2017: The Year of Challenge, Change, and Restoration

There are many prophetically significant events to look forward to in this New Year 2017. The Bible verse we received for this year is Joshua 1:9, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

This is also a verse that I received in years 1999 and 2000, which were the years of great challenges, changes, and restoration for me. And now 17 years later, it happens again, but this time not only for me, but also for the nations, especially Israel and United States of America.

Seventeen itself is a number that stands for death and resurrection or challenge and restoration. It was on the 17th day that the judgment of worldwide flood came upon the world, and it was also on 17th day of the month that the flood ended and the new era of restoration began.

So, I believe we can expect the same things in the 17th year of this new millennium that also coincides with year 5777 on a Hebrew calendar,  with five being the number of grace and triple seven the number of completion.

We are already seeing early signs of it with the nations showing hostility towards Israel by declaring East Jerusalem off limits to the Jewish people and declaring building of settlements in the so called "occupied territories" illegal. Having a more friendly American president in the office from January 20, will for sure help, but it doesn't mean that things will be easy.

Many Rabbis in Israel believe that Donald Trump came to the office after overcoming so many obstacles by God's design as he will be exactly 70 years, 7 months, and 7 days old on the day of his inauguration, with 70 being the number of Israel and double seven again for divine intervention and completion of His plans. Personally I am pleasantly surprised by the change that this man is going through and the policies he is proposing, and how friendly he is towards God's people both Christians and Israel.


The world ruled by "the prince of the air" and "god of this world" will be throwing everything it has  against both Israel and America, so there will be great challenges, but also there will be great changes leading to restoration in both nations. But it will be a tough year for the nations that came against Israel as by this act they opened themselves up for Satan to wreak havoc among them, that is why we need to pray for those nations to turn away from those attitudes. The United Nations will become even more irrelevant and might even be dissolved if countries such as United States stop supporting it financially or even leave it over its hostility towards the only democracy in the Middle east while they give a free pass to murderous regimes such as Islamic Republic of Iran.

And for the Church of God worldwide,  we can expect spiritual challenges, but also many victories that is why I believe the Lord gave us this specific verse from the Book of Joshua as an encouragement to press on and face the giants, so that we can posses the land that He has promised us.

I will be delving deeper into the many mysteries such as that of the number 17 and other prophetically significant signs and events that will be happening this year.

Six Years to Jerusalem 2018

An update to my first article in this series published on May 14, 2012 :

Today marks 64 years since Israel became a nation again on May 14, 1948 and there is only 6 years left until the 70th anniversary of Israel’s rebirth in the year 2018. As I shared in my article, The Countdown to Jerusalem 2018, written back in 2008 a very significant historic event is bound to take place in Jerusalem that year.

In it, I also predicted that 2008 will mark the beginning of the countdown with a series of political, economic, as well as natural disaster events that will intensify with each year as we approach 2018. I wrote about coming global economic depression, which actually began with what the media dubbed “The Great Recession” later that same year. It never really ended. The so-called “recovery” was nothing more than just a short-term bubble created by stimulus money that most governments have thrown at it and we can clearly see now that it did not really change anything for the better.

United States is getting deeper in debt, their dollar is still losing value, and unemployment is still a growing problem, not to mention the political struggle over the direction the country should take as its next presidential election approaches. The European Union is in the middle of a very serious economical crisis as well as its major economies such as Italy and France face deep austerity measures to avoid near-default situations that Greece is facing.

The global economy also still feels the pain of devastation caused by the mega-earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis that devastated Japan in 2011. There is anxiety and uncertainty related to massive political upheavals taking place in the Middle East as well as a nuclear threat coming from Iran, which is closer than ever from becoming a nuclear power. And the fact that openly authoritarian China and Russia are backing Iran up does not help either. It seems that the world is more politically divided than ever, even within individual countries on the lines of left versus right, more spending versus austerity, and in the case of United States even along racial lines.

Even the sun is becoming more violent as it gets deeper into its solar maximum faze with more sunspots, solar flares, storms, and even solar tornadoes raging on its surface, which in turn affects the weather patterns and seismic activity on earth. We can only expect more mega earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, draughts, floods, crops failures, and deepening food crises to follow.

These are very difficult times for many, but not a reason to despair. Knowing what is to come can help us to prepare both physically and spiritually. We all must be alert against the deception as some will try to use crisis in order to bring the people who are still free into bondage. Do not believe everything that you see in the mainstream media. More than ever before pray and think for yourself. Do not follow blindly your religious leaders and politicians, but judge whether their words match their actions. There is no doubt that we are living in times predicted by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 24 and He specifically warned us not to be deceived.

Major religious and political leaders will begin to work together to convince all people that they must give up all their differences, and most of their freedoms in order to achieve world peace and save mankind form self destruction. It will sound very good to our human intellect and many will fall for it with disastrous consequences, but to quote the Scriptures, “Those who know their God will be strong and will carry out great exploits.”

Link to the original publication: http://socyberty.com/advice/six-years-to-jerusalem-2018/