answers on how to deal with persecution in the Hanukkah story. Cahn believes Daniel's prophecies carry a dual meaning for the period of Antiochus in 167 B.C. and the period when the antichrist will arise in the end times. "It looks like Antiochus is going to wipe out the faith of (the one true) God in the world and it looked like it would be the end of this biblical faith," Cahn said. "If he had succeeded, you would not have the New Testament. God had other plans, though." Foreshadow of Antichrist Christians in the last days will be overcomers, like the Maccabees, Cahn believes. In fact, the Hanukkah story contains a blueprint for how to prevail against the overwhelming odds of the world and its anti-Christ system. "You have God's people but then you have apostasy breaking out all around them. You see evil overtaking the land, you see a new morality that seeks to eradicate faith in God," Cahn said. "It's imposed but also many are going along with it freely. Antiochus makes this law that everyone is to abandon their faith. He proclaims himself god. Man proclaiming himself God; He is a foreshadow of the Antichrist." Just as Revelation speaks of a temple in Jerusalem being defiled, so there is an idol set up in the temple in the Hanukkah story. In each story, a man proclaims himself as god, sitting in the holy place. All the people of Antiochus' empire were to become one people culturally, mixed into one multicultural cesspool of paganism. This can be seen today with the migration of peoples from one region of the world to another, with Muslims flooding into once-Christian Europe and America. Politicians like Barack Obama and Angela Merkel invite them and preach that everyone should be "welcoming" of an antagonistic culture. The policies of Obama and Merkel are encouraged by the United Nations and financed by atheist billionaires like George Soros. The God of the Bible in the Maccabees' time would be replaced with Zeus. Today, he is replaced with Allah or the god of the secular state and humanism. "The gentiles immediately said OK and even some in Israel said 'yes we must go along with this.' Not the Maccabees," Cahn said. Likewise, in Revelation, the Antichrist begins to oppress the saints of God and tries to change the set times and laws. "We are living in such times," Cahn said. "Believers, if you are a true believer, you're going to be a thorn in the side of the world. We are already witnessing it. There is a spirit of Antichrist in the world."