The Feasts YHVH, NOT the Jewish Feasts!

Leviticus 23:2, My feasts [Heb. moedim]. YHVH calls these feasts his feasts. They’re not men’s feasts or the Jewish feasts! They came from YHVH and belong to him. When men pervert YHVH’s feasts by mixing in pagan traditions, they’re no longer YHVH’s feasts, but men’s feasts (e.g. Isa 1:13–15; Amos 5:21; Hos 2:11). When men pollute his feasts and appointed times, YHVH says that he hates them because they’re no longer his feasts (Isa 1:14–15).

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.

 

Why study and celebrate the biblical feasts?

The Biblical feasts are a doorway into another world of the spiritual dimension, which is the realm of YHVH Elohim, and they all center around Yeshua the Messiah and his work to reconcile fallen humans to our Father in heaven.

An Introduction to the Biblical Feasts

If you had to sum up the entire message of the Bible in one word what would it be? Probably words such as love, hope, salvation, eternal life or heaven are coming to your mind. But I challenge you to find a better word than the following: r-e-c-o-n-c-i-l-i-a-t-i-o-n. The dictionary defines reconciliation as “to restore to friendship or harmony, to settle or resolve a quarrel, to make consistent or congruous.”

When the first humans chose to listen to the lies of the serpent and to rebel against YHVH by giving in to sin at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil at the very beginning, our first parents chose the path of separation from their Heavenly Father. Sin causes man to be separated from our totally holy, righteous, sinless and loving Creator.

Since that time YHVH has been endeavoring to reconcile man to himself. He has laid out the criteria for this to occur—for man to once again have a loving and intimate relationship with his Heavenly Father as did Adam and Eve before they sinned.

The seven biblical feasts of YHVH (please note, the Bible calls them YHVH’s feasts, not men’s feasts, Lev 23:2, 4; Exod 31:13) prophetically represent the steps man must take to be reconciled to his Heavenly Father. They are the complete plan of salvation or redemption rolled up into an easy-to-understand ­seven-step plan. Though a child can understand these steps, the truths contained therein can, at the same time, be expanded and unfolded until one literally has rolled out before oneself the entire message of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation—a message that to the human comprehension is staggering, deep and rich beyond understanding. The biblical feasts are literally the skeletal structure upon which the truths of the entire Bible hang. The message of redemption, sanctification, salvation, the atonement, glorification, end-times eschatology, the history of Israel, the entire gospel message, the covenants, the marriage of the Lamb of Elohim, the truth about the bride of Messiah, and Yeshua the Messiah are all prefigured within the glorious spiritual container of YHVH’s feasts contained in seven steps. Seven is the biblical number of divine perfection and completion, thus revealing to us that his plan of salvation is complete in that it will bring man back into an eternal and spiritual relationship with Elohim.

Quite assuredly, without a deep, walking-it-out comprehension of YHVH’s feasts, no matter how learned one may be in biblical knowledge, one will miss key elemental truths pertaining to YHVH’s plan of salvation. For example, there is no way to correctly or fully understand end-time events such as the second coming of Yeshua, the great tribulation, the wrath of Elohim, the resurrection of the righteous, the marriage of the Lamb, the Millennium, or the New Jerusalem unless one understands the feasts from a deep Hebraic perspective. Spiritual pride may not allow one to handle this fact, but it is the truth none the less! It’s illogical to think that one can throw out the foundation of a building and expect it to stand, or to eliminate the skeleton from a human body and expect a person to stand upright. Similarly, the feasts are both the foundation and the skeletal framework upon which is built or hangs the whole corpus of biblical truth.

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Free Hoshana Rabbah Resources on the Biblical Feasts and the Sabbath

Leviticus 23:1–1–44. The Biblical Feasts

Over the years, my wife and I have created many free discipleship resources on the biblical feasts and the seventh day Sabbath. Here is a list of links where you can find them. Also, you can use the search engine on the front page of this blog and type in key words (e.g. Sabbath, Pentecost, Passover, etc.) to pull up past articles published on this blog on the biblical feasts and the Shabbat. May these free resources be a blessing to you as you seek to understand biblical truth and learn to love Yeshua the Messiah and YHVH’s plan of salvation more deeply by keeping his commandments.

Articles about the feasts: https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast

Articles about the Shabbath/Sabbath: https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#shabbat

Calendars—when to celebrate the feasts: https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/calendars.html

Some suggestion on how to celebrate the feasts: https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/lifestyle.html

Videos on the biblical feasts and Sabbath: https://www.youtube.com/user/HoshanaRabbah/playlists

 

Yom Teruah/the Day of Trumpets is almost here! Get ready…

Here are some Hoshana Rabbah resources that will help you to understand the significance of Yom Teruah or the Day of Trumpets which is almost here.

For a written teaching, go to https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/yom_teruah.pdf

For video teachings, go to https://www.youtube.com/user/HoshanaRabbah?feature=mhee and check out the playlist on the Sabbath and Biblical Feasts. There you will find several video teachings on Yom Teruah.

More insights on Yom Teruah to follow, so stay tuned…

May YHVH Elohim bless you mightily as you connect the message of the gospel with its pro-Torah Hebraic roots!


 

The Fall Biblical Feasts Are Coming…Are You Ready to Celebrate Them?

Deuteronomy 16:1ff, Keeping the biblical feasts. How important are YHVH’s feast days (annual set-apart times or moedim) to you? The Israelites and first-century Messianic believers planned their entire year’s schedule around them. That’s how important YHVH’s annual festivals were to them. Do we travel halfway across the country to take a vacation or to go to a conference, and yet do not set apart the time to obey YHVH’s voice by keeping his appointed times? Do we let our jobs, school or other secular activities dictate how and whether we keep the feasts or not? If so, what does this say about the status of our spiritual priorities? What does Elohim think about our excuses about why we can’t keep his feasts has he has commanded us to do? 

The feast days are the skeletal framework of YHVH’s entire plan of redemption (salvation) of Israel. One cannot in good conscience and be true to biblical truth and keep the weekly Sabbath without keeping YHVH’s annual Sabbaths. They stand or fall together. What plans are you making to keep the upcoming fall appointed times of YHVH: Yom Teruah (Day of Shouting/Trumpets), Yom Kippur (Day of Covering/Atonement), Hag HaSukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) and Shemini Atzeret (The Eighth Day)?

In the final analysis, jobs, schooling, friends and the praises and acceptance of men will all pass away, but our relationship with Elohim will determine our eternal destiny. Isn’t it time that we got serious about putting him first in our lives?

On this blog site, I have posted numerous teaching articles on both the seventh day Sabbath and on the biblical feasts. These are readily accessible by going to the main page of this blog and typing in search terms in the site’s search engine at the top right hand side of the page.

Also, on this ministry’s YouTube channel, you can find dozens of videos on the Sabbath and biblical feasts at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5EzE5DQnrHfWWbczzkRo6IOnglxhbRfM.

On this ministry’s website, you can find numerous teaching articles on the Sabbath and biblical feasts at https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast.

When are we to celebrate the biblical feasts? You can find out this info from our free downloadable online biblical calendar at https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/calendars.html.

If you want to understand the biblical calendar from the Bible itself, go to https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast.


 

Natan’s 2018 Shavuot Talking Points—The Deeper Meaning of Shavuot

What is the purpose of religion?

What’s should be the higher purpose of religion? It should answer the deeper questions of life.

  • What’s the meaning and purpose of life?
  • Who am I?
  • Where did I come from?
  • Who made me?
  • Why am I here?
  • Whoever made me, what do they expect of me?
  • Where am I going? What’s my ultimate destiny? Is there life after death?

Let’s narrow the picture down.

Why are we here today?

So why are we here celebrating Shavuot today?

  • To fulfill the requirements of religious ritualism?
  • To get your religious fix?
  • Out of human pride—to do your religious thing so that you feel better than the poor religious slobs still celebrate Christmas and Easter who don’t keep YHVH’s biblical feasts?
  • To hear some exciting exotic, arcane, ear tickling message that leaves your head bursting with something new and exciting? Not! That does nothing to bring you to repentance, change your life and bring you closer to Yeshua.
  • Out of obedience to and worship of Yeshua you Lord and Master?
  • Or because you love Yeshua with all your heart and want to obey him by keeping his commandments not because you’re expecting anything out of it personally but because he is worthy of worship and obedience? Period?!
  • Or to be spiritually transformed, so that you can be about your Father’s business to help transform society around you for the kingdom of Elohim?

Some of these reasons are good, and some of them are not so good.

For those keeping Shavuot out of obedience, which is a good thing, remember that obeying Elohim’s Torah laws is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. 

Romans 10:4,

For Christ is the end [end result, goal or aim] of the Torah-law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

Torah obedience is merely a vehicle to bring you something higher. Too many people make obedience including keeping the feasts the goal and not the process to achieve the goal. 

When you get in a car to go somewhere, you believe that you’ve arrived at your destination just because you’re sitting in your car. Same with Torah Continue reading


 

When Is the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot or Pentecost?

When is the Feast of Weeks (Heb. Chag Shavuot) or Pentecost? This has been a subject of debate among the Jews going back for two thousand years to the first century, and still is today among well meaning people who love Elohim and desire to follow his word. This is the question I will address in this study.

Since Shavuot is the only biblical holiday that involves counting days and weeks (hence its name, the Feast of Weeks), there are different opinions about when to start the count leading up to Shavuot. The Torah tells us to count from the Sabbath associated with the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD. (Lev 23:15–16, NKJV)

This sounds simple enough. Or is it?

The question and the subject of the debate is which Sabbath do you start counting from? The day after the weekly Sabbath occurring during the Feast of Unleavened Bread or the day after the high holy day Sabbath of the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which occurs on the fifteenth day of the first month of the biblical year?

In the first century in the time of Yeshua and the apostles, there were two main opinions among the leading Jews on when to start counting the weeks (called “the counting of the omer”) leading up to Shavuot. The religious sect of the Pharisees whose spiritual descendants are the modern rabbinic Jews started the counting of the omer from the day after first high holy day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is a high holy day Sabbath (John 19:31). On the other hand, the Sadducees, the other main Jewish sects of the first century (along with the Boethusians, which was likely a sub-sect of the Sadducees; see A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, second division, vol 2, p. 37, by Emil Schurer; Commentary on the NT from the Talmud and Hebraica, vol. 4, p. 23 [commentary on Acts 2:1], by John Lightfoot) counted the omer from the day after the weekly Sabbath that falls within the week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Some modern Messianics follow the rabbinic method, while others follow the Sadducean method.

It is generally understood by historical scholars that the Jewish sect of the Continue reading