When I was young, the movie that impacted me the most—whether biblically accurate in all of its splendor or not—was the spectacular The Ten Commandments. I was particularly affected by the scene in which God sends the final plague upon the house of Pharaoh and the people of Egypt. God warns the Israelites to mark their doors with the blood of a lamb so that when death passes over their homes, the firstborn child would be protected. However, the green death cloud does enter the homes of those who have no blood on their doorposts. It is a cinematic depiction of the first Passover, and from that time on, it joined Easter as the most important holidays for me.
I didn’t fully understand “the blood,” but I did know that if the mark of the blood of a lamb prevented the “Green Death Plague” from entering a house, we should have it on our door. I also knew that I was the first child and grandchild and understood that the only one to die would be the firstborn.
Each year at Easter, my maternal grandfather—a six-foot four-inch giant in my eyes—would carry a goat or lamb around his neck, which he would butcher and prepare on the grill or in the oven. Therefore, I would go to him and ask him for some blood to put on the door of my room and windows outside. My family thought my imagination was very active and hoped that I would eventually learn how to discern reality. I am still learning by the Spirit to look deep into circumstances to see reality in what I hear and see.
As I grew in understanding of the Word of God, I began to understand Passover. I came to know Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, and formed a relationship with Him. I came to know His Spirit when I was 18. I developed a daily relationship with Yeshua. But I never forgot that green death plague. I formed a watchful eye through the years concerning the evil cloud’s movement and activity.
We recall that when David gathered his men for war at Ziklag, the tribe of Issachar was described as those who understood the times and knew what to do (1 Chron. 12:32). In the same sense, this writing should help you with the Issachar anointing that is necessary to maneuver through today’s world crisis.
Passover 2020
What a shift and season we are in as I write these words: We have just gone through Passover (and Easter) in the year 2020. We have entered a new era in history. I started prophesying in September 2019 that 2020 would be a “true Passover” year.
Each year before Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets and the Feast of Tabernacles (the great biblical feasts surrounding the Fall harvests), the ministers I co-labor with seek the Lord together to discuss what seems to be developing for the year ahead. We delve deep into the Word of God looking for patterns that relate to the times that are shifting around us. The last week of August 2019 and the first week of September were no different. Before I get into the specifics of what God spoke to me, however, I want to provide a bit of context.
Hebrew was the language that God chose to communicate His covenant to humankind. In Genesis 14:13, we find this simple descriptive phrase concerning the Father of the faith: “Abram, the Hebrew.” The word is actually Abram, Abar, or “the one who crosses over.” Inherent in each person who has aligned their faith with the Abrahamic covenant is the ability to cross over. God formed a covenant with Abram and changed his name to Abraham, the Father of Nations, and then promised that anyone who blessed and aligned with him would be blessed.
Generations later, God then gave His only begotten Son to humankind. Through the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Redeemer of humankind, we can submit our hearts to be aligned with Him. Then His Spirit enters our spirit man and not only aligns us through the Son back to the Father, but makes us part of the original Abrahamic covenant. This gives us full access to all the promises associated with that covenant. Therefore, once you are a believer, you too have in your being the ability to cross over.
Passover 2020 corresponds to 5780 in the Jewish calendar. Each year, I always look at the year ahead from a Hebraic perspective, since the covenant of my belief system is Hebraic. Hebrew is a whole language. Each word has a parent phrase with numerical value. Each word is filled with sound and with pictorial descriptive quality. The number 80 in Hebrew is represented by the letter Pey. Pey means mouth, breath or voice. This new year that we have entered is also a new decade of our decreeing the will of God in the earth. Not only have we entered a new decade but a new historical era.
When I began to study the number 80 and the era ahead, the Lord revealed to me a significant understanding of what was to come. One of the key Hebrew words that begin with the parent phrase Pey is Passover. Most of the world has an understanding of Passover in history: The Hebrew people “crossed over” out of Egypt and started their journey toward the promised land.
The word is Pesach in Hebrew. Pesach means “to leap forward and be covered until you cross over into your destiny.” Prophetically, when studying this through the Word and meeting with our staff in fall 2019, the Spirit of God revealed to me that Passover 5780/2020 would be a very important moment in history. I actually saw that we were entering a decade of Passover or crossing over. I knew we must cross over and keep crossing over until we had fully broken through into the promises for the generations to come.
When reviewing the Hebrew year 5780 from a prophetic perspective in September 2019—and in the context of Passover 2020—I heard the Lord speak to me: “This will be a year that plague-like conditions will infiltrate the earth. This Passover will be a modern-day Passover like the initial Passover where My People were redeemed from Egypt. If a remnant in a nation will celebrate My Blood and press through after Passover for the next 40 days, I will restore, remake, realign, reset and recalibrate their future! This will be a year that I begin the process of separating and dividing nations that belong to Me.”
While it’s not often, I will sometimes look at the meaning of the Gregorian calendar from a Hebraic perspective. In this case, I began to look at the numeric meaning of 2020 in the Gregorian calendar. In Hebrew, the number 20 is the letter kaf, which means “hand.” The original pictograph of the letter kaf was a drawing of a hand. When I saw this, I noticed an intersection of revelation between the two calendars. I saw the hand of God moving on the earth and the hands of people stretching in an attempt to grab His hand. Even though we have celebrated many Passovers, the Spirit of God began to show me that this would be the year that we would really need to understand it. I knew God’s remnant people in nations would be required to reach out, call on Him and grab His hand by faith to cross into the new era ahead!
His Spirit Speaks
I questioned, “Passover, plagues, Egypt, government intervention—Lord, what are you saying?”
The Lord then spoke: “Plague-like conditions will hit the earth. February, March and April will be hellish. I will be watching to see which nations pass over.”
I saw a death structure gripping nations. However, I also saw the call to celebration. I saw that the nations that would acknowledge and honor His Blood would have power to command the death grip to let go beginning at Passover. Death tolls would begin to decrease and would cease increasing.
Knowing word patterns, I immediately was reminded that the Israelites passed over but still had 40 days to press through into the promise of their future. Many problems arose during that 40-day period, postponing their promise for 40 years. I decreed last September that during the 40-day period following Passover, faith would arise in God’s remnant people from nation to nation and no postponement of the promise of God would occur. To be specific: The time period the Lord revealed to me was between April 16, 2020 and May 26, 2020. Though that window has passed as you read this, do not fear; this Passover season is not just for 2020—it is for the church arising over the next several years.
I then began to see that the real issue would be an economic rearrangement throughout the world. The 50 days from Passover to Pentecost is a time when harvest would flourish.
As Passover approaches each year, we again prepare to celebrate “the time of our redemption.” In Israel, seders are full of family and friends, joyful singing, delicious food, and most importantly, a sacred recollection of the miracles God performed for the ancestors of our faith. Four hundred years after prophesying to Abraham, God delivered his people from bondage into freedom.
Soon after receiving this prophetic word in September 2019, a new plague condition was encountered in China. Cases of COVID-19 first emerged in late 2019, when a mysterious illness was reported in Wuhan, China. The cause of the disease was soon confirmed as a new kind of coronavirus, and the infection has since spread to many countries around the world and become a pandemic. “Coronavirus” is often prefaced with the word “novel,” because that’s precisely what it is: a new strain in a family of viruses we’ve all seen before. According to the WHO, coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that range from the common cold to much more serious diseases. These diseases can infect both humans and animals. The strain that began spreading in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, is related to two other coronaviruses that have caused major outbreaks in recent years: severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
There have been reports of people transmitting the virus before they show symptoms, but most experts think this is probably not a major driver of new infections. What is concerning, however, is that symptoms can be mild, and the disease can clearly spread before people realize they’re sick.
Cry to the Lord
The Egyptians were frightened by the growth of Israel (Ex. 1:8-12). The Jews were becoming too numerous, too strong. The Egyptians felt like they could easily be overtaken. However, this was their labor force, and the Jews were too useful to be permitted to leave the country. It was the perfect climate for the birth of anti-Semitism.
Pharaoh’s view was that the Jews were too dangerous to keep, and they were too important to lose. When this type of tension—real or perceived—has occurred in nations throughout history, the ruling leaders typically plot to subjugate or otherwise enslave the group gaining power. Later, the Romans invaded Judea in the first century BC, and made it one of their provinces in A.D. 6.
Since time immemorial, the ruling classes of nations have subjugated powerful minority groups. The most heinous example of anti-Semitism, of course, was in Germany starting in the 1930s. As many of Germany’s Jews thrived economically, they threatened the German power structure being erected by Hitler. The eventual eruption of hate manifested itself in the Holocaust and the death of more than 6 million Jews.
Nations have to weigh the benefits of using a minority group’s talents up and against the fear that the very same group’s gifts and talents will threaten their nationalism. In the Jews’ case, in this initial time of approaching Passover, Pharaoh’s treacherous solution was to deceive the Jews into showing their patriotism by building cities to safeguard the country’s wealth. This plan was similar to what had happened during the seven years of drought when Joseph erected administrative cities to take care of the entire region. After the drought, recovery would come quickly, and the people of Egypt would prosper again. Joseph had God’s heart and was being used for all people.
Pharaoh used this pattern, but with a greed motivation, and had Egypt develop a labor force to symbolize a nationalistic devotion of all toward Egypt. Once Jewish volunteers were mobilized, the plan reversed from the days of Joseph and enslavement of the minority, but prosperous Jews began to emerge.
Pharaoh told his people that the Jews’ power and wealth were from Egypt. “They flourished by taking advantage of our hospitality during and after famine, so now we have every right to take back what’s ours!” (see Ex. 1). This became not only a plan of captivity for the Jews, but an overall economic strategy of control for Egypt. Pharaoh knew the Jews were too important to the economy to be permitted to emigrate.
The oppressed Jewish population continued to grow. Egypt grew angrier and angrier, and therefore, devised a plan of population control. The Egyptians moved from jealousy, greed, anger, fear, and control to hatred. The plan of labor now shifted to destruction and annihilation. In response, God sent plagues, a pillar of cloud and fire, and walls of water. God could have moved them from Egypt toward their destiny quietly, but drama was necessary.
God was determined that Egypt would know that “I am the Lord” (Ex. 7:5, 10:2, 14:18). Did the parties involved recognize God? The end seemed inevitable with Egypt closing in behind the fleeing Hebrews, and the sea barring any way forward. God had to demonstrate his faithfulness as the Red Sea parted, the people crossed, the Egyptian pursuers were engulfed, and their pursuits terminated.
They got the message—and it was delivered in highly dramatic fashion: “Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. When Israel saw the great power which the Lord used upon the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses” (Ex. 14:30-31).
As we explore the significance of Passover for this current time—a time filled with plagues, wars and rumors of wars—we also celebrate the past and future redemption during the Passover season. We have moved beyond knowledge into faith—beyond “belief in God” to “belief that God…”. We can wholeheartedly trust in God and his servant Yeshua to accomplish all that He has promised.
Our hope is more than a set of beliefs. Our Seder is more than an exercise of the mind. Rather, it is a declaration of the heart. We base our confidence upon God’s unshakeable promises, His demonstrated faithfulness and His guarantee of redemption for all who trust in the one who is coming. As the Master said, “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in Me” (John 14:1).
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May our Passover tables—as well as the redemption of Passover written on the tablets of our hearts—be a source of many coming to know and trust in God and his servant Yeshua.
Passover was the remedy for freedom in biblical times. Is Passover significant today? From the first Passover until today, God meant this to be an ordinance and a celebration from year to year. And especially now, with God’s prophetic word regarding a time to “pass over,” we take the posture of celebration between the chronos of Passover on our calendars to the kairos season we are in as a church.
Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Chuck Pierce in May 2020.
Chuck D. Pierce is president of Glory of Zion International Ministries.
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