Servias Ministries Blog

Both Phillip and Ezekiel were ”harpazo’d” in the midst of their ministries as examples to us!

Luke recorded by The Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 8:

25  After Peter and John had testified and taught the Word of God in that city, they returned to Jerusalem, stopping at many Samaritan villages along the way to preach the hope of the gospel.

26 Then the Lord’s angel said to Philip, “Now go south from Jerusalem on the desert road to Gaza.”

27 He left immediately on his assignment. Along the way he encountered an Ethiopian who believed in the God of the Jews, who was the minister of finance for Candace, queen of Ethiopia. He was on his way home from worshiping God in Jerusalem,

28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.

29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”

30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.

32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this:

“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth.

33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.”  (Isaiah 53:7-8)

34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?”

35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.

36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”

37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.

39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away (G726 harpazo), so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing.

40 But Philip was found at Azotus (Ashdod). And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.

Ashdod was at least fifteen miles from the desert road to Gaza.  Phillip was fully led by The Holy Spirit and was given orders by an angel from the Throne Room.  Should we expect any less as we come into full maturity?

It is written by THE SPIRIT in Ezekiel chapter 3:

12  Then the Spirit lifted me up, and behind me I heard a loud, thunderous voice: “Blessed be the glory of Yahweh in His sanctuary!”

13 I heard the sound of the living creatures as their wings kissed each other and the sound of the rumbling wheels beside them, like the sound of a great earthquake.

14 The Spirit lifted me up and took me away. I went in the heat of my spirit, and the Hand of Yahweh rested powerfully upon me.

15 The Spirit took me to Tel Abib, the very place where the Jewish exiles were living beside the River Chebar. I remained there with them for a week, dumbfounded and overwhelmed by what I had seen and heard.

You and I would surely be overwhelmed as well in such an unexpected event.  We must cautious not to rationalize away The Word and attempt to create symbolic allegories to explain the supernatural.  FATHER is precise in HIS Word from Genesis to Revelation.  HE means what HE says and says what HE means.

FATHER reveals the preciseness of HIS Word and HE is the Great Mathematician!

The following is technical in nature but it provides great examples of FATHER’S preciseness when HE gave us HIS Word and no man can reproduce such a Work!  This is why man cannot dispute the Source and Its supernatural nature.

Moses recorded by THE SPIRIT in Genesis chapter 1:

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

This verse is the first mention of HIS appointed times.  HE further describes them in detail which is recorded in Leviticus chapter 23:

1  And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be Holy convocations, even these are My feasts.

3 Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an Holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein : it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.

4 These are the feasts of the Lord, even Holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.

And summarized as to the number of days included in a year:

52 sabbaths

7 days of Passover including its related feast days

1 day Shavuot: Feast of Weeks aka Pentecost

1 Yom Teruah: Feast of Trumpets

1 Yom Kippur: Dat of Atonement

7 days of Sukkot: Feast of Tabernacles

1 Shimini Atzeret: 8^th day of Assembly

70  Total Days

Once again, the number 7 x 10.

The Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS) is described this way: choose a starting point (in principle, any letter) and a skip number. Then, beginning at the starting point, select letters from the text at equal spacing as given by the skip number.

As an example of an Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS)  ,  it was noticed several decades ago by Rabbi Weissmandel that the word Torah  occurs spelled out as T, O, R, H   (in their Hebrew equivalents)  in the Book of Genesis by starting from the first T.  The 50th letter after that T is an O. The 50th letter after the O is an R.  And the 50th letter after the R is H.  In this example, the “skip length” is 50 letters. It turns out that TORH is spelled out more than 56,000 times in the Book of Genesis (with various skip lengths).

There are 78,064 Hebrew letters in Genesis.  Using equidistant letter sequence (ELS) analysis, you would expect the Hebrew term “The Appointed Times” to occur 5 times based on pure statistical analysis.  However, it only appears once.  It is at an interval of 70 and it is centered on Genesis 1:14. The probability of this occurring is 1 in 70,000,000 which is way beyond man’s intelligence.  The ELS is clustered around the text it refers to in Genesis.

FATHER has manipulated the letters as a form of authentication for us to discover.  Yes, there are more examples that show the infallibility of The Word but I only chose one example for us to focus on today.

Why bring up this highly technical example?  It is to show you that we should focus on Truth and reality found in The Word rather than the opinion of men who are guided by worldly agendas.  This is especially true of the prophecies given to us by the Book of Revelation.

Our Lord Jesus Christ was the third of seven references to the rapture in Scripture!

Luke recorded by The Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 1:

1  The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,

2 until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen,

3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

By spending forty days with the disciples, Jesus accomplished two things.  First, At the beginning of His ministry, He was “delayed” by forty days due to the requirement to specifically overcome the adversary in the wilderness of temptation. This forty-day delay was made up after His resurrection.  Secondly, He provided infallible proof to those who interacted with Him that He in fact was raised from the dead.

4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me;

5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?”

7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.

8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Before His departure, He fully equipped the disciples with understanding of The Kingdom of God as well as preparing them for the ministry of The Holy Spirit on behalf of the newly formed Body of Christ.

9 Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.

10 And while they looked steadfastly toward Heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel,

11 who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into Heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into Heaven.”

FATHER also provided two angels to confirm what the disciples saw with their own eyes so there would be no question of His ascension.

Mark wrote by The Holy Spirit in Mark chapter 16:

19   So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into Heaven, and sat on the Right Hand of God.

20 And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the Word with signs following. Amen.

It is clear that the disciples were different men and walked in boldness after they witnessed the “taking up” of Our Lord.  These events changed the world forever and FATHER’S long-term plan continues to this day.  He will return for His Bride in like manner.