Keeping the Feasts of the LORD

Appreciated that special music. It was beautiful and it, I think, appropriately points us towards holy days, which are upcoming, and the salvation of God that He does work out as His plan and purpose through those days. And it actually leads very well into what I'd like to bring to you today for the sermon, because time is counting down to the start of the holy day season once again this year. Passover, days of 11 bread, are right around the corner. And in recent times, I've focused on the Passover specifically. But today, what I'd like to do is focus on the holy days as a package, because it's important for us each and every year to remember why it is we do what we do in the Church of God. You know, when people interact with us in the United Church of God, they're often surprised to find out that we do continue to keep certain holy days, days that people may oftentimes label as being Jewish days or Old Covenant days by nature. I've been questioned on the phone before on this point because somebody will find us on the website. See, we're a Seventh-day Sabbath-keeping group, and they'll call. Interested, no more about us. And if it's around the holy day time of the year, I'll explain that not only do we keep the weekly Sabbath, but there are certain annual high days, certain feasts of God that we keep as well as part of our worship of Him. And the response is oftentimes, are you Jewish then? Are you Jewish? Because, you know, I didn't think that was a Christian thing. That these were days that were meant for Christianity. And my response is generally, no, we are Christians. All right, we are followers of Jesus Christ. He is our Messiah. But the fact is, this is something that is part of true Christianity, these holy days as God intended. And so that answer, again, can be surprising to people. Because most in professing Christianity do not observe these holy days. They either see them again as part of the Jewish religion, or as having no bearing at all on Christianity. Or perhaps they see that, okay, they had some value at some point in time, but they were done away. Or they were fulfilled with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and no longer something that we are required to keep as the New Covenant people of God. And so there's times where conversations do come up along this point. And it's important for us to understand, again, why we do what we do as part of our identity in the Church of God. And so for today's message, we're going to answer the question, why do we as Christians keep the holy days?

Why do we as Christians keep the holy days? And what relevant relevance do these days have to Christianity and to Jesus Christ Himself? A title of the message is keeping the feasts of the Lord.

Keeping the feasts of the Lord. And beginning by understanding whose feasts these are, are important in answering and understanding why we continue to keep them today. Whose feasts are these? Are these days that man put together that would be nice and convenient or a fun celebration? Whose feasts are these? Let's begin in Leviticus chapter 23 to answer the question. Leviticus chapter 23, here we see the holy days, the feasts of the Lord as a package that God has put together. They were given prior to this, but now Israel is having the law written down, codified in this way. They're preparing to shortly then come up to entry into the Promised Land. And we have it here as a package, so this is a good place to start. Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 1. It says, God says these are my feasts. So right off the bat, we see that it's God's declaration that these are His feasts. These are the feasts of the Lord. They are the feasts of Yahweh, the Eternal God. He says, I have established them. I have created them. And most people assume that these feasts were only for the Jews. Yet again, because they are the Lord's feasts, they supersede any nationality, any culture, any religious group. They're gods. And He is the one who has commanded their keeping. He's the one who has established from the time that He gave them how there be kept, why there to be kept, and who is to be keeping them. And He is the one who says they are mine. They're my feasts. Verse 3, six days shall work be done. So now we're going to go into the overview of what are these feasts of God. Six days work shall be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it. It is the Sabbath of the Lord, of God, in all your dwellings. The seventh day Sabbath is mentioned in the Ten Commandments, but it's also mentioned here in the package of the feasts of the Lord. And it is relevant to us today. It has not passed away. Verse 4, these are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the 14th day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's Passover. We recently covered that. And on the 15th day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to the Lord. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. So as you walk through now the remainder of the chapter, it outlines the feasts of God. When they were to be kept at their appointed times, how they were to be kept, what they represented. And yet here He calls them His sacred assemblies. Verse 4, holy convocations. There is appointed times when God commands His people to gather together before Him, not only in observance, but in worship. God says, these are my days. I've set them apart. You gather together. You be there, and I will be there in your midst. These are my feasts. I am the Lord. Now if we jump to the end of Leviticus chapter 23 in the last verse, verse 44, says, so Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord. Again, these are God's, His instructions, not the instructions or the traditions of men. There are places in the Bible where God calls the Holy Days your feasts, and He's directing it towards Israel, or He's directing it towards Judah. And when He says your feast, it's not a compliment. Because He says, your feasts, which I hate, because they were observing it either in a way that was not pleasing to God and not according to what He had commanded, or they simply weren't observing them at all. And God says, these are your feasts, not something that's pleasing to me. The point being, we are to keep the feasts of God as He commands at their appointed times because they are His.

Now the record we can find all throughout the Old Testament of God's people keeping these feast days is without dispute. Okay, no matter if you believe they're ongoing today, or they were fulfilled in Christ, or Jewish days, whatever that might be, the record of them keeping the feasts throughout the Bible and the Old Testament as the covenant people of God at that time is without dispute. So I'm not going to walk through that biblical record today, but I do want us to take note of the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuance. Okay, that's not a biblical word, that's my word to describe what you're going to find in the Bible from cover to cover, an uninterrupted continuance that is associated with keeping the feasts of the Lord. And when I say uninterrupted continuance, I'm saying that you find them in the past, okay, with God's covenant people. You find them as well at the time of Christ, at the time of the early New Testament church, and you find them in the future as well. And of course, today we're tucked in between the beginning of the New Testament church that you see in the New Testament and the time following the return of Jesus Christ, but again it is an uninterrupted continuance that the Bible shows is associated with these days. These days are not something that have lost their intent or their purpose for us, and that's important to remember as well. You know, they were given again to a people at a time, and they had a representation in the time in which they were given. To ancient Israel, these days surrounded a literal physical harvest, a early harvest and a latter harvest in the land of Palestine, and there were meanings and significance surrounding those days as harvest festivals primarily, but that didn't end. You can't say, well, now we're not in the land of Palestine and we're the spiritual Israel, and those things don't have relevance. The point is they did surround harvest cycles, but they also foreshadow something much greater that is yet to come. And so for you and I today, the relevance of these days is through the perspective of God's spiritual harvest plan. His plan of salvation for all of mankind, as the special music was leading us into, as we heard those words so beautifully sung, the fact that there is salvation in what God is doing. And these days point to God's spiritual harvest not of a physical crop, but of people unto salvation. So there clearly is a past typology to these days, and when you go to the Old Testament, there are so many types that point to an anti-type or a fulfillment, a greater spiritual fulfillment. And we often go through those types and fulfillments this time of the year. You know, you look at Egypt as a type of this world in sin, and Pharaoh as a type of Satan who would oppress the people of God and try to keep them under the bondage of slavery and sin and death. And, you know, so many of these things that point forward to what God is doing unto salvation. The holy days are no different. There's a past typology to these days. There is a present spiritual meaning to these days, and there is a literal future fulfillment, largely yet to come to these days. Again, it's for all of mankind, and it is an uninterrupted continuance that we see in the Scripture from beginning through the end. So we have seen where God instructed the people of Israel that you're to keep these days, and we're going to move forward under the understanding that they kept them to some degree. At least they were under the command to do so throughout the Old Testament. Let's move forward down the timeline of ways to the time of Jesus Christ.

What did Jesus Christ do? And what days did He keep, and why did He keep them? If we look a little further down, we can verify what days Jesus kept. Let's go to Luke chapter 2 in verse 40. We're going to spend most of our time remaining today in the New Testament. We want to build the record of proof, I could say, of the continuance, the uninterrupted continuance of these days. So we come to the time of Jesus Christ now, Luke chapter 2, and verse 40. And it says, And the child grew, the child being Jesus, and he said he became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And as we understand, when it's tied in here with the feast, it includes both the observance of the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread. It says, they went up to Jerusalem every year. And when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. This is showing that Jesus Christ observed in this context the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread from a child, from a young age. It was the custom of his parents, continuing on in the tradition of what God had given them as a command. And Jesus himself grew up in that and continued in that throughout his entire life. John 2, verse 19, we come down the line a little farther. Now he's an adult. Now he's begun his ministry. John 2, verse 19, says, Jesus answered and said to them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. And the Jews said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up to the people of Jesus? He raised it up in three days, but he was speaking of the temple of his body. Understand, Christ crucified in the grave three days, three nights, resurrected. Okay. Verse 22, it says, therefore when he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them, and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had said. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, so again we're talking Passover, days of 11 bread, Christ has now come up to Jerusalem again, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did, but Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew all men, and he had no need that anyone should testify of men, for he knew what was in man. Again, the record that we see is that it was Jesus custom to keep the feast days at their appointed time, and as the instructions had been given in the Old Testament at the place where the Lord put his name. So this was the pilgrimage feast up to Jerusalem that he kept throughout his life, and for us today we look at his example as being instructional for us. Right? We look to the example of Jesus Christ. What did he do? Because again, what relevance do these days have to Christianity? We are Christians in the sense of we follow the example that the Son of God set for us to follow. 1 John chapter 2 and verse 6 states that he who says he abides in him, abides in Jesus Christ, ought himself also to walk just as he walked. So he set the example. He went through the motions and showed us how this was to be done, and we live as he lived. We walk as he walked, and we learn to worship God as Jesus Christ worshiped God and as he instructed and showed us to worship his Father.

Now in John chapter 7, we find Jesus attending the Feast of Tabernacles in near Jerusalem there near the end of his ministry as well. And this is an instructional section of Scripture because we start to see then that there is more of an emphasis to these days than, you know, Old Testament harvest festivals. All right, there's a spiritual significance that points us forward in direction. John chapter 7 and verse 1 says, after these things, Jesus walked in Galilee, for he did not walk in Galilee, for he did not want to walk in Judea because of the Jews they sought to kill him. Verse 2, now the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles was at hand, and his brothers therefore said to him, depart from here and go into Judea, that you and your disciples may see the works that you are doing.

For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world, for even his brothers did not believe in him. Verse 6, and Jesus said to them, my time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that his works are evil. He says, you go up to this feast.

I am not yet going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come. And when he had said these things to them, he remained in Galilee. But when his brothers had gone up, then he also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought to kill him at the feast, saying, where is he? And there was much complaining among the people concerning him. Some said, he is good. Others said, no. On the contrary, he deceives the people.

However, no one spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews. Now, about the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. And the Jews marveled, saying, how does this man know letters having never studied? You know, we never saw him in the synagogues pouring over the scrolls, memorizing the scriptures, coming to, you know, be with the religious leaders of the day, and immersing himself in these things.

And yet, he speaks of them as if he's well-educated in the Word. Well, of course, he would have been. He was the Son of God. Verse 37, verse 37, it says, now on the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, if anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. Now we're seeing a transition taking place.

As I said, we're not pointing back to a physical harvest. We are pointing forward now to spiritual elements of salvation. Verse 38, he who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke concerning the spirit whom those believing in him would receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Again, we see a future relevance to these holy days as well pertaining to the pouring out of God's Holy Spirit, work that the Father was going to do through Jesus Christ unto salvation.

And this is significant because, again, to claim that the holy days were done away with or that they were fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that is missing the relevance of the future fulfillment that these days portray. Again, they point forward. They do not point backwards. And it is the fulfillment that comes, yes, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Not that they're wrapped up and done and set aside, but the ability to fulfill what God has purposed unto salvation begins at the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It does not end there. The beginning of these days' fulfillment begins from that point, and it moves forward. Keeping the holy days today, brethren, we come to recognize that Jesus is central to their ongoing fulfillment because of what the God the Father is fulfilling through Him. And again, we've seen it over and over and over through Scripture, of God through Christ. It is the Father's plan of salvation that He is fulfilling through sacrifice of Jesus Christ, through the Spirit He pours out in us being reconciled to Him.

And we have to remember that there's this uninterrupted continuance that's associated with these days. They are still in effect. They still point to the future. The fulfillment does come through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, yet the fullness of that is not yet here. Let's notice Paul's words on this point. The Apostle Paul, he actually confirms this point that, look, we are looking forward through these holy days of what God is indeed going to bring to pass in its fullest spiritual intent. Colossians chapter 2, verse 13.

Colossians 2 verse 13. Again, we're addressing what does the holy days have to do with Christianity and salvation and being a New Covenant Christian? How are these things still in effect? Colossians chapter 2 and verse 13. Paul says, The question for us, what was nailed to the cross?

You know, after crucifixion, what was nailed to the stake? It was Jesus Christ, right? That was nailed to the stake, wasn't he? The handwriting of requirements that was against us was the penalty for breaking the law. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. So what was nailed to the stake in that sense, figuratively, again, was the penalty as Jesus Christ became sin in our place. And the handwriting of requirements that was against us, you will die, okay, as a result of sin, was taken out of the way through his sacrifice as he laid his life down on our behalf that we might live. That's what's been taken out of the way, not the law, not the holy days. There have been certain sacrificial ceremonies and ceremonial rituals of the priesthood that were fulfilled through Jesus Christ's sacrifice because he now is our high priest, and he is the sacrifice for sin, not bulls or goats or lambs or anything of the type. Law itself has not been wiped away, neither were the holy days. Verse 15 says, having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. So let no one judge you in food or drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbath, which are a shadow of things past. Is that what it says? It's not what it says, which are a shadow of things to come, right? Forward-looking. But the substance is of Christ.

This passage isn't referring to whether we keep the holy days or not. For those of you who were around 25 years ago, we wrestled this one around and we came to the understanding clearly that this is not whether you keep them or not. This is how you keep them. And don't let anybody judge you on how you keep these days and worship before God. Again, though, we do keep them. The Church of God was continuing to keep the holy days during the time of the Apostle Paul's ministry, going out over 30 years after the sacrifice and death of Jesus Christ. This is referring to how we keep those holy days. Don't let anybody judge you in those things, Paul said. And he also refers to them as a shadow of things to come. Again, forward-looking. That direction. Not done away, not passed, not put away. A shadow of things to come.

The Greek word here translated to come is a present active participle, okay? And it points directly to events yet future. So what Paul is saying here is that the Sabbath and the holy days which the collagion celebrated have been given by God to foreshadow future events. So they foreshadow the things which are yet to come in the future for all of mankind. And just as the Sabbath foreshadows a future rest for all of mankind in the millennium, right? That Sabbath rest in the millennium, so the holy days as well foreshadow the fulfillment of God's plan of salvation for all of mankind that is yet to be fulfilled, it is still ongoing. Now Paul also said here that the substance is of Christ. So he said verse 17 again these days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. It points to the fact that God the Father is bringing all things to fulfillment through Jesus Christ and He is the substance. Or as it could also be translated, it says the body is Christ. And so when you think of a shadow, you know, go out this week on a sunny day, as I did. I was outside. It was so beautiful, 60 degrees. After the upswing from winter, you can't stay out of the sunshine. And I was outside walking around and look. I could see my shadow. Okay, it was cast across the ground. And that shadow didn't exist for no reason. It existed because I was standing there and I cast a shadow. I was the substance. I was the body that cast the shadow. Paul says that these days are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ, meaning that He is the reality that casts the prophetic shadow throughout the holy days of God. As in, it is through Him that God is fulfilling this plan of salvation. All right? And Jesus Christ is not the center of the holy days, but He is central to the fulfillment of them, bringing many sons to glory in the family of God. And Paul says the substance here, then, is of Christ. Through Him they will be fulfilled. Okay, that's the answer. Not through Him they have been fulfilled and put away. They will be fulfilled. Now, Jesus' own words gave testimony to the fact that He did come to fulfill the law, but the full and the complete fulfillment of that is yet still future by His own words. Matthew chapter 5 verse 17.

Matthew chapter 5 verse 17. Jesus said, don't think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. He says I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. He says this is my purpose, to fulfill, to fill to the fullest. And the fact is these things had been commanded. They had been prophesied, but they pointed to His coming and what His sacrifice would then fulfill, not only on that point, but moving forward in progression as well. Verse 18, He said, for assuredly I say to you till heaven and earth pass away, one jot nor one tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled. The things that were expressed in the law and prophets again pointed to Him, but not only at His first coming. And you go back and see they also point to His second coming in the fullness of these things by which then all things will be fulfilled. Again, assuredly I say to you till heaven and earth pass away, has that occurred yet? It has not. The fulfillment and totality has not come, but it is in process. Not one jot or tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, those who would reinforce them as part of the message, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So there's a warning actually that's contained here in verse 19, not to turn aside from and teach others to turn aside from the keeping of what God has given and is to remain perpetually uninterrupted until all is fulfilled. There's a warning here. The ministry of Jesus Christ today must take seriously their responsibility to teach the continuing observance of these things. Wrapped up in the package of the law is the holy days. God says they're mine, right? These aren't Jewish feasts. These aren't Israelite feasts that kind of went away when you didn't have crops in Palestine anymore. God says these are mine and you will worship them. You will worship me in them at their appointed times. So we've seen the Old Testament. We've seen the life of Christ. Let's come down the timeline a little farther in the biblical record. We find the observance of the holy days embedded into the identity of the early New Testament church as well. And I choose that word, identity, carefully. Okay, these are part of what we keep that identify us as the church of God. Again, the identity of who and what we are is wrapped up in keeping the Sabbath, the laws of God, the holy days. This is who we are and it's who they were as well. They were Sabbath-keeping, holy day-keeping people. Church of God came into existence on the day of Pentecost, 31 A.D. The Holy Spirit was poured out and what were they doing in that place? They were observing that feast and they observed it and they observed it after, even unto you today. So let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 6.

Because as we've already touched on here, the Apostle Paul took the feasts of the Lord very seriously. He carried them forward through his ministry and the instructions that he gave to the churches as he traveled. He showed that he himself kept them and that they were to keep them. And we have instructions as to how they were to keep them as the church. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 6.

I was here a couple weeks ago. Paul says, Your glorying is not good. Do not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. It says, therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.

This is a general consensus that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around 53 to 54 A.D. Okay, so we're coming down the line now over 20 years after the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And he is clearly teaching the observance of the Holy Days as a continuance through the early New Testament church. And in addition to that, Corinth was a gentile city. And the majority of the converts were gentiles, not feast-practicing Jews. And if the Holy Days had been done away with, it would make no sense for Paul to be teaching them to keep the feasts that they had never kept prior to their conversion. But indeed, they were a part of what was a continuance in the church. Carrying on in verse 7, it says, therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. He says, therefore let us keep the feast. And in all these verses I'm going through, in my own Bible, I underlined the word keep, as in they observed them. And the instruction was, observe them. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Again, we see the keeping of the feast days as having a spiritual significance that's understood beyond an old covenant application. The unleavened bread of sincerity and truth wasn't just a flat cracker that reminded them they walked out of Egypt. It is something that is to remind us we came out of bondage to sin through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and it is how we are to live our lives before God.

Paul's practice had not been to do away with the feast. If it had been, then his commandments to the church in Corinth would have been meaningless, but instead we find that he neither casts off the holy days nor sets them aside, nor declares them to be fulfilled in any of his instructions among God's new covenant people. Acts chapter 18 in verse 19.

Again, I know we're going through a number of scriptures today, but I want us to see the biblical record of uninterrupted continuance of these days. We're just, you know, we're just a piece of the pie. We're just a slot on the timeline, but we are part of the chain that is to remain unbroken until all is literally fulfilled. Acts chapter 18 verse 19 says, Paul still remained a good while, and when he took leave of the brethren, he sailed for Syria, and Priscilla and Aquila were with him, and I don't think that's where I'm going. Choose me in verse 19, yes. Acts 18 verse 19. When he came to Ephesus, he says he left him there, but he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. He says, when they asked him to stay a bit longer, a longer time with him, he did not consent, but he took his leave of them, saying, I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem. Can I underline keep in my Bible? Paul was keeping the feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you, God willing, and he sailed from Ephesus. Judging on the timing of his missionary journey here, it's estimated that this is likely the Feast of Tabernacles that Paul's rushing to Jerusalem to observe. And so when we look through the New Testament record, we find no evidence that even suggests the New Testament Church is being taught to abandon the Holy Days. In fact, just the opposite. We see they're being taught to not only keep them, but how to keep them, in what manner they were to observe them. And time after time after time, they are referenced by the Apostle Paul as either important observances or milestones in his travels. You know, like time markers. Recall after he was arrested in Jerusalem, and he's on the boat to Rome, and they're talking about the weather and the time of the year and the fact that the fast had already passed. And that was a reverence to the Day of Atonement. So he incorporated these things all throughout his writings, and yet if he's visiting the Gentile regions and preaching to them, what would be the point? If they in fact were done away.

Acts chapter 20 in verse 5.

Acts 20 verse 5, these men going ahead waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days joined them at Troas where we stayed seven days. The inference here is that Paul kept the Days of Unleavened Bread in Philippi with the brethren. Verse 15, still in Acts 20.

Acts 20 verse 15, we sailed from there, and the next day came opposite of Chios. The following day arrived at Samos and stayed at Troygillium. The next day we came to Miletus, for Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, for he would not have spent time in Asia, for he was hurrying to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. The biblical record, brethren, over and over and over records the travels of the Apostle Paul, in that he desired to celebrate the Holy Days with the church whenever it was possible. We find him hurrying past somewhere to get to Jerusalem in order to keep the feasts. We find him referencing the feast days in his travels, and we find him instructing, again, the churches on how to keep them, not on how they were done away, fulfilled in Christ, no longer relevant. We won't go there today, but if you study into the time following Paul's arrest in Jerusalem, part of his defense was, I have done nothing against the customs of our fathers. You know, there's the Jews trying to bring this accusation against him, and he says, I've done nothing against the custom and traditions of our fathers, and that certainly would have included the Holy Days as well.

Again, we've seen the Old Testament, we've seen the life of Christ, we've seen the early New Testament church. We're going to touch on the Holy Day observance during our time in a minute, but let's jump forward first. Let's look at the future. Does the Bible give evidence that God would have the Holy Days kept in the future following the return of Jesus Christ? Well, indeed it does. You can jot down in your notes Ezekiel 45, verse 21 through 25. You can go and study that later. It's showing the sacrifices that will take place at the temple in the millennium and their sacrifices for the Holy Days. Passover and unleavened bread and the Holy Days are being commemorated at that time following the return of Christ. It's part of the uninterrupted continuance. The millennial rule of Jesus Christ is the time where the nations will be without excuse, won't they? We didn't know, right? We hadn't heard. Well, I'm sorry. It is a time where the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. People will know who God the Father is and they will know who Jesus Christ is, and they will have a clear understanding of the expectations God has for them in that day. And indeed, brethren, the Bible shows that those who refuse to worship God at His feasts will reserve, receive the consequences of denying Him that worship in the millennium. Again, yet future. Let's turn to one reference on this. Zechariah chapter 14.

Zechariah chapter 14 verse 16. Again, this is the millennial rule of Jesus Christ, yet future. Zechariah 14 verse 16 says, and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left in all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. I've underlined that word keep again in my Bible. Come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. Verse 17. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain. They shall receive the plague by which the Lord strikes the nations. Do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. It's clear in the reference here that not only do they observe the Feast during the millennium, but there's also the warning to those who would refuse to do so. Because again, we have the keeping of the Feast tied in with the worship of God at the Feast. He says, these are my feasts. You assemble before me and I'll be there, but our point of keeping them is in worship of Him. God doesn't take it lightly when His people refuse to acknowledge His sovereignty in their worship. Past, future, what about the present today? What about us? Why does the Church of God still keep these same holy days today? How are they Christian? Are they Christian? Again, it's the question that gets asked when the phone rings. It's oftentimes something I have to kindly defend what our position is, why we as Christians keep these days. A way of answering it for us today, I'd like to quote to you from a United Church of God article titled, Should You Keep the Festivals Jesus Observed? It's a little bit of a lengthy article. I'm not going to read most of it, actually, by any means, but it is, I believe, a well-written article. It appeared in The Good News magazine, the date is September 25, 1997, and the author is Mr. Roger Foster. And again, the article is, Should You Keep the Festivals Jesus Observed?

Mr. Foster says, Some of our readers may be surprised to learn that the United Church of God, an international association, observes the same religious festivals that Jesus observed. Why would we follow his example in the matter of which days we keep? One obvious reason is that Jesus Christ was the perfect model of how a Christian should live. Equally important is our conviction that religious practices should be founded directly on what the Bible approves. The only religious festivals contained or approved in the Bible were ones that Jesus kept. But are those the only reasons, or is there more to the story? Jesus Christ observed the festivals God gave to ancient Israel. Christians, of course, are expected to follow his example and to walk as he walked, 1 John 2, verse 6. One reason Christ observed the festivals is that they are relevant to his message, the gospel of the kingdom of God. By observing them, we can learn much about God's plan to grant eternal life to those who become his sons and daughters through Jesus Christ. This is what gives these festivals their Christian importance and significance. Again, they're not fulfilled and done away in Christ. The ability for them to be fulfilled, as God intends, began with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Dropping down, Mr. Foster says, the festivals of the Bible are closely linked to the harvest seasons of the Holy Land, where Jesus Christ spent his human life. Jesus often compared what God was doing through him to a harvest. For example, Christ said, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. I read this this week, and you know, sometimes a verse just kind of strikes you in the middle of the eyes like bang, and I'd never really quite seen it in that way before. Again, the concept of God through Christ, Jesus says, my food is due the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Right? Christ is finishing the work the Father has given him unto salvation, bringing many sons to glory. Continuing on, it says, with that scripture, do not say there are still four months, and then comes the harvest. Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white, already ripe for harvest. And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. You know, you scatter the seed and you plant, and those that come in and reap the crop later, you both rejoice in the abundance that was produced. It says, here Jesus links the idea of a harvest to his work, of bringing humanity into a relationship with God the Father that leads to eternal life. The festivals are not just memorials to what happened to ancient Israel, nor are they meaningless ritual. They were given to reveal major aspects of Jesus' role in securing the redemption and salvation of all humanity. They are about the work of Jesus Christ. That is why we keep them. That is the connection to Christianity. What Christ is doing by the work of God that he's given him, providing and opening the door into salvation. Mr. Foster says, Jesus Christ set us an example by observing the biblical festivals, not because they were traditions of the Jewish people, but because from the beginning they represented his personal role and involvement in bringing the children of God into his spiritual family. His apostles, walking in his footsteps, continued observing the same festivals. A considerable portion of Christianity observed them for centuries after his death. Looking into the future, we find a continuation of the same pattern. The prophet Zechariah tells us that attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles will be required of all peoples after the return of Jesus Christ. He says, today there are still Christians faithfully observing the same festivals Christ kept. These annual occasions were instituted to be kept by God's people in all ages, aware of the key aspects of the mission and the work of the true Messiah. They are indeed Christian festivals.

So again, that's a it's actually a lengthy article, and Mr. Foster breaks down and goes through each of the Holy Days in summary. In that article, I'd encourage you to go take the time to read it before the Holy Days. I think it's instructive. Brethren, what the Church of God does today regarding the Holy Days and their observance stems from the consistency of the biblical record on the topic. Hey, they are the commanded feasts of God. They're his. And he says, they are mine, past, present, and future, and that people of God are instructed to keep them at their appointed times and in worship of him. Now, over the last couple of months I've been taking time. I've been personally, I went back and I started through the first autobiography of Herbert Armstrong, because it had been 30 years, I would say, since I was a child, since I kind of looked through those things. And I just thought, you know, when I have time, which is a very slow process, but I've been making my way through the first volume of Mr. Armstrong's autobiography. And you'll recall that he was challenged by his wife in the fall of 1926 to prove her wrong regarding Sabbath Day observance. She had begun attending with a Seventh-day Sabbath church and a neighbor friend that had instructed her in these things. And Mr. Armstrong basically said, well, all these churches can't be wrong, you know, keeping it on Sunday. Sunday's the Sabbath, and she said, okay, prove it from the Bible. And in 1926, that began his in-depth study into the topic. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Armstrong began to understand the significance of how God desired to be worshipped through the Sabbath Day, but also in addition to that, the annual Holy Days. And consequently, he began keeping the Sabbath and the Holy Days with Loma in 1927, keeping the Holy Days at home, because there really wasn't anyone else around that they could assemble with in the keeping of the annual Holy Days that they were aware of at the time. And over time, he did assemble, and he did preach for a couple of different Seventh-day church of God organizations throughout the early 1930s. And he eventually became separated, though, from them out of his teaching of the Leviticus chapter 23, Holy Days. And his focus that they should be a part of the teaching and the observance of the church, and again, part of the identity of the church, was something that separated him from some of the Seventh-day organizations that he associated and fellowshiped with at that time. Mr. Armstrong believed very early in his ministry that the feasts of the Lord were part of the identity of the church of God. And again, I use that word, identity, specifically, because I do believe the Scripture shows that it is an identifier along with the Sabbath, along with the commandments of God, that the church is part of our identity to keep these days. And Mr. Armstrong instilled them in his teachings up front in the radio church of God, and then later, the worldwide church of God. And many of us were called into the truth during that time period. We learned about the Sabbath and the Holy Days and the commandments of God. And as I remember as a child, the gray hair, the white haired old man said, brush the dust off your Bible and prove it for yourselves, which we did.

Less than 20 years after—excuse me—less than 10 years, actually, after Mr. Armstrong's death, 1986, is when he died. The leadership of that organization made an end run around the Sabbath day, around the Holy Days, declaring them to be done away. Fulfilled in Jesus Christ, no longer relevant for Christians today, and for those of us that were there, it was a shock. Because this is not what our identity was. We said this is what is contained in God's Word, is what he's given us to live by. I was 21 years old at the time, had a baby in the house. We just celebrated his 26th birthday yesterday, so, you know, time tends to fly quickly, but there was a shock. And suddenly, many ministers, as well as many of us members, had a decision to make as to whether we were going to compromise in our convictions or whether we were going to hold fast to the truth that was once for all delivered to the saints. As we said, this is our identity. This is who we are as the people of God. And so the United Church of God, along with other Church of God groups, sprang out of our previous affiliation, and in order to hold fast the precious truths, again, that identify us as God's people and tie us back to the early New Testament church, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and then the teachings of the apostles, the two follow. This is who we are. The ancient Israelites, brethren, paid the price for refusing to worship God as He commands. He says, these are your feasts. They went into captivity. A good portion were destroyed, or they were scattered among the nations because they missed out on the promise of God out of refusing to follow in worship as He commanded. In the millennium, we see the same spirit will exist among some as well, but I would just say, brethren, let it not be so among us. Right? Again, this is who we are. This is who what the Church of God has fought to preserve through the decades, and in our modern time frame of the Church of God history, going back about a hundred years now, it is something that we have fought to preserve, defend, and to keep. And so what the Church of God does today regarding the Holy Day observance stems from, again, the consistency of the biblical record. It is uninterrupted from beginning until ultimate fulfillment future, and all that God has in store. What we do springs from that. They are the commanded feasts of the Lord, past, present, and future, and as the people of God, we must keep them at their appointed times in worship of Him. So the blessing is we're coming up on the Holy Days once again, and it's an opportunity to not only recognize the awesome God that we worship, but to recognize His plan and His purpose for us. So let us rejoice in these days, brethren, and let us be grateful that God has given us the opportunity to understand what He has in His Word pertaining to these things. Indeed, the fields are ripe for harvest, and the harvest will be great, and we can all rejoice in that.