Category Archives: Feasts

Sukkot NW 2015 Update

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From http://sukkotnw.org/schedule/

Schedule…

Dates of the Festival

First, a discussion of the dates for the festival in 2015, then following that (scroll down) is the information about the daily schedule. The dates are based on the confirmed sighting of the first sliver of the new moon of the 7th month. We don’t set the dates to begin the months. The new moon potentially may be first visible on the evening of 9/14th, but is not considered “easily visible” by the naked eye.

UPDATE: The new moon was not seen on 9/14. It was seen on 9/15. This means we will follow the “B” schedule. The other scheduled is being removed and information edited to avoid confusion.

Sukkot NW has reserved the campground from 9/28th through the morning of 10/8th, which covers both possible dates for the Feast and Shemini Atzeret. The policy of Josephine County Parks mimics that of Oregon State Parks where they no longer allow you to cancel only the first day of a reservation, so you will get an extra night of camping at the beginning of the Feast. This will give you an extra day to explore the area, do your grocery shopping, and to relax as we enter the Feast! Those camping may check into their campsites on M 9/28 anytime after 2 pm.

Chag Sukkot = Feast of Tabernacles is a 7-day Feast, an appointed time of YHVH from the 15th through 21st days of the 7th month. The first day is a Sabbath and commanded assembly. This prophetically points to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb and the Millennial Kingdom.
B: Sunset 9/29 through sunset 10/6/15.

Shemini Atzeret = 8th Day Assembly is a Sabbath and commanded assembly immediately following Chag Sukkot. It is an appointed time of YHVH that prophetically points to olam haba (the world to come), which is the New Jerusalem.
B: Sunset 10/6 through sunset 10/7/15.

Sukkot NW celebration will end after Sabbath on10/7/15. We’ll pack up the meeting facilities after sunset 10/7 and travel home on 10/8/15. Check out time at the campground is noon on Th 10/8/15.

Here are graphics that hopefully clarifies the dates:
Graphic showing dates for Sukkot NW 2015 - 9/28 through 10/7/15 - at Griffin Park on the Rogue River

Festival Schedule

Every day (except the one day we keep the schedule free all day so you have all day to explore the area) starts with live praise, worship and a teaching to help us keep our spiritual focus and priorities straight. Sukkot is about YHVH Elohim, and we don’t want to forget that. Nearly every day (except on the weekly Sabbath and the two festival sabbaths), the afternoons will be free for people to rest, recreate or fellowship. On some of the evenings, there will be scheduled sukkah parties around the campfire with food, fellowship and music. On several other evenings, we have some fun events planned for everyone including our erev Shabbat dinner.

With regard to the speakers, Sukkot NW is not a personality-driven event. We are careful to select speakers who hold to the core tenets of our faith and adhere to the Hoshana Rabbah statement of belief listed in our Credal Statement. Our teachers — Natan Lawrence, Joseph Dombek, John Herlihy, Bill Birdsong, and Clay Baremore — are born again, Spirit-filled, love Yeshua, live Torah-observant lives, are well-studied Bible students and are able presenters who have years if not decades as such.

We have done our best to put together a schedule that is a balance between spiritual instruction, fellowship and fun activities, and at the same time one that gives people plenty of space for rest and free time. The Bible says that our Elohim isn’t the author of confusion, so some structure is necessary to help keep our spiritual focus. Beyond that, there’s lots of flexibility and freedom. So come and enjoy!

Youth

We value that children and parents are together as a family during services and a separate youth program is not offered during the morning services. All youth are invited to participate in the worship and dance. Please bring quiet activities for your younger children during the teaching times. There is a playground directly next to the Meeting Shelter for the younger set who need to get out and stretch their legs a bit.

Your children (and grandchildren) will be making many friends at Sukkot and there is much to do and see in the area that interests the youth as well as adults. Families may participate in suggested activities during the free times or venture out on their own or with new friends to enjoy the area’s outdoor recreation or sightseeing.

Youth who attend school bring their homework with them to Sukkot NW. If you make arrangements in advance, most schools will provide homework for classes missed during Sukkot and then provide time after to catch up. Be sure to communicate with your schools and teachers beforehand. You’ll notice on the schedule below that 2 afternoons have been set aside for time at the library to do homework, if desired. The Josephine County Library in Grants Pass has wi-fi and reservable computers with internet access available. The library is open on both Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 2–7 pm. It is closed on Sunday and Monday. Most afternoons are free of scheduled activities and youth may study at their campsites, cabins, or motel rooms during that time as well. We’ve also compiled a handy list of all the local libraries and their hours.

Daily Schedule

Our planned schedule is as follows (with the usual caveat that it is subject to modification). Not all activities are shown on this schedule. A final detailed schedule will be provided to you in your welcome packet. To open a printable pdf file, click on the graphic below:

Schedule for Sukkot NW 2015 on the Rogue in Southern Oregon, 9/28-10/7/15

 

Speaker's schedule for Sukkot NW 2015

 

 

Modern Golden Calf Worship Among YHVH’s People

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Let’s look at a series of events that occurred as the children of Israel were leaving Egypt, which have major relevance to what is occurring in mainstream Christianity in our day. If we fail to learn the lessons of history, we’ll likely repeat the mistakes of history. It has to do with golden calf worship.

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YHVH redeemed the children of Israel out of Egypt and set the slaves free. He blessed them not only by giving them their freedom, but by giving them the wealth (gold and silver) of Egypt as well. We read that the Israelites exited of Egypt with a high hand. They were victorious, free and wealthy.

YHVH led them into the wilderness en route to the Promised Land — normally an eleven day journey. They had some difficulties: Pharaoh tried to kill them at the Red Sea, they lacked clean drinking water, and they had food issues, but YHVH provided them deliverance from Pharaoh, gave them clean water, manna and meat, and they overcame these trials.

Next, YHVH led the Israelites to the foot of Mount Sinai, and on Shavuot he made a covenantal agreement with them and gave them his Torah as their national constitution. They agreed to obey him and to keep his commandments. He promised to bless them if they remained faithful to him.

Moses went up to Mount Sinai to receive the Torah-covenant on two tablets of stone. While he was gone for 40 days, the people grew worried and anxious and become weary of waiting for Moses to return.  This was a test they had to pass of their faithfulness. Would Continue reading →

 

Happy Yom Teruah! Happy Resurrection Day!

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A Chronological Analysis of Scriptures on the Resurrection of the Dead

Gen 3:2–3, The question of what happens in the afterlife goes back to the very beginning of man’s tenure on this earth as we can see from Eve’s discussion with the serpent. Out of fear of death, Adam and Eve chose not to eat of the tree of knowledge, until the serpent tricked them to disobey YHVH and eat of it. The serpent lied to them by telling them that they could have immortal life and still violate Elohim’s commandments. Most men have believed this lie to this day.

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Job 14:12–15,  Job is likely the oldest book in the Bible, and we see that from early times until now, man has had a perennial interest in the afterlife. Job wonders what his fate will be when he dies. Will he die and that’s all there is, or is there an afterlife?

Job 19:25–27, Job came to a place in his life where he obtained a faith about his fate in the afterlife. He knew that it hinged on his faith in his Redeemer. Biblically speaking, what was the mission of the Redeemer (i.e., Yeshua the Messiah)? It was to redeem man from the sting of death brought on by sin.

Ps 16:9–10,  Though this is usually viewed as a messianic prophecy, it isn’t confined to this interpretation. Who are YHVH’s holy, kadosh or set apart ones? The Messiah fits this catergory, of course, but so also do YHVH’s saints. As the apostolic writers teach us, as Yeshua died and rose again, so the saints who are in Yeshua will die and rise again.

Ps 17:15, The term “awake” as in “awake from the sleep of death” is a Hebraism referring to the resurrection. David knew that YHVH created man in his own image for a purpose. If so, then why? It’s deductive reasoning. The creation of man wasn’t a pointless, dead-end endeavor on the Creator’s part. David knew the heart and character of YHVH well enough Continue reading →

 

Tonight is the first day of the seventh month…

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The new moon was not spotted in the land of Israel yesterday (Monday, Sept 14), which means tonight (Tuesday, Sept 15) will mark the beginning of the seventh month on the biblical calendar. This day also marks the beginning of the fall biblical feast season. HalleluYAH! Time to celebrate. It’s all good news, which we need in these dark times!

Yom Teruah (or the Day of Shouting/Shofar Blasts) is the biblical name for the traditional the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah) is on the first day of the seventh month (Lev 23:23–25). This is a high holy sabbath day.

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On the tenth day of the seventh month will be Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement, Lev 23:26–32).This year, it will be on Friday, Sep 25. This too is a high holy sabbath day.

Next, from the 15th to the 21st day of the seventh month (Sept 30 to Oct 6) will be Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles, Lev 23:33–43).

Finally, at the end of Sukkot will be an additional holiday called Shemeni Atzeret (or the Eighth Day, Lev 23:36, occurring on Oct 7). Hebrew roots and messianic people often overlook this high holy day sabbath, but it’s part of the Torah, and so we celebrate it.

All of these festivals are significant spiritually for the redeemed believer and are steps in YHVH’s plan of salvation. The fall feasts are also prophetic of events that will happen prior to and after the second coming of our beloved Messiah Yeshua.

For written instructional materials on these feasts, please go to http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast. For videos teachings about these feasts, go to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/HoshanaRabbah.

You may wonder why some people are celebrating these feasts on other days than the ones mentioned above. There are several reasons for this. I’ll briefly explain.

The rabbinic and orthodox Jews will be celebrating their feasts two days earlier. This is because their calendar is usually incongruent with occurrence of the visible new moon. How did they get off the biblical calendar, you might ask? For the answer to this questions, please read my article at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/new_moons.pdf.

Some people keep the biblical feasts on the astronomical new moon conjunctions, which is not the biblical way to determine the months. I explain this in the following article at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/vis_moon.pdf.

If you want a comprehensive understanding of the biblical calendar please read the following article at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/cal_demyst.pdf.

It’s important that we understand the biblical calendar issues, since there is a lot of confusion out there on the subject. Also, YHVH calls his feasts moedim or divine appointments, for it is then that he meets with his people. It’s important to do so when he has told us to do so, not when we choose to so.

Get a cup of tea  or coffee, find a comfortable chair and prop up your feet and get to reading on the subject of the biblical calendar. We have provide you some simple to understand resources to understand this subject. You’ll need to concentrate though and have your Bible handy so you can look up the verses yourself and prove that what we’re saying is the truth. You might need to read over some of the material a couple of times to wrap your brain around the concepts. I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible. It’s really not that bad. Once you understand it, you’ll have a firm foundations from which to go onward and upward in YHVH’s truth.

Understanding the biblical calendar and knowing when to keep the biblical feasts is part of the restoration of all things that must occur in conjunction with Yeshua’s second coming (Acts 3:21). By obeying YHVH and keeping his feasts on the calendar he established, you are part of the fulfilling of Bible prophecy and are helping to hasten Yeshua’s coming.

 

 

New Video: The Bridegroom Is Coming — Awake, Repent & Prepare!

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The sixth month of the biblical calendar occuring in the late summer is the time to awake spiritually, repent of sin and to prepare for the fall biblical festivals, which prophetically picture the second coming of Yeshua, the Heavenly Bridegroom of the saints. This video discuss how and why to get ready spiritually.

 

Repentance—The Law of Return & Key to Spiritual Breakthrough

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Now Is the Time to Repent of Sin

There is no better time to focus on repentence than during the biblical month of Elul, which occurs just prior to the fall biblical festivals. During this month, our focus is to be on repentance, restoration and preparation for the coming of the Messiah, which the fall feasts prophetically picture.

Yeshua wiped out the shame and penalty of sin by his death on the cross NOT the Torah!

Hebrew Word Definitions

There are two biblical Hebrew words that together present the complete picture of what true repentence is. The first word is nacham meaning “to be sorry, console oneself, repent, regret, comfort, be comforted.” According to The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TWOT), The origin of the root of this word seems to reflect the idea of “breathing deeply,” hence the physical display of one’s feelings, usually sorrow, compassion, or comfort. The root occurs in the Ugaritic … and is found in OT proper names such as Nehemiah, Nahum and Menehem. The Greek lxx renders nacham by both metanoeo and metamelomai. The Greek word metanoeo means “to change one’s mind, i.e. to repent or to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins.” Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies says this of nacham:

In regard to others, to pity,  to have compassion … in regard to one’s own doing, to lament, to grieve; hence to repent; in English, to rue; often of one who repents, grieves, for the evil he has  brought upon another.” The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance says of nacham: to breathe strongly, by implication, to be sorry … to repent means to make a strong turning to a new course of action. The emphasis is on turning from a less desirable course. Comfort is derived from ‘com’ (with) and ‘fort’ (strength). Hence, when one repents, he exerts strength to change, to re-grasp the situation, and exert effort for the situation to make a different course of purpose and action.  The stress is not upon new information or new facts which cause the change as it is upon the visible action taken.

The second Hebrew word is shuv (from which the Hebrew word teshuvah derives, which Continue reading →