Are the Feasts and Sabbaths of the Old Testament
Applicable to New Testament Believers?
Over lunch one day, a friend of mine who is in ministry in the Middle East made two statements that caught my attention. She said, “We’ve changed His Sabbath and ignored His Holy Days, but in the millennial kingdom we WILL keep them the way He established them.” This statement stayed with me and caused me to pray over what she had said and to ask the Lord to show me what she was talking about and if this was true. That prayer led to several years of investigating and learning. I’d like to share with you that process.
If the Holy Days of God apply to us, how and why do they and why are they important?
The answer to this question may take you aback when you first read this. It took me a while, too, but please persevere to the end and I think you’ll be able to see that what I’m saying isn’t such a stretch, it’s just different from our traditional teaching; our cultural norm, which, by the way, is not the same cultural view the disciples/apostles had. They were not “American Christians” with our American cultural view. They were Middle Eastern Hebrews who held THAT cultural/Biblical view! So, we need to understand this information with a view closer to the one held by those who wrote our Renewed Covenant – what we call the “New Testament.” Otherwise, we may think the Bible is saying something it isn’t because we are putting our “spin” on the Word, when instead, it was written from THEIR reference point, the Hebrew roots they held as Jewish believers. This just means we must investigate the Word, understand it in the way they wrote it, and make a shift in our thinking. So, allow me to begin to explain what I’ve learned and please be open to take a look at this information.
In God’s covenant with the descendants of Abraham, He gave them certain laws (“Torah” which really means “instruction” and not “law” in Hebrew) and commandments by which they were to live. Part of the reason was so the surrounding nations would know that there was a GOD who lived in
“…And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
This is the first Messianic prophecy in the Bible and it happens RIGHT after the fall. God had a plan in place from “the foundation of the world.” We know from Biblical history that God wanted the covenant people of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob to shine HIS light to those lost nations around them so that, like the Queen of Sheba, they would come to see God’s mighty works among the Hebrews AND they would hear of the God whom the Hebrews served.
From the foundation of the world, God’s plan can also be seen in Genesis 1:14:
Then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;
The Strong’s Concordance/dictionary tells us more about these words:
SIGN #0226 ‘owth’ {oth} is translated a signal, a distinguishing mark, banner, a remembrance, an omen, a warning, a token, an ensign, miracle and proof
SEASONS #(4150) mowed` (mo-ade'); or moed` (mo-ade'); or (feminine) mow` adah (2 Chron 8:13) (mo-aw-daw'); from OT:3259; properly, an appointment, i.e. a fixed time or season, specifically, a festival, conventionally a year; by implication, an assembly (as convened for a definite purpose); technically the congregation; by extension, the place of meeting; also a signal (as appointed beforehand):
Why would these words be so important and why would God have inserted them into Moses’ account of creation right in the first chapter?
One reason was surprising. You see the Hebrews arranged their calendar around these seasons proclaimed by these lights in the “firmament” (as the KJV says) in order to keep the Feast Days that God commanded them to keep. These don’t seem so important to us today, but let’s look at what God had to say about them.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
“But as for you, speak to the sons of
‘So the sons of
“It is a sign between Me and the sons of
So, it can be seen here that this is a “perpetual covenant” “throughout your generations,” “forever.” When does this end? It doesn’t. But does this “Old Testament stuff” apply to those of us who are not Jewish?
Ephesians
“separated from Messiah, excluded from the
The obvious positive reflection of this verse would read that NOW:
We are not separated from Messiah, we are included in the
This tells us that upon our belief in Messiah, we are included, we BECOME part of
Romans 11 reinforces this message by telling us that we were grafted into a Hebrew olive tree, one from which some of the Jews had been broken off, and as wild olive branches we were grafted in AMONG THEM and became a partaker WITH THEM of the rich root of the olive tree, and that we were to remember that we do not support the root, but the root supports us. (Romans 11:11-24)
AND if we are grafted into
For even more information on this read the entire chapter of Leviticus 23 describing the seven Feasts of God. Notice especially verses 14, 21, 31, 41. Each one of these says in some form or another, “It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places.” Also notice that these are GOD’S Feasts, not ours, not the “Jews.” They belong to GOD, Himself! (“These are the appointed times of the Lord which you shall proclaim as holy convocations…” Leviticus 23:37)
So if we’ve been grafted into their olive tree, if we are the
I still needed more info, so let me take you where I went next. Let’s read some B’rit Hadashah (New Testa-ment) on this:
“…BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD,
WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT
WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH;
NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS
ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND
TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT;
FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT,
AND DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD.
FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF
AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD:
I WILL PUT MY LAWS IN THEIR MINDS,
AND I WILL WRITE THEM UPON THEIR HEARTS.
AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD,
AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERY ONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN,
AND EVERY ONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, ‘KNOW THE LORD,’
FOR ALL SHALL KNOW ME,
FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.” (HEBREWS 8:8-11)
“THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THEM
AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD;
I WILL PUT MY LAWS UPON THEIR HEART,
AND UPON THEIR MIND I WILL WRITE THEM.” (HEBREWS 10:16)
In the past when similar issues have been raised I’ve heard lots of people say, “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! The Old Testament is obsolete! It’s done away with! We don’t have to live under that old law anymore! Jesus abolished it! Well, that’s partly right and partly wrong. Y’shua did away with the need for a blood sacrifice by becoming the one sacrifice for all time. Once He fulfilled the requirement for a blood sacrifice to cleanse us and bring us into right relationship with God, that part of the old covenant was eternally fulfilled (filled-full), and so the need for us to slaughter animals for a blood sacrifice is no longer needed.
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish God,…. (Hebrews 9:11-14)
Well, what about the rest of the law? Isn’t it obsolete? I realized that if it was, then this too had to be obsolete:
You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol…
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain….
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother…
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against you neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; (Exodus 20:1-17)
If the old covenant is totally obsolete, then what about these? Do we agree with many in our society today and remove them? ARE they truly obsolete? The only way we can agree with that is if Y’shua Himself dismissed them or gave us permission to no longer uphold them. So, I had to look at whether He had anything to say about this subject. (For a more detailed study of this see Lawlessness Study)
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.
“For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18)
There I had it, straight from the mouth of Y’shua, Himself: the Law isn’t abolished, nor will it be until heaven and earth pass away! We’re all still here, and so is the Torah, the “instructions of God”!
Not only that, but I found that Y’shua also said,
“If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.
He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” (John 14:15,21)
Then I had to look and see what commandments are mentioned in the B’rit Hadashah (New Testament)? Y’shua said:
“ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’
“This is the great and foremost commandment.
“And the second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’
“On these two commandments depend the whole Torah and the Prophets.” (Deut. 6:5, reiterated by Y’shua in Matthew 22:37-40)
In Ephesians 6:1-2, I saw that Paul reiterated one of the 10 Commandments,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise),
THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH.
The only other “commandment” I can find in the New Testament is also spoken by Y’shua:
This is My commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you” (John
This is simply an expounding upon the second commandment listed in Matthew 22, loving your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, technically, it’s not a “new” commandment, but a reiteration of one already mentioned.
Then I had to investigate what commandments Y’shua was talking about when He said, “If you love me, you’ll keep My commandments”? Since there are no “new” commandments given in the New Testament, He has to be referring to the ones in the Old Testament (Tanakh in Hebrew). Indeed, when He made this statement, He could ONLY have been referring to the Old Testament since there was NO New Testament at that time!!
But, we’ve been told that the New Testament is what is applicable to us, today. The question I asked myself was this: has God become schizophrenic? Has He changed His mind from the Old Testament to the New? What does He say about this?
For I am the Lord, I change not; (Malachi 3:6)
Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and today, yes and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)
The “Torah” or “law” of God is really the Hebrew word for “instruction” or “teaching.” This Hebrew word does not carry the meaning of a legal system of laws. That is why it’s not “law” that can be changed or abolished. It is simply the teaching or instruction of God who, according to His own Word, doesn’t change.
I knew that since the Father and Y’shua are One, they must be in complete agreement. Therefore, they have not changed, nor has Their word changed from the beginning in Genesis through the Old Testament, even through the 400 years of silence from Malachi to Matthew or even from Revelation until today. The only thing that has changed is our need for a blood sacrifice. Baptist Sunday school had taught me that was done once and for all by Y’shua’s sacrifice on the cross.
God is still God and still requires what He said in His word. What we can’t do, God did. What we can do and are required to do is still required of us. (obedience, “study to show thyself approved…, etc.)
It is my understanding that we’ve been taught in Christianity that the Noahic covenant, evidenced by the rainbow, is still in effect and is eternal, promising us that God will never again destroy the world by flood. But when it comes to the Abrahamic or Mosaic covenant, we’ve been taught that these were broken and God no longer honors them because they have been replaced by the new covenant through Y’shua. From this then the question arose, “Which covenants of God with man will I believe, trust in, and embrace?”
If all of these covenants were declared by God to be everlasting covenants, and now we’re told that two were broken, how can we trust that the covenant with Noah is still eternal and that God won’t decide to break it?
I realized, perhaps we’ve been told the wrong thing! Isn’t it more likely that ALL of the covenants that God declared to be everlasting truly are? That would be in keeping with His character and would therefore mean that He has NOT broken the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants after all! If this is true, then God really IS a covenant making, covenant keeping, trustworthy God! If we think this isn’t the case, then how can we be sure that the “new” covenant through Y’shua will not be broken, if the Abrahamic and Mosaic ones have been? Either He’s a God who keeps His word, or He isn’t. Which will we choose to believe? If we believe He keeps His word, then we must believe He keeps ALL of His word!
As we have now seen and fairly thoroughly explored, the Tanakh (OT) and the instructions it contains are not done away with, believers are still present today and according to Ephesians 2 have been engrafted into the
So then, the “perpetual covenant, throughout your generations” DOES apply to us, doesn’t it?!! If it does, then I asked myself why aren’t we obeying Scripture? Why aren’t we keeping the Feasts of God? Why aren’t we keeping His Sabbath? Why do we think that it’s “Jewish stuff” and not OUR stuff? Some of the reasons we’ve been misinformed have already been explained.
Perhaps another reason this information has been concealed to the end of time and we haven’t known it is that God chose to reveal it now, before He joins the two sticks of Judah and Ephraim (or
I feel that another reason this “Jewish stuff” belongs to us was mentioned by Paul in that first passage I quoted in Romans 11, to move to jealousy those of
For instance, when we read a Passover Seder (the Biblical Feast of the Passover Supper) or better yet, DID one, we couldn’t miss Y’shua! He’s ALL OVER IT! When the matzoh bread (which is pierced and striped with lines) was put in the napkin and the middle piece broken, hidden and then brought out, we couldn’t miss the stripes on Y’shua according to Isaiah 58, and His side pierced with the sword, His burial and resurrection. They are SO clear when the Seder is held IF one knows about Y’shua! Imagine a Jew being in our presence as we celebrate Passover and explain the FULLNESS – the completion in Messiah - of this celebration! I’ll bet it would stir them to jealousy.
Did you know that when Y’shua took up the cup and said, “This is My blood of the covenant which is to be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins” that in the Seder, that cup is called “the cup of redemption??!!” The Jews of today have all the clues, but cannot see the complete picture without Messiah, at whom they do not look because of the teachings of their predecessors. If believers celebrated the Feasts in full, they would clearly see, indeed, it would be impossible to miss, that Y’shua fulfilled the very thing for which they are still waiting! We could help to open their eyes to their Messiah and help them be “grafted back into their own olive tree!”
I found that EACH of the seven Feasts of God outlined in Leviticus 23 has a VERY important fulfillment through Y’shua!! The Jews (Yahudites) don’t understand the fulfillment of them and WE (Israel/Ephraim) don’t understand the IMPORTANCE of them! Each of us has had a very important part missing. From my study, I truly believe that God is trying to rectify this at this time.
There was another important clue in Luke 1 as to why the “signs” and “seasons” of God are important. In Luke 1, Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, is performing his priestly duty and we are told that he’s “of the division of Abijah.” These are the kind of things most of us “Gentiles” skip over when reading the Bible. If we skip it, why was it put there in the first place? Is it important? You bet it is! You see, the priests served in various rotations according to the Jewish calendar, based upon the signs, seasons, days and years, mentioned in Genesis 1:14. By knowing in what division of the priesthood Zacharias served, we can know about WHEN
I’d like to continue with my personal experience, and how the Lord began to speak to me about keeping the Feasts and Sabbath.
When my friend made her statement to me about God’s Holy Days and His Sabbath, I must have looked puzzled because she then said, “Think about it. When is the most hell raised on earth?” I responded, “Friday and Saturday night.” She said, “Yes! The devil hasn’t forgotten when God ordained the Sabbath!” I also knew that the Jews measure days the way God does, beginning in the evening.
“And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” (Genesis1:5)
(We measure morning to morning, but God does not.) So, according to the word, the beginning of the Sabbath is Friday night and the end is Saturday night.
And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. (Genesis 2:2)
And it shall come to pass, that from one moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” (Isaiah 66:23)
In context, this latter passage talks about the future, when Yahweh (God’s name) will recreate the universe, the “new heaven and earth” (Revelation 21:1) This text tells us that all of the earth’s redeemed will observe the weekly Sabbath.
Exodus 31:16 also tells us that the Sabbath is a “perpetual covenant” to be observed “throughout your generations,” just like the Feasts of God.
I was taught that the Sabbath was changed from the Jewish Sabbath to Sunday in the new covenant, believing this change to be due to the day Y’shua arose. Is this accurate? Let’s see what the New Testament says about the Sabbath being changed:
Now late on the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. (Matthew 28:1)
And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. (Mark 16:1-2)
Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. (Mark 16:9)
Now the women who had come with Him out of
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already rolled away from the tomb. (John 20:1)
What do the Gospel writers tell us? They tells us this: that when the first day of the week began, the Sabbath had ended – the Sabbath was past. In other words, the Sabbath day according to the Gospel writers, who were writing some 30 and more years after the resurrection, was still the seventh day of the week – the day that went before Sunday the first day of the week. (2)
So, I saw that the perpetual covenant of God with the seventh day being the Sabbath has not changed. The women didn’t go to the tomb until the FIRST day of the week, after the Sabbath and ended. If you think God’s Sabbath has changed, please find chapter and verse and point it out to me. I haven’t found one passage changing this perpetual covenant. A friend of mine studied the resurrection quite in depth, straight from the Word of God and with her knowledge of the Feasts, found that Y’shua arose on Yahweh’s Sabbath, not on “sun-day” a pagan Sabbath!!! After doing this in depth study, we later found information from other Messianic writers, many of whom are learned Rabbis confirming EXACTLY what she dug out from the Word of God!
SO it is VERY important to understand and apply ALL of God’s Word so that we are not misled into believing something the Word doesn’t say! Without a knowledge and understanding of the Feasts, it’s impossible to discern even when Y’shua arose from the dead because there’s an extra Sabbath in that week due to the Feat of Unleavened Bread which comes the day after Passover and according to Leviticus 23, the first and last days are “holy convocations” or “holy rehearsals” which make them a holy day, an extra Sabbath. THIS is what the Scripture talked about when referring to the women having to stop embalming Y’shua’s body due to the coming Sabbath, NOT the regular Friday Sabbath. There’s NO way to get “three days and three nights in the earth as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale from a “Good Friday” death to a sun-day resurrection!
Another misunderstanding of Scripture caused by our lack of understanding the Hebrew-ness of our faith: some use the passage in Galatians 4:8-11 to argue that we are not supposed to keep special days anymore. Without reading the entire passage, these few verses can be misunderstood. However, this passage refers to new believers returning to pagan festivals, also marked by the days, months, seasons and years. One thing all of us learn sooner or later: satan is not original and copies God’s ideas and tries to pass them off as his own! BUT this passage is NOT talking about ignoring or changing the times, seasons, Feasts which YAHWEH ordained!!
So, because we don’t measure time evening to evening, as God does, we haven’t recognized satan’s blasphemous treatment of God’s Sabbath by defiling Friday and Saturday nights! When my friend said that to me, it was like an explosion going off inside of me!
The second thing she said to me at that time that “blew my circuits” was, “You’re in paganism in the American church. You don’t know it, but you are.” These two statements lead me to ask the Lord to teach me about this and to really search my Bible and history. Luckily, I had done extensive studies on the history of Christianity previous to this time, and so the Lord was able to bring a lot of information back to me from my studies.
I knew that the Roman Emperor Constantine was the one who proclaimed all of
In the Jewish practice of worship, the center for worship was in the home. God instituted the family in Genesis 2, long before he called Abram in Genesis 12 or cut the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17 and long before the creation of the “church” which was born on the day of Pentecost. (in Hebrew, Shavout, a Feast day of God, by the way! Think God had a plan to use THAT day for the birthday of the “church?” Yes He did!
You see on the original Shavout (“Sha-vote” or “Sha-voo-ot”) God was on the mountain in the wilderness and asked
In Jewish tradition, most all the Feasts and all the weekly Sabbaths were observed in the home. Passover required a blood sacrifice for each family (see Exodus 12:3) and Yom Kippur required a blood sacrifice for the nation. (see Leviticus 16:16, but it’s best to read the entire chapter.) There are a few Feast days for which God required their presence in
You see we have a misconception of the
So, by proclaiming all of
I also found a very interesting reference to the keeping of the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths (Sukkot) in Zechariah 14. This passage deals with this Feast being kept during the millennial kingdom—(my Bible en-titles it “God’s Universal Reign”) once again proving the “perpetual covenant” of which God spoke—a covenant we WILL keep for eternity.
Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to
And if the family of
This will be the punishment of
These Feasts must be important to God if we will be practicing them when Y’shua reigns on earth and such a stiff penalty will be enacted for those nations who do not do so! If Y’shua kept the Feasts, and they are “a perpetual covenant through-out your generations” also proven by the above passage from Zechariah referring to the time of the millennial kingdom, then I could see that we needed to get with it and learn about these Feasts and start practicing them! They are our heritage, being grafted into the
In Leviticus 23, the word, “holy convocation” is used in the King James translation and some other versions in regard to the Feasts of God. This word is “mikrah” in Hebrew, which means “rehearsal!” So, we are told to keep these “holy rehearsals” throughout ALL our generations and from the above Scriptures in Zechariah, we can see WHY we need to keep these “holy rehearsals” even today. If we plan to be a part of the millennial kingdom, we might as well start practicing now.
We see in the New Testament that the believers met from “house to house” and that they “continued with one mind in the temple.” (Acts
“…breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people….” (Acts
Again, we come back to the fact that the Sabbath and some of the Feast Days were celebrated in the home. This was the first thing the Lord began to show me. (For more background information on this, see our guest article: Just What is Godly Womanhood?)
Then, I found that Hebrews
Whenever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)
So, you CAN have church with just a husband and wife or just a family! Am I advocating not getting together with other believers? NO, I’m not. My point is simply that we’ve been told that Scripture says something it really doesn’t say! Since this had proven true, it wasn’t hard for me to investigate and take a hard look at other passages of Scripture and see what they really said vs. what I’d been taught; the traditions of man vs. the Word of God.
When we first began, we did Friday nights and Sunday mornings! Friday we spent with others, Sunday mornings we did our own family study. It took a while before we actually understood the word and moved it all to God’s Sabbath!
We were also amazed at how many people God brought to our door who said, “We don’t know why, but the Lord has led us out of our church! We’re just worshipping at home.” God was doing a massive work among believers. None of us were copying each other or comparing notes until AFTER God had brought us out! Chance comments would lead to the discovery that we’d all gotten the same “marching orders” from our Savior. In our conversation that day my friend had also told me, “There’s going to be a mass exodus in the church” to which I responded, “It’s already begun!”
After the Lord spoke to me the second time about His Sabbath, I received a book from a friend called, The
Then one day I was praying with a friend. In the course of sharing Scripture with her out of Jeremiah 7, these verses jumped off the page in my face:
Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,
And then dare to come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, [By the discharge of this religious formality] we are set free! – only to go on with this wickedness and these abominations?
The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger!
Is it I Whom they provoke to anger? says the Lord. Is it not themselves, whom they provoke to their own confusion and shame?
But this thing I did command them: Listen to and obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people; you, that it may be well with you.
But they would not listen and obey, or bend their ears to Me, but followed the counsels and the stubborn promptings of their own evil hearts and minds, and they turned their back and went in reverse instead of forwards.
Yet you shall say to them, This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, or receive instruction and correction and warning; truth and faithfulness have perished, and have completely gone from their mouths.
For the children of Judah have done evil in My sight, says the Lord; they have set their abominations – extremely disgusting and shamefully vile – in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. (Jeremiah 7: 9,10,18,19, 23, 24, 28, 30; The bolded words above are mine. Amplified Bible)
These are the words that leapt off the page in my face. I remember looking at her with awe and saying, I believe that the Lord is showing me that the Feasts are VERY important to Him! I’d been studying them and learning about them but not really taking the practice of them seriously to this point. I’d taken part in several Seders in the last 15 or so years, but really doing the Feasts? No, not really.
But in this passage, I couldn’t get away from “walk in the whole way that I command you that it may be well with you… But they would not listen and obey, or bend their ears to Me, but followed the counsels and the stubborn promptings of their own evil hearts and minds, and they turned their back and went in reverse instead of forwards…. they have set their abominations – extremely disgusting and shamefully vile – in the house which is called by My name, to defile it…” and in reverse, “then dare to come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, [By the discharge of this religious formality] we are set free! – only to go on with this wickedness and these abominations?”
I saw that by our ignorance of God’s word, we have not walked “in the whole way” that He has commanded us to walk. Perhaps that’s why things are not “well with” so many in our midst? His Word has some specifics that we’ve decided don’t apply to us and so we have done things that are offensive to Him. Tell me, how do you think Yahweh feels about having a pagan festival (and fertility) symbol in HIS house? Think I’m crazy? Let’s see if He says anything about this in His Word? Surprisingly, He does:
1) Hear the word which Yahweh speaks to you O house of
2) Thus says Yahweh: Learn not the way of the heathen nations and be not dismayed at the signs of the heavens, though they are dismayed at them,
3) For the customs and the ordinances of the peoples are false, empty, and futile; it is but a tree which one cuts out of the forest, the work of the hands of the craftsman with the ax or other tool.
4) They deck [it] with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers so it will not fall apart or move around. (Jeremiah
What about all the Christmas trees that are put up in “churches” called by HIS name? (for more information, research what God had to say about the trees and paganism in the OT.; check Ashrerah/Asherim)
People think they can do what seems right to them (Proverbs
Am I proclaiming a “hard, harsh, unloving God?” NO! God IS LOVE but as we’ve seen, for us to truly LOVE HIM, we must OBEY Him! He loved us first, and from that love and the gift of eternal life we’ve received from Him we show our love by obedience to His ways. That is the issue of this article: obedience to HIS ways.
In reading about the Feasts, it became clear that not observing them but observing other feasts or “holy days” in their place was a serious offense to the Lord. How did I learn this? From the study of Jeroboam.
After David and Solomon’s reign over the
“If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will return to their lord, even to Rehoboam, king of Judah; and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”
So the king consulted, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to
And he set one in
Now this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan.
And he made houses on high places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of Levi.
And Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in
Then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel, and went up to the altar to burn incense.
One source put it this way:
”Believe it or not that seemingly insignificant act of worshipping two metal idols on unsanctified feast days was the most catastrophic blunder ancient Israel made. It is so grievous that over and over again the wickedness of succeeding kings was measured against it. Repeatedly these words appear: (I Kings
And he did evil in the sight of the
Lord, and walked in the way of
Jeroboam, and in his sin where
with he made
“Why was Jeroboam’s sin so grievous? Because by it, with one master-stoke, he allowed satan to sever the nation’s main spiritual link with Yahweh’s appointed Sabbaths and forms of worship. The sacred feasts were times for spiritual instruction and revival, when the men and families of
“The results were appalling, for very soon millions of Israelites completely lost their spiritual bearings and adopted the basest form of paganism. Many were the calls to repentance, but the sin of Jeroboam son of Nebat (the sin of using substitute forms of worship on unsanctified festivals) was not given up. As a result the Almighty carried out His predicted consequences given through His servants the prophets and handed the people of
“And the Lord rejected all the seed of
For He rent
For the children of
Until the Lord removed
“The action of Jeroboam, apparently trivial as it may seem, was obviously a most grievous sin. It was spiritual adultery at its worst; the act of mixing and diluting truth with error. In essence it consisted of merging the laws of the Almighty with human tradition and trying to worship Him on bogus festivals and sabbaths which were nothing but unauthorized imitations of YHWH’s appointed feasts.
“Hundreds of years earlier the prophet Moses had foretold
“And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other Gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have know, even wood and stone.” (Deuteronomy 28:64)
“Strange as it may seem, that selfsame sin of adulterating truth with error, of introducing bogus religious festivals into true worship has been repeated on a world scale by the Christian Church. Yes it is true, the mighty congregations of Christendom have done – and are still doing – what ancient
“At this very moment the whole of Christendom is steadily – yea almost imperceptibly – splitting into two distinct camps:
1. Those who respect the laws (instructions) of the Lord God of
2. And those who look upon obedience almost as though it were a competitor of faith. This persuasion, surprisingly, sees little amiss in clinging to the popular but unsanctified festivals of Christendom and the bogus Sabbath of Sunday. Like
“Sooner or later all those who classify themselves as believers in the Creator will move into one or other of these two camps.” (3)
For me, there were two things that “cinched” this. One came from a friend who was wrestling with keeping the Feasts, herself. She was doing a word study on the book of Daniel. When she got to Daniel 7:25, she found something surprising:
‘And he (anti-Messiah) will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times and law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, times and half a time.’
When looking up this verse, she found that the “time” in “times and law” was not the same “time” as in “time, times and a half a time.” The first “times,” in her reference books was the Hebrew word for FEASTS!
So, it could read,
“The anti-Messiah will speak out against the Most
High and wear down the saints of the Highest One,
and he will intend to make alterations in the Feasts and Torah;”
When I looked up this “times” in Strong’s, it said, “appointed time.” This is one of the phrases used to describe the Feast days, as has already been quoted on these pages! If the Feasts aren’t valid for today, why then would the anti-Messiah be coming against them in the future?
And the real clincher was when I realized that you can be a pagan and celebrate Christmas, Easter, New Years, Valentines Day, etc., but there is NO WAY that you can celebrate the Feasts of God without the GOD of the Feasts!!
When I called my friend to tell her what I’d seen in Jeremiah 7, I wondered if I was crazy and imagining things. She told me that I was “right on target” AND that the Feasts were our protection in the last days. I was totally clueless about this, but immediately began praying and studying to find out what she was talking about. This is part of what I found:
“According to the dictionary, the words, ‘sign,’ ‘seal,’ ‘signature,’ ‘mark,’ ‘inscription,’ etc. are synonyms. That is, they are different words with shades of similar meaning. YHWH’s seal, in short, is linked with His sign, His signature and His name. And so, for that matter, is your own sign or signature. It is simply an inscription of your own name.
“Well, may we now ask, “What then is the Almighty’s Sign? Is it a visible signature or mark or name that He inscribes on the foreheads of His people?” Obviously not, for this is a symbolic prophecy and, besides, YHWY’s law expressly forbids us making or receiving any marks on our bodies. (Lev. 19:18) The Most High would hardly, therefore, expect His servants to receive a literal mark or tattoo on their foreheads if His law expressly forbids receiving marks. Oh no, YHWH’s signature or sign is certainly not a literal inscription or mark on the forehead.
“Well then, what is it, and what does it stand for? Yes, what is the special sign or seal which is to be placed in the foreheads of the servants of the LORD God of
“And so we ask, “Is YHWH’s sign love or generosity, speaking in tongues or wonder working power?” No, it is none of these, admirable though they may be. These signs and phenomena, in fact, are found in almost every society known to man – pagan and otherwise. The certainly are in no way peculiar to the servants of the God of Israel. YHWH’s signature or sign is very different from all these things, and because of its strangely unique nature we will allow Scripture to tell you what it is.
Exodus 31:13:
Speak thou also unto the children of
Exodus 20:12:
Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a SIGN between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.
Ezekiel 20:20:
And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be SIGN between me and you, that ye may know that I am The LORD your God.
“The Sabbath days in the Almighty’s law are His signature, the special identifying SIGN He places on His people to signal to the universe that they are His: and that He has set them apart to sanctify them…
(Hebrews 8:10, Deut. 6:8, Exodus 13:9, Rev. 7:1-3, my note)
“According to the Scriptures printed above, (Ex 31:13, Ex
“Do you know what the Almighty’s Sabbaths are? Can you turn to the Scriptures and identify the Sabbath days of the Holy One of Israel?
”The answer is: they are the seventh day of the week (Saturday) and the seven Sabbaths mentioned in Leviticus chapter 23. These Sabbath days are the sacred memorials of YHWH’s finest and greatest achievements in the Plan of Salvation. They are the divinely appointed anniversaries of His work of creation, redemption and sanctification. They represent the Almighty’s signature and as part of His holy law are scheduled to be inscribed in the very minds of his true followers. This means that they will be understood, accepted, appreciated, remembered and observed for all time by the children of the Most High…
“Why are these Sabbath days so important? …because they are a declaration of faith in the Person, the character, the handiwork and the sanctifying power of YWHH the Almighty God of the Hebrews, the God of Abraham, Issac and Israel. In modern terms the Sabbath days listed in Leviticus 23 are the Eternal’s ‘trademark,’ ‘His signet,’ ‘His signature,’ ‘His company seal,’ ‘His badge,’ ‘ the symbol of His presence,’ ‘His Name;’ and when they are faithfully remembered, kept in mind, (in the forehead) by a believer, they signal to the universe that person is YHWH’s property… (Isaiah 8:16; Hebrews 10:16)
(4) (My friends who are Messianic Jews call keeping YHWH’s Sabbath “our betrothal ring.”)
In seeing that God clearly states that His sign between His people and Himself is the keeping of the Feasts and Sabbath, then conversely, we have to wonder if satan’s counterfeit might not be the keeping of pagan feasts and a different Sabbath, since he has no originality and copies God’s ideas! I don’t know for sure, but it certainly is an interesting thought. And remember that Scripture about the anti-Messiah in Daniel
Is it possible that the time is coming when all humanity will be compelled to choose between:
Truth and a lie?
Obedience to the whole word or disobedience, called sin?
(1 John 3:4)
The commandments of Yahweh and the traditions of men?
YHWH’s Sabbaths and substitutes like that of Jeroboam?
Between the signature of YHWH and a satanic counterfeit? (5)
When I called my friend, told her of my findings, and she said that keeping the Sabbath and the Feasts of God would be our protection in the end times, that really shook me up! You see, she has a perspective and understanding of both the Old and New Covenants that I don’t have as she lives among and knows the people of
Right after talking with her about this, God confirmed what she’d said when I came across this statement in my study time:
“If you decide to obey the Almighty you will be bountifully blessed; blessed and protected from the terrors of Abaddon’s regime which is about to tear our civilization apart. (Rev. 9:4;
Ezekiel 9:3-6) (6)
Am I saying that not observing the Sabbath and Feasts will keep you from heaven? Absolutely not! However, you may not be here to see the wonderful works God is going to do on behalf of those who walk in obedience to His commandments, for obedience to those commandments brings a protection to those who observe them that apparently, as seen in Scripture, is not given to those who do not observe them. For the believer, death brings us into the presence of God. However, like Paul, I want to be obedient to the Lord in every way so that I can say:
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: (2 Timothy 4:7)
It is my desire for everyone I love to be divinely protected in order to completely finish their course before they stand before the Lord in that final day. Don’t you desire this, too?
*I highly recommend learning how to study the Bible by the Precept methodology. This will GREATLY aid you in digging into the Word and learning what it REALLY says for yourself and not being dependent upon a “professional” to TELL you what it says. If you are dependent upon someone else, you really don’t know whether you are getting exactly what the Word says or if you are getting what they THINK the Word says based upon what they’ve been taught, their “theology” or their “take” of what the Word is saying.