Preparing for the Holy Days

Scriptures read in this sermon: 

Tests and trials before the Feast... we must trust God. He can handle ANYTHING... Psa 121:1 A Song of degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. Psa 121:2 My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. Psa 121:3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Psa 121:4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Psa 121:5 The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. Psa 121:6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. Psa 121:7 The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. Psa 121:8 The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. We also know there is a time of GREAT trouble coming. 

Mat 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Mat 24:22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. It is THAT BAD... worse than anything before... all the wars, epidemics, slaughters... Mat 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: Mat 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The rest of the world will mourn... Rev 6: 12- Rev 6:12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; Rev 6:13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. 

Rev 6:14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Rev 6:15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; Rev 6:16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: Rev 6:17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? Rev 16:9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory. Rev 16:10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, Rev 16:11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. Humans will suffer from things they bring upon themselves.... and yet, they still do NOT repent. Jeremiah was a man of great compassion. He was torn up by the suffering he saw coming because they would not accept his message and repent. 

Lam 2:1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! Lam 2:2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof. Lam 2:3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about. Lam 2:4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire. Lam 2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. Lam 2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. Lam 3:17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity. 

Lam 3:18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD: Lam 3:19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. Lam 3:20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. Lam 3:21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. Lam 3:22 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. Lam 3:23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. Lam 3:24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. Lam 3:25 The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. Lam 3:26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. Lam 3:27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Lam 3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. Lam 3:41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. LET us be sobered by realizing HOW MUCH the whole world needs what the Feasts portray. It is a culmination of a terrible time such as never before seen. There is a solution to what human beings will bring on themselves. The spiritual significance of this is so great that we need to celebrate a time of redemption and healing for mankind. We look forward to a better world. 

Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Heb 11:14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. Heb 11:15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. Heb 11:16 But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. Heb 11:39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: Heb 11:40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. There was a plan. He planned for a people and a Church to prepare His people for His Kingdom. Some of these people of faith: Abraham, Gen 12:6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. Gen 12:7 And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him. HE BELIEVED GOD! Joseph, Gen 37:3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. 

Gen 37:4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. Gen 37:5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. Gen 37:6 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: Gen 37:7 For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. Gen 45:1 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. Gen 45:2 And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. Gen 45:3 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. Gen 45:4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. Gen 45:6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Gen 45:9 Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: Gen 45:10 And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: Gen 45:11 And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty. Gen 45:12 And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. Gen 45:13 And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. Gen 47:29 And the time drew nigh that Israel must die: and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt: Gen 47:30 But I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their buryingplace. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. Gen 47:31 And he said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head. 

Gen 50:24 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Gen 50:25 And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. Gen 50:26 So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Joseph KNEW to some degree what was coming. Exo 13:19 And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you. MOSES, Started his "real" job at 80!!! Deu 8:2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. 

Deu 32:52 Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel. We can see so much more in these HOLY DAYS than Israel could see. We are privileged. Heb 12:18 For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, Heb 12:19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: Heb 12:20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: Heb 12:21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, Heb 12:23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb 12:24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. WE HAVE THE BETTER PROMISES. It is easy with all that is going on in the world to forget. 

Heb 12:28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: Heb 12:29 For our God is a consuming fire. God's promises are sure to come to pass. Let us ask God to strengthen our vision of His Kingdom so we are fully recharged by the power of this vision and let us rejoice in God's mercy and His plan to rescue and bless mankind. KEEPING THE FEAST: Do not let the physical overshadow the spiritual. Rejoice, REJOICE. Deu 16:13 Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine: Deu 16:14 And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates. Deu 16:15 Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD shall choose: because the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice. Trust GOD to take care of the things you leave behind. IT ALL belongs to Him. Isa 35:1 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. Isa 35:2 It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God. The Job of the Messiah... Isa 35:3 Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. 

Isa 35:4 Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you. Isa 35:5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Isa 35:6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. Isa 35:7 And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. Isa 35:8 And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. Isa 35:9 No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: Isa 35:10 And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. IT IS COMING. Let us REJOICE and take encouragement from this... this is what is ahead of us... keep in mind the Great Promises.