Yom Teruah begins tonight. Learn more…

Happy Yom Teruah!

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The fourth biblical holiday (the first one of the fall season) begins tonight according the ancient biblical calendar (as opposed to the modern, rabbinic, Constantine calendar used by most religious Jews and many Messianics). In the Bible, this holiday or holy day is called Yom Teruah (Lev 23:23–25). The modern religious Jews have their own holiday, which is a substitute for the biblical Yom Teruah, and which usually falls on a different day. They call this substitute holiday Rosh Hashana. It has very little to do with the true biblical holiday of Yom Teruah. You will understand this more fully as you read below.

To learn more about Yom Teruah and what it signifies past, present and future and to learn how to celebrate it, I invite you to read my article on the subject (below).

The Historical Roots of Our Faith, Present Relevance for Believers & Prophetic End-Time Implications

Arise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Messiah shall give thee light. (Eph 5:14, also 8–16)

Yom Teruah—The Beginning of the Fall (End-Time) Harvest

Yom Teruah or the Day of Shouting; the Shofar Blasts (commonly called “Rosh Hashana”) occurs at the end of the summer months and marked the beginning of the fall harvest or festival season for the ancient Hebrews. Prophetically, the summer months between the spring feast of Shavuot/Weeks (Pentecost) and the fall feast of Yom Teruah is a spiritual picture of what is often called the “Church Age,” which is the period of time from the Feast of Pentecost in Acts 2 until the return of Yeshua the Messiah at the end of the age and lasting for approximately 2000 years. For many, especially those living in hotter climes, summer is a time of leisure, vacation, weariness and fatigue due to the excessive heat. Likewise, many Bible believers have fallen asleep growing spiritually weary while waiting for the return of the Messiah. Yeshua discusses this issue in the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Matt 25) who all grew weary and fell asleep awaiting the coming of the Bridegroom (Yeshua).

This all changes on the first day of the seventh month of the biblical Hebrew calendar when off in the distance the sound of a shofar blast suddenly pierces the atmosphere and registers in the eardrums of those who have fallen asleep. Not only does this shofar blast signal the beginning of the seventh month when the new crescent moon is sighted, but it announces the return of the Bridegroom (Yeshua) coming for his bride (the virgin saints). As in the Parable of the Ten Virgins, the cry went forth that the bridegroom was coming and all awoke from their slumber to prepare for his arrival. In these end days, that cry is going forth even now for all to hear, to awake and to prepare for the arrival of Yeshua the Messiah.

In the biblical calendar, the visible sighting of the crescent new moon always marks the beginning of the month and is announced by the shofar blast (Ps 81:3). Likewise, on the first day of the seventh month of the biblical calendar, the arrival of the new moon (called Rosh Chodesh) when the shofar sounds marks the beginning of Yom Teruah. This is the Continue reading

 

New Video: Get Ready for the Fall Feasts & the Second Coming

It’s time to get ready spiritually for the fall biblical holidays, which are a prophetic picture of Yeshua the Messiah’s second coming. Are you ready to meet the Messiah? It’s time to wake up and get ready!

 

Register Now for Sukkot NW 2014!

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It’s not to late to register for Sukkot NW in Southern Oregon on the Rogue River (near Grants Pass). Go to http://sukkotnw.org for more info.

Why go and what can you expect?

  • Celebrating Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) where YHVH has placed his name and with other like-minded believers is a biblical command.
  • Celebrating Sukkot is part of the end-times restoration of all things that has to happen before Yeshua returns (Acts 3:21).
  • Celebrating Sukkot is a fulfillment the biblical prophecy that in the end times before the coming of Yeshua, YHVH would begin to turn the hearts of the children (the saints) back to their (Hebraic) fathers of their faith (Mal 4:6).
  • Be encouraged and strengthened spiritually by meeting other like-minded redeemed Israelite believers.
  • Learn about the Hebrew roots of the Christians faith and get connected spiritually to what YHVH is doing on this earth in the last days as he raises up the Elijah and John the Baptist generation to help prepare the way for Yeshua’s second coming.
  • Learn more about the Torah.
  • Experience anointed times of Hebraic praise and worship, fellowship and fun activities for all ages.
  • Learn from gifted, anointed and experienced Bible teachers who have been walking with Yeshua and in the Torah for years, and some cases decades. This year we have Bible teachers from Washington, Oregon and California.

To learn more about Sukkot and Sukkot NW, please watch the following videos:

Highlights from Sukkot NW 2013

Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) Explained

 

Should we keep the biblical feasts outside the land of Israel?

According to some individuals who assert the validity of a Torah-obedient lifestyle for modern saints, the biblical feasts aren’t able to be kept except in the land of Israel and specifically in Jerusalem. Since they live outside the land of Israel, they use this as a justification for not celebrating the seven biblical holidays. They also maintain that YHVH didn’t require the Israelites to celebrate his feasts outside of the Promised Land. They reason that since they are in “exile” outside the land of Israel, it is impossible to properly keep the feasts, and they’re, therefore, exempt from having to do so.

The following is a list of scriptural truths that show the fallacy of this reasoning. Doubtless, many more scriptures could be given, and we will add more in the future.

  1. When Genesis 1:14 uses the word seasons, the Hebrew word seasons is moedim and can also mean feasts. This is a clear reference to the biblical feasts and indicates that YHVH’s feasts were from the foundation of the world.
  2. Genesis 26:5 tells us that Abraham was Torah-obedient including YHVH’s commandments, statutes and laws. This would include the biblical feasts.
  3. The children of Israel kept Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread before coming to Mount Sinai and receiving the law of Moses and before entering the Promised Land (Exodus 12 and 13). This indicates that YHVH wanted his people to keep the feasts even while still outside the Promised Land.
  4. In Leviticus 23, the Sabbath is mentioned at the head of the list as one of  YHVH’s feasts along with the other seven annual high holy day feasts (Lev 23:1–3). The implication here is that the Sabbath and biblical feasts come as an indivisible unit. If the seventh day Sabbath is to be kept, then so are the feasts.
  5. When Leviticus 23:4 states that the biblical feasts (i.e., the holy days, not the weekly Sabbath) are to be at their appointed times or “in their season” as some Bibles translate this phrases, this indicates that YHVH created the seasons around the biblical feasts. That is to say, in YHVH’s order of creation, the feasts predate the four seasons. Except at the equator and perhaps at the poles, the seasons are a global phenomenon, and therefore, it would seem, wherever seasons occur, YHVH’s feasts should be celebrated.
  6. Several times in Leviticus 23 and elsewhere in several places (Lev 23:21, 31, 41; Exod 12:14, 17, 24), YHVH’s word states that the feasts are forever. There is no indication that they are to be kept only in Jerusalem.
  7. Nowhere in the Scriptures is there a command to celebrate the feasts only in the land of Israel or in Jerusalem. Rather, in several places in Deuteronomy YHVH commands his people to celebrate the pilgrimage feasts where he has chosen to place his name (Deut 16:2, 6, 11). At that time, his name was where the tabernacle and latter the temple resided. However, both the tabernacle and temple are gone. Paul teaches us that the saints are YHVH’s temple because his presence, in the form of the Holy Spirit, now resides in them as opposed to the holy of holies in the former temple (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19). Based on this, it can reasoned that the saints can now celebrate the biblical feasts wherever YHVH leads them to do so whether in the land of Israel or not, for as Yeshua said, where two or more are gathered together in his name, he is in their midsts (Matt 18:20). Furthermore, YHVH is in the midst of his people wherever they are, for the psalmist tells us that he inhabits the praises of his people (Ps 22:3). Where YHVH is, that is where is name and anointing will be.
  8. In Ezekiel 20, we see that YHVH’s feasts (or sabbaths) are a covenantal sign between YHVH and his people (Ezek 20:12) that they were to live by (Ezek 20:11), yet which Israel, in rebellion, refused to do while in the wilderness. Instead they defiled his sabbaths by, presumably, not doing them and doing other things on those holy days (Ezek 20:13). Israel’s rebellion against YHVH with regard to their refusal to keep his sabbaths brought upon them YHVH’s judgments (Ezek 20:13). In other words, it was YHVH’s will for the Israelites to keep his sabbaths in the wilderness, but because of their idolatrous rebellion, they refused to do so.  In fact, YHVH calls refusing to observe his sabbaths idolatry and for this sin (along with other sins), the Israelites had to wander in the wilderness for forty years (Ezek 20:15–16). In profaning his sabbaths, YHVH accuses the Israelites of despising his Torah (Ezek 20:16). YHVH then goes on to urge his people to not follow the example of their rebellious forefathers, but rather to walk in all of his Torah commands (including his sabbaths, Ezek 20:18–20). Because of their profaning his sabbaths, he punished them by scattering them in exile among the heathens. Those modern saints who refuse to keep YHVH’s Sabbath and feasts are walking in the same sin as the ancient Israelites. Often people who refuse to keep YHVH’s  feast days holy do so because the feasts conflict with their secular activities (such as their jobs). YHVH calls this idolatry and being like the heathen (Ezek 20:30, 32). In the end times, YHVH is going to separate his people out from the heathen and bring them back into covenantal agreement with him including obedience to his sabbaths (Ezek 20:33–38). He will purge from his people those rebels who refuse to obey him including keeping his sabbaths (Ezek 20:38), which are a sign of his covenantal relationship with them.
  9. In Matthew 5:18, Yeshua says that not one yud or tag of the Torah would pass away until heaven and earth ceased to exist. Clearly, in Yeshua’s mind, the biblical feasts along with the rest of the Torah are still for his people today.
  10. Yeshua told his disciples to celebrate the Passover in remembrance of him (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24, 25). Nowhere does he qualify this statement by saying that the Passover can only be done in Jerusalem or the land of Israel. In fact, when Paul is giving these instructions to celebrate the Passover to the believers in Corinth he doesn’t say that it can be done only in the land of Israel, and that this feast can’t be celebrated outside the land of Israel.
  11. In the book of Acts, it is mentioned that Paul hastened to Jerusalem in order to keep Pentecost (Acts 20:16), which was one of the four pilgrimage feasts (along with Passover/Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Tabernacles). Yet at the same time, he commands the believers in Corinth to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread (1 Cor 5:7), which was one of the pilgrimage feasts. He also celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread outside of Jerusalem (Acts 20:6) even though it, like Pentecost, was one of the pilgrimage feasts. Obviously, he didn’t make going to Jerusalem a condition for observing this feast.
  12. Two of the seven feasts weren’t kept in Jerusalem, but at home. These were the Day of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. There is no command in the Torah to go where YHVH has placed his name to celebrate these feasts. Therefore, those who say that we can’t celebrate the feasts except in the land of Israel and specifically in Jerusalem should at least celebrate these two feasts at home. In fact, Acts 27:9 indicates that Paul celebrated Yom Kippur on the island of Crete, not in Jerusalem. If he didn’t celebrate this holy day, why mention it?
  13. Moses in the Torah prophesied that the Israelites would forsake YHVH’s Torah covenant and serve foreign, pagan gods resulting in YHVH having to punish them with captivity in “another land” (Deut 29:25–27). Moses then goes on to prophesy that from the nations where Israel had been scattered because of its sin of Torahlessness, the Israelites would “return to YHVH your Elohim and obey his voice, according to all that I commanded you today” (Deut 30:2). As a result of their repentance and return to Torah-obedience (including keeping YHVH’s sabbaths or feasts, which they had forsaken along with the rest of the Torah), YHVH promises to bring them back (to the land of Israel) from captivity and regather them from all the nations where they have been scattered (Deut 30:3–5). This passage makes it clear that conditional to Israel’s regathering and return to their land would be a whole-hearted repentance and return to the Torah (Deut 30:2) including the biblical holidays, while still in the land of their exile.
  14. Interestingly, the religious Jews to this day have no tradition mandating that the biblical feasts can’t be kept outside the land of Israel. In synagogues all over the world, the Jews still celebrate all the biblical feasts.

The bottom line why  people don’t want to keep YHVH’s feasts is this:

Because  the carnal mind is enmity against Elohim; for it is not subject to the law of Elohim, nor indeed can be. So then those that are in the flesh cannot please Elohim. (Romans 8:7–8)

 

 

Preparing for Shavuot (Pentecost)

The Feast of Weeks (Heb. Shavuot) or Pentecost will be occurring in about a week on Sunday, June 8, 2014. Pentecost is one of the seven biblical holy day Sabbaths that YHVH commands his people to celebrate. Below is a short piece to help you to prepare yourselves spiritually for this set-apart time when YHVH meets with is people in a special way.

A (Re)New(ed) Covenant Involving YHVH Writing Torah on Our Hearts

Jeremiah 31:27–36 prophesies about YHVH making new (or renewed) covenant being with his people Israel, which involves both houses of Israel (the Jews and the Christians) and his writing his Torah on their hearts.

Shavuot, Joyous

 Behold, the days come, saith YHVH, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith YHVH: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith YHVH, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their Elohim, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know YHVH: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith YHVH: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jer 31:31–34)

Contextually, in the verses surrounding this prophecy we discover some other important details.

  • Verse 27, The houses of Judah and Israel were to be mingled throughout the beast nations of the world as punishment for breaking their covenant with YHVH that they made with him on Shavuot (the Feast of Pentecost) at Mount Sinai (Exod 19–20, 24).
  • Verse 28, At some point in the future, YHVH’s punishment of Israel for breaking their covenant and their resulting exile among the gentile nations will come to the end. He will rebuild and restore the nation of Israel.
  • Verses 29–30, Whereas in times past, Israel was punished as a collective nation for their sins when they disobeyed YHVH and were similarly blessed when they obeyed him, now each person will be cursed or blessed for his own sins. Salvation is more of an individual matter now.
  • Verses 31–33,  YHVH promises to make a renewed covenant with the two houses of Israel at some time in the future (from Jeremiah’s perspective). It will be different from the covenant he made with Israel at Sinai in two major ways:
  • Though it will be a covenant with Israel collectively (both houses), it also will be made with individuals.
  • He will deal with the heart of each individual Israelite when he writes his Torah on their hearts.
  • Verse 34, This renewed covenant will involve mercy and forgiveness (grace). It will involve a personal relationship between each person and YHVH (“they shall all know me…”).
  • Verses 35 and 37, As the sun, moon, stars, the sea, and expanse of the heavens and the earth exist, so YHVH will renew his Torah covenant with Israel. The words of Yeshua in Matthew 5:18 are reminiscent of the this prophecy. Not one yud or tag of YHVH’s Torah will pass as long heaven and earth still exist.
  • Verse 36, The very survival of the nation and people of Israel (and hence the fulfillment of the covenants YHVH made with Abraham), is dependent on YHVH regathering and restoring Israel. If YHVH doesn’t bring this to pass, then YHVH is a liar and his Word is a lie and there is no hope for the world! This cannot be!

This was fulfilled during the time of the writing of the Testimony of Yeshua (New Testament). The author of Hebrews talks about this in Hebrews 8. Continue reading