Shadow of Things to Come

Every year we come up to the Holy Days, and it's... we sometimes call the Holy Days the High Holy Days, or a High Day. And there is something that's high about them. Emotionally, we get on a high. We get excited about going to the Holy Days, to the Feast of Tabernacles, especially. It's the High Point of the Year for God's Church. We prepare weeks, months, even the whole year, in many different ways, organizationally, individually, to go to the Feast of Tabernacles, and to keep all the other Holy Days as well. There's a lot of preparation that goes into them. They are indeed High Days. There's another height that perhaps we should consider as well. When pilgrims would go to keep the Feast Days in ancient Israel in Jerusalem, they were called pilgrims and historically have been called that way, and they were making a journey. And when you went to Jerusalem in those days to keep the Holy Days, you had to go up to Jerusalem. You will read that in the Scriptures that Paul went up to Jerusalem because it's in the mountains of Judea. And those pilgrims those Israelites who would make the annual trip to the city of Jerusalem for any of the Holy Days would go up and observe the Holy Days, in a sense, from the heights of Judea in the city of Jerusalem. Now, we will go to our various locations, whether it's the Dells, Branson, Jekyll Island, Panama City, wherever we are going. And sometimes we may go to the mountains. If you go to Colorado, you're going up to the mountains of Colorado.

If you go to Panama City, you're going to sea level. So you're, in a sense, going down.

Even from Indiana, you're going down. But probably more importantly, the high Holy Days should teach us that when we observe the day, we are standing at a height. And we are looking backwards and forwards. We're looking backwards to the full meaning of what those days meant in the past, especially the spring Holy Days through Pentecost. With the fall Holy Days coming up, we're looking forward. And really, for all of the Holy Days, we are looking forward to future events, as we will see. And so we stand, in a sense, spiritually at a high period.

And so we stand, in a sense, spiritually at a high place, whenever we keep one of the Holy Days, as we look out on the plan of God and observe it and learn from it. The Holy Days have provided a key link in unifying the Church of God in our time. If we go back over the past 75 years, when we look at the modern history of the Church of God and our particular experience within the Church of God, as we last year commemorated 75 years of the Feast of Tabernacles, they have been a very key link in bringing together the people of God.

And they stand today as a very important feature of the annual life of the Church of God. These are the high, high days. As we begin to observe Trumpets, Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, and the Last Great Day, it's good for us to, at this moment, just kind of pause in this ascent, if you will, to the High Holy Days to learn a few things and remember what it is that we do learn by observing God's Holy Days and what we gain as a people, as individuals, as a Church, by the observance of these High Holy Days, these annual festivals, these Feasts of God.

Because, indeed, they are God's Feasts. They are what God gave to the Church. In Exodus 12 and verse 1, we read, and this is one of the first, if you will, the first principle to learn, is that the festivals were given to the Church. In Exodus chapter 12, we find where the Passover was instituted. I'm not going to go through all of this. I'll just turn to it and refer to it as we begin to go through several Scriptures here. This is the night of the Passover, the Exodus from Egypt.

The children of Israel, soon to become a nation of people, are the ones involved in this story. Now, Scripture also tells us that what became the nation of Israel was a type of the Church. It was the forerunner of the Church. The New Testament refers to the children of Israel, the nation of Israel, as the congregation of Israel. So, it was the Church when it was, and the Church, the New Testament Church as we refer to it, supersedes that because Israel as a nation ceased to exist. When we look at what God gave to Israel, we are really looking at what God gave to the Church.

That's an important key of understanding regarding the festivals. They were not given to Jews only. They were not just given to, actually, they weren't even given to Abraham. This date in Exodus 12 is after Abraham. They were given to the Church, beginning with a Passover, with Israel as the Church coming out of Egypt during this particular time. This is where we have the beginning of the Days of Unleavened when bread mentioned Passover, the codification of this came later when we turned to Leviticus chapter 23, the one chapter that later on in this journey where we see the Holy Days put into one location and all of them walk through one by one, beginning with the Sabbath in verse 3.

But what I want to focus on is in verse 2, where it says that God spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts.

We can read over that as we go on to the description of each of the other Holy Days, but we should not forget to learn what is taught here. That these are the feasts of God. They're not, again, just strictly something given to Israel. They are God's feasts. They're God's festivals. They were given by Him to the church, but they are His. He owns them. And so the church today has a great lesson to learn as we continue this observance.

And again, today we're just going through some key points to remember what we learn, what we gain in our observance of the festivals, and what it is that we are told by the festivals as they are a part of the Bible, a part of the story of Israel, and a part of the story of the church, and the Apostle Paul and Jesus Christ Himself, and have been a continual part of our experience, especially in modern days, because as we should understand, at least in the three-quarters of a century that this part of the church of God has been keeping these days, there have been valuable lessons that we have learned.

And the holy days have played an important part in them, so much so that we really cannot spend too much time, I think, going through them, continuing to refresh ourselves on certain points that we do know, but adding to our understanding so that we don't lose sight of why we go.

It's easy for us to look at the annual trip to the Feast of Tabernacles as our vacation. Certainly it is a time when most members take what vacation time they have to go, and so it does become the break of the year for most people in the church. Others have other opportunities, and that's part of things too, but for many in the church, this is the trip of the year. This is what happens. And it's always important to remember that it is not just a vacation.

It is not the annual vacation. These are the feasts of God. And to approach themselves, no matter where we're privileged to attend. In 2009, and for most of us, if you weren't a part of the church 40 years ago, 45 years ago, you don't understand that the choice that we have today wasn't there.

There was a time in the modern history of the church that you had one choice, and you liked it. You can go back to Oregon in the 1930s and 1940s.

You could go to basically big, sandy Texas in the 50s until the early 1960s, and that was it. When I began to attend and keep in 1963, it was the first year they opened up Jekyll Island, I think. Maybe Jekyll opened in 1962. Don't quote me on that. 1962. 1963 was the first for Jekyll. And I think that year they opened up Squaw Valley, California.

Three sites in the United States. But that was the first. And you went, in those years, essentially, for a number of years subsequently, you went where you were assigned. You didn't transfer. It was a rare thing. Even up in our college days in the early 70s, I remember Debbie's family wanted to come out to Squaw Valley to be with us one year, and they couldn't come. Couldn't transfer. So I just brought that up to realize that, help us realize that I'm not saying that was anything I want to return to. That wasn't any better than what we have today. It's just we are privileged to have a choice. Though sometimes, even today, we don't always get our first choice. We do have, it is a privilege to go where we go and have the facilities to go. And wherever we go, we must always keep in mind the essential heart of the spiritual lessons that we learn when we go. Whether it is to a less glamorous site or a more glamorous site or something in between or someplace like Cincinnati, Ohio, which depends upon your estimation of things. So they are God's feasts. And when we go there, we are going before God as a pilgrim. We're going up to worship God. And the meaning, the spiritual meaning of the feasts are what's most important for us to keep in mind. So we find here in Leviticus that they're God's feasts. And that's the starting point. And that's the starting point for any discussion as to why we keep them, who should keep them, the manner in which we should keep them, where we keep them, and should we even keep them. You start with this fact that they are God's feasts. And that begins to answer any other question that might come up that often does about the Feast of Tabernacles. It challenges the practice and the commands within the church. And those challenges have always been around and will be in terms of should we keep the feasts or you don't have to keep the feasts or things like when I say challenges, I'm talking about the doctrinal integrity of the observance of what God says we should observe and why we should do it.

A second point to learn and regain from the Holy Days is that the Holy Days identify the people of God. They identify the people of God in the Bible and in history. In some ways, the Holy Days even define that identity more than the Sabbath. And I don't want to take away at all from the identity that we get from keeping the weekly Sabbath at all. But as we look at the identity of these days with the people of God throughout the Bible and history, we understand that they do provide a very key identifying factor to the people of God and those who are God's people. Throughout the Old Testament, we see these days identified with Israel, the nation that God chose formed, placed within that land under His government, under His rule. And as we observe those days in the Scriptures, we find that throughout that story, major events continue to be associated with the festivals. Major events. We just looked at Exodus 12, the Exodus from Egypt, which is a key event in the whole story of Israel. It happened at the time of the Passover in the spring in the days of Unleavened Bread.

You can't get any more of a linkage with a major event within the people of God than right there. And that is absolute. 4950 days later, at Sinai, the giving of the law from Mount Sinai, God establishing a covenant with Israel on the day of Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost, another of the Holy Days. Again, that is a high signal event within the story of the Bible and Israel. As we come forward in 1 Samuel chapter 1, this is the beginning of the story of Samuel and his parents, we find in this particular episode, we find the introduction to the period of Samuel as the last and greatest judge of Israel as he sets up the monarchy, became the one to set up the monarchy. We find the circumstances of his birth are tied in here with the Feast of Tabernacles. In 1 Samuel chapter 1, beginning in verse 1, we read about his father, Elkanah. And of course verse 2 tells us that he had two wives, one was named Hannah who became the mother of Samuel. But verse 3 tells us, this man went up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts in Shiloh.

Shiloh was a location north of Jerusalem where the temporary tabernacle and Ark of the Covenant was placed before David ever moved it to Jerusalem. And that was where the tribes would gather. That's where the priesthood function. And so every year on the annual feast in spring, summer, Pentecost, and fall, they would go up to keep the feast at Shiloh. And so Elkanah would go up with his contemporaries as the story is told. So we find it referenced here.

This is a marker. At this point, the emphasis is on the story of Elkanah and Hannah and ultimately Samuel. But we find it referenced. And that's a key point to remember through the Scriptures. Key events, key people, and situations are referenced to God's holy days.

We won't turn there today, but I would mention in the book of Acts, you find Pentecost mentioned in chapter 2, giving of the Holy Spirit, beginning of the church. There's also a reference to the fast, where Paul talks about the fast being passed, or Luke records it as a reference point in the chronicle that he talks about the story of Paul. They're in the book of Acts.

It's a reference to the Day of Atonement. And what you see when you look at these is within the story of this, in the cultural story of Israel, which is also the spiritually cultural story of the people of God and important to us in the church today, time is referenced in connection with the holy days. Now what's happened today in our world is we reference time to what? Other holidays. Christmas. How much of the year is geared toward Christmas?

Just whether it's religious or secular, financial, time off, big time of break, a week or two weeks in some cases from school, several extra days work, and at Christmas time. Easter becomes a break. And we talk about after Easter or after New Years. You reference time by festivals within a culture. Within the culture of Israel, time, events, situations were referenced in regard to the holy days. We find that carried over in the New Testament. And if you really stop to think about how much we reference that even in the church, you see how embedded the festivals are in our own culture within the church. We talk about going from feast to feast. We measure events and, oh, I saw so-and-so at the feast in Branson back two years ago. And we reference more than we perhaps realize. Now we are tied to the other holidays for all the known factors. But one thing I've noticed for the people in the church, for all of us, after a number of years, we begin to reference things. Last night, Debbie and I went through an interesting exercise. She wanted to make a listing of every feast site we had attended since we were both in the church. And that would begin in 1963 for me and in 1964 for her. So we went back and she listed them all. And I could list them all.

I think I missed one. I forgot about one. All the way through to 2008 and now 2009, we drew up a list of the places we'd gone those particular years. She just wanted to write that down and get it done. And as we were going through that, we referenced certain things to when she was pregnant. And her parents being with us or such-and-such happened, some unique event, a family event. And it became a very interesting exercise as we walked through that and it brought back a lot of memories. She accomplished her goal of getting everything down on paper. But you reference your life by the festivals, by the Feast of Tabernacles.

It's uncanny how we have to do that. And that's important because it shows how embedded it will be within our culture. In 2 Chronicles 7, Solomon builds the temple. David, of course, wanted to do that, couldn't do it. Solomon succeeded him and he built the temple. And in 2 Chronicles 7, when they've been there, they've been there for a long time. And in 2 Chronicles 7, when they came down to dedicating the temple, they did it at the Feast of Tabernacles.

You know that because here in chapter 7, they finish and beginning in verse 1, goes through, walks it through there. And down in verse 7, or actually verse 8, at that time Solomon kept the feast seven days. And all Israel with him, a very great assembly from the entrance of Hamath to the Brook of Egypt. And on the eighth day, they held a sacred assembly. And so that references and shows it as talking about the Feast of Tabernacles with the eighth day being added on that last festival, the seven days. So the dedication of the House of God, the temple of God, this great building wherein God dwelt among the Israelites, was dedicated and chosen to be dedicated at a major festival. Again, just a reference point there. When we come forward into the story, we see how important these days were again.

After Solomon's death, you remember the nation split because there were problems. There was Solomon's son, Rehoboam, did not listen to certain wise counsel that was before him.

There was some discontent. A rebellion fomented. And in 1 Kings 12, we can see that the first thing turned to that and note the story. The nation split. And the northern nation became known as the nation of Israel with ten tribes of Israel forming that nation under a man by the name of Jeroboam, who became that king. Now, what they did was the southern border of that nation was really just a few miles from Jerusalem. The way it was finally drawn, because of the borders of the tribes. Jeroboam was a very, very smart man in some ways. He was smart this way. He knew that he had to cement his rule and be legitimate. He was rebelling against the house of David, already entrenched through Solomon and Rehoboam.

And he was going up against an entrenched culture, bureaucracy, tradition, and the world of creation and custom. And he was a rebel. But he had the support and they wanted to do this. But he knew that there was one feature of the life of the people that could threaten his hold over their loyalty. And that was the festivals. In 1 Kings 12, we read where he begins to reason and to think and to realize in verse 27 he says, Verse 26, Jeroboam said in his heart, which means after a period of time of thinking about it, he came to this conclusion that the kingdom may return to the house of David. And if these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, and they would do that en masse during the festivals, then the heart of the people will turn back to their Lord Rehoboam, King of Judah, and they'll kill me and go back to Rehoboam, King of Judah.

So being the astute politician that he was, he made two idols of gold, two idols of cabs of gold, verse 28 tells us. And he said to the people, these are your gods. Let's create a new custom. And he put one on the very north, and he put one at virtually the gate going into the southern nation of Judah. So he had his nation bookended by idols, which is a metaphorically set the pattern for the rest of the history of the nation of Israel, because they lapsed into idolatry and never ever had a period where they repented. They went on a downhill toboggan slide. But he said to them, in verse 28, he asked advice, he made two calves, and he said to the people, it's too much for you to go to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, the Israel which brought you up from the land of Egypt. And he set one in Beth-el and one in Dan. Now this became a sin for the people who went to worship before the one as far as Dan, and he made shrines. So he said, you don't have to go to Jerusalem.

Let's make it more convenient. You don't have to go up to the temple. We can handle it all here. And then he took another step. Verse 32 tells us, he ordained a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the feast that was in Judah and offered sacrifices on the altar. He moved the Feast of Tabernacles a month later. You could imagine the reasoning.

The crops may not all be in. Let's wait till we get everything in. That way nothing is going to set in the field and rot. And all the work will be done and we're just laying around mid-November anyway. So let's just wait till this time, or the end of October depending on how it would fall. He just moved it up thirty days. Add thirty days to any day where the feast begins and you would find where it would fall. Of course, the closest holiday today that we have around there is Halloween. Interestingly, we still have something there at that particular point in time to be a distraction. But he changed the Holy Days. Made it convenient. Of course, the story doesn't record it, but after a period of time, they no doubt didn't even keep the eighth festival. They lapsed into a period of idolatry from which they never ever recovered. It was a different story in Judah to the South. In Judah, we find a few occasions where the people made a return. They had their problems as well. But wherever we find repentance in the South, within the story of the people of Judah, headquartered at Jerusalem, if you will, it is in regard to the Holy Days. The Passover, primarily. The one great one that we find is in 2 Chronicles 30 during the time of Hezekiah.

2 Chronicles 30. We find that the people keep a Passover.

This is during the spring. We won't go through all of this, but verse 2 mentions, "...the king and his leaders and all the assembly in Jerusalem had agreed to keep the Passover in the second month." They had to keep it in the second month because they weren't spiritually ready to do it in the first month. So they did that and they went on to keep the spring festival. This was a period of revival and renewal during the time of Hezekiah, after a period of idolatry. Do you remember the story? Hezekiah's father was an idol worshipper, even to the point of worshipping the god Molech and sending children into the flames as a sacrifice. Hezekiah came out of that and established a righteous reign for a period of time. It lasted through his period, but not beyond. Manasseh followed on and there was a period of decline. In 2 Chronicles 35, we find that during the time of Josiah, there's another period of restoration and renewal in chapter 35. Again, it is in connection with the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread, where the people were gathered to keep the festivals.

The story begins in chapter 35 and verse 1, where Josiah kept the Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem and they slaughtered the Passover on the 14th day of the first month. They kept the Passover. They kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread, verse 17 shows us as well. It was quite a unique experience, unlike any that had been kept since the days of Samuel the prophet, verse 18 tells us, none of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover as Josiah kept, with the priests, the Levites, Judah, Israel, who were present in the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

In this account, you find the people gathered to keep the festival and they keep the various festivals. 2 Kings 23 is another such account. I believe this is during the same time. 2 Kings chapter 23, during the time of Josiah. My eye doesn't fall on it just yet, but in one of these two accounts, and it may be in Josiah's time, they brought the book of the law out, blew the dust off of it because it had been forgotten back in the temple. They blew the dust off of the Bible and they found the book of Deuteronomy. The reason they kept those festivals is because they found it written. It says, as it was written in the book of the law. So they began to keep the festival. That is an interesting phrase. Sorry, my eye doesn't fall on it at this time to take you right to it, but trust me, it's there. When you stop and think about it, the attitude that falls on a passage of Scripture and sees it says to do something as it is written and then goes about to do it is quite an attitude.

It's a converted attitude. It's an attitude upon which God's Spirit is moving as He was moving upon Josiah who had this scroll brought to him and he saw that they should be keeping these festivals. There was a man and woman about 75 years ago who had been keeping these days as it is written. They saw that they were to be kept. They began to keep them and then they kept keeping them. Then they read what was written a little further along after a period of time and saw that it was important that the Feast of Tabernacles be kept separately in a sense of a separate place. Those following them went to a resort. It was kind of a rustic lodge to get away from into a temporary dwelling to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. The reason you have to understand that they came to that conclusion is they began to understand what the name Tabernacle meant, which would be a whole sermon in itself. It's a temporary dwelling for a pilgrim who's just passing through. It's a temporary dwelling for a pilgrim who's just passing through. They read as it was written and they began to keep it in that fashion. As the custom developed in our time, we have inherited something that's quite interesting.

I was talking earlier about the different sites that we had. Those sites were originally just rented land in Jekyll Island and we put up a tent. There's a donated land in Texas and we put up a tent. There was a former hockey rink in Squall Valley and you froze in that place if you kept the Feast there. My years as a student, you went to the Feast in Squall Valley and you wore a coat. The whole back wall was just a canvas tarp that we put up ourselves. It was a hockey rink for the 1960 Olympics. They still had the winning score up there when the Americans beat the Russians on the scoreboard. If you watched Miracle on Ice, you know a little bit more about that. You sat there and you got your feet got cold because it was in the mountains and at times you could be quite chilly. We pitched tents and literally in Texas, because as we read, we saw as it is written, the people dwelt in booths. They put up booths in Big Sandy. These little metal buildings. Any of you ever stay in those? Probably as a student, right? We camped for a few years because if they started building them, they couldn't build enough to keep up with the numbers of people that were going. They stopped building them. They just opened up a campground. When we started going, you pitched a tent. The booths were out there and people could rent those if you wanted. We stayed in a tent for about five years and said, this is enough of this business. Remember, for a couple of years, the last two years in Big Sandy, we rented a bare bones booth, which was just a metal building on a concrete slab. It was not what had been built for the students to live in as a dormitory with air conditioning and things like that. It was a bare bunk and that was it. But it was a whole lot better than a leaky tent in the pine woods. I bring it up because the reason we had those things and they become a part of our lore is because it is written and we were trying to do the best we could.

A lot of people were staying in hotel rooms. I remember the first year we went, there were people staying in glade water and Longview in hotel rooms and then driving into the feast site. We had this little old lady that we were with and she just thought it was Leia to see it, to stay in a motel room. She was going to write Mr. Armstrong about that and complain. Maybe she did. Well, today we're all Leia to see it because we all stay in a motel room. We could speculate about that but we read what it was written and we did the best we could. That's how things developed. I bring that out to realize for us all to understand that we stay in some pretty nice digs today. That's fine, too, but no matter how nice the digs, we should never forget what we're doing there and what has gone before because remember we're standing on this height and we're looking back and we're looking forward.

The attitude of reading in the Bible and seeing this is what we're supposed to do and doing it is the key to the whole subject. It's the key to learning everything. In the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, Ezra chapter 3 and Nehemiah 8, I'll just give you those references, you will find that after the exile and the return, they kept the holy days, the Feast of Trumpets in Ezra chapter 8 and verse 2 where they were gathered to keep the Feast of Trumpets and then they came back later on to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. The return and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the re-establishment of a nation and a group of people, primarily Jewish at that time in Jerusalem, was once again done in connection with the holy days.

So you see this progression, you see this pattern going along. When we come down to our day in our modern history, the holy days have formed a link, a key link for God's people throughout the world. It's been a link that has bound us together in many different ways as we keep the Feast in the same basic way, along the same pattern around the world. It has bound us together. We have traveled and rubbed shoulders with our brethren from across the United States, from Canada, Europe, Africa, in some cases where we've had the privilege to travel and some of you have, and places in Europe such as Italy or Germany, Asia, and where you've had those opportunities and taken advantage of them, where you've met people usually in connection with the observance of the Feast, you gradually build up an awareness and a knowledge of one another and the fact that we are a worldwide group. There is a unique same approach to everything. These days are at the core of those links that we find.

Even with all that has happened in the last 15 to 20 years in the Church and the scattering that has taken and the abandonment of the faith, we find we still have connections.

We connect on Facebook, especially in some ways with people that don't even believe as we do anymore, but there's a relationship there. I know some people use Facebook as an evangelizing tool and mention about the Holy Days and the Feasts. I've been talking about that. I've had people tell me that they specifically talk about that so that all these people that they're connected with on Facebook can at least, I don't know, be reminded, get a witness, whatever you want to say, but they have no qualms about it.

Of course, other people do the same thing with Christmas and Easter. Focus on that and that becomes an interesting situation. But you know at the heart of the connection, regardless of where things have turned out, where people wind up, is the culture of the Church of God.

At the heart of that culture is the festivals. That's even why we have the conversation.

That's why there's even a linkage. So these days, bound together the people in the past that even a rebellious king like Jeroboam saw that he had to do something to disrupt that and to sever that connection, or he would lose the loyalty of his people. He understood that much, approached it from a completely carnal perspective to deal with it, and it was effective because it cut his people off, not just from their brethren in the South, but from God. When you understand the story of that episode, you understand what it is.

Let's move on to another point. The Holy Days also define what God's people are to do.

When we observe the Holy Days, they define what God's people are to do, which is a work.

We're called for a specific job. That job is revealed in Scripture. What tells us that that is an annual reminder of what that work is through the festivals. To the degree God's people observe the festivals, it will mark the depth of that vision and commitment to the work. When anyone abandons those days, they will abandon the work. Matthew 28 summarizes what that work is as one scriptural reference, which is, as we can turn there and read, Matthew 28. In verse 19, where Christ said, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always to the end of the age.

This defines and summarizes the work. To take the gospel to the world, to for a witness, to teach all nations, to baptize those that God calls, bringing them to the place where they are endued with the Spirit of God. That's the work of the church and the body, and in a nutshell. You can fan out from that. But that's why we all sit here today. That's why we make our plans to go to the feast.

That's why we have this as part of our life and part of our culture, because we are involved in the work of God. And these days define that work for us in a very, very real sense as we go through the meaning, rehearse the meaning of them each day, but they keep us connected to that job and that responsibility and that vision of a work. Another point is God's holy days reveal God's plan. If you want to know the plan of God and all of its fullness, you have to come to the church of God where those days are kept and explained in their totality.

Now, I'm talking about the fullness of God's plan. The fullness that involves the knowledge that we are to become the sons of God, members of the family of God, glorified sons of God, that we are to be a part of that divine family. That knowledge, that understanding of what God is doing, what is the purpose of human life, why you were born, you will understand that as you observe the holy days in its fullness, in its fullness, as we begin with the Passover, with the death of Christ, the atoning death of Christ, and the days of the love and bread that show the importance of putting out sin.

The work of the Holy Spirit was told through the day of the Feast of Pentecost and the time of the return of Christ at Trumpets. The work of atonement which shows when the world will have that reconciliation. The kingdom of God through the Feast of Tabernacles and all of those highlights and the depth of them revealed to us what God is doing and why there is life on this privileged planet.

Why this planet was placed as it was in the universe to sustain life and why life was placed upon it that is in the image of God and what it's all about, which includes all the suffering as well as all of the highs, because that's all a part of that life. But you have to come, I submit, you have to come to the Church of God where those days are kept and explained to understand that. You will find other groups, other religions, some in the Protestant world, some in the Jewish faith, some who try to bridge even the Jewish and the Christian faith. You will find other groups, other ministries, other spiritual seekers, however you want to define it, who have bits and pieces here and there of what you understand through the Holy Days and of God's plan.

But you've got to keep them all and you've got to understand them in their full biblical depth to understand what is true. I've referred in the past to a book that I picked up a couple of years ago written by an Anglican theologian named N.T. Wright. Two initials is what he goes by N.T. Wright. An Anglican bishop who wrote a book a couple of years ago called Surprised by Hope. His main thesis was talking about the resurrection. He goes in there and says, You're not going to heaven and you're not going to hell.

He talks about this life being a training ground for the world to come. He talks about Christ returning in a kingdom upon this earth. I could pull paragraphs and passages out of that book and read them to you and you would think, I was reading from our own literature. He has glimpses here and there of aspects of the truth. But he worships on Sunday, keeps Easter and Christmas, believes in the Trinity. And he mixes all of that in as he's talking about these elements of truth that biblically, doctrinally, he's gotten right.

You wonder sometimes, did he read our stuff? No, I think, I don't know what he read. I think maybe he just read the Bible and he had certain moments of lucidity on certain passages and he had to be honest as just a reader and a student of the Scriptures.

He had to be honest. Or some of his Anglican contemporaries or whatever just couldn't see it or couldn't be honest with it. But he doesn't have the whole plan of God. He doesn't understand really why there would be a kingdom on the earth. He's got a little bit of an understanding that we are to be prepared now, but he doesn't put it all together.

I picked up a book this week and was reading it, Setting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus. It's written by a Lutheran woman and a Jewish lady. And it has some very good insight into the life and times of the cultural setting of Jesus and his ministry.

There's a chapter on the festivals. So I flipped to that last night and was looking at it.

And again, they understand. They've got certain glimpses of understanding about tabernacles, Pentecost, and put various pieces of the puzzle together. But as I skim through the chapter, I can see they don't have the whole picture. But they understand value and thought for it, but they also understand how Christians have value by keeping Easter and Christmas as well. They don't understand the whole picture. And you will find today various groups on television and various ways they are talking about keeping the Feast of Trumpets.

There will be Protestant groups that will have meetings next Friday night or next Saturday night in their big mega churches in Southern California or other places. They will have a service on Rosh Hashan. And they will read the Scriptures from Leviticus 23 about keeping it.

And then they'll go to church on Sunday morning and life will go on. I don't fault them. I'm not picking at them. I'm explaining the reality of our world today. And you will find, and I'm going to run across, ministries and groups, Protestant and otherwise, who will make attempts to keep the Holy Days and see value there. But they don't get the whole picture. You have to get the whole picture by keeping it all. It's interesting times. Forty years ago, you didn't see or hear of anything like that.

It's just a phenomenon that has built in recent years, in the last 10 to 15 years, in some cases. I've listened to Pat Robertson on his record club talk about keeping the Feast of Tabernacles out there in Virginia, where he has his operation, and having certain meetings during the Feast of Tabernacles. He called it the Feast of Tabernacles. So you see people, they will read the Bible and they will make certain efforts to do something or to observe or to draw people's attention to it and make good faith efforts.

But they don't get the whole thing put together. I will say, you must come to the Church of God, where those days are kept and explained in their totality, to understand the full revelation of God's plan. When you do, when you begin to observe them, it becomes, again, an embedded part of your culture. The Holy Days also, moving on to another point, foretell things to come. They foretell things to come.

The Holy Days are the basis to understand prophecy. If you want to understand prophecy in its fullest dimension, you've got to understand the Holy Days, because the Holy Days foretell things to come. In Colossians 2, Colossians 2, and Colossians 2, and Colossians 2, and Colossians 3, we have Paul writing a letter to a group of Gentiles. This is a strictly Gentile church, and by that I mean there were no Jews or Israelites here. This was a church in Colossae that had been established, and their background was total paganism. There was no Jewish connection with the Sabbath or the festivals. For those that had been called and brought into a church setting for Paul to address in this letter.

In chapter 2, verse 16, he calls their attention to the fact that as they are keeping the Sabbath and the Holy Days and the festivals, they are not to be judged by anybody else. Don't let your neighbor buffalo you. Don't let your relatives talk you out of what you're doing, because he says in verse 16, let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbath.

I will just say the only reference here to a new moon is not to observe the new moon, but as a marking of time. Until the calendar was established, you marked the months by the appearance of the new moon. That's the only reason to observe a new moon, and you observed it, or would have observed it even at this time, until the calendar was established just to be able to mark the time.

That's it. Once the calendar was established by the rules that the Jewish community did, new moons ceased to be an issue. So don't read into this that you should keep a new moon. Please don't go there.

It's a waste. It's a dead end street, I hope. I've given past sermons on that, but from time to time people think they've got to keep a new moon. You don't keep a new moon. The church doesn't keep a new moon. There's no mention of new moons in Leviticus 23. The only reason it's referenced here is because of establishing the calendar and time, not holy time. But he is referring, and they were marking it by the new moon. So they were observing a festival in the Sabbath. This was a culture being imposed upon these Gentiles that they had not grown up in. And they were keeping the Sabbath from the festivals. And Paul says, don't let anybody judge you for that.

And a proper exegesis or explanation of this verse in the Greek and everything else you cannot conclude otherwise is that these people were keeping the Sabbath. They were keeping the Holy Days. And Paul is saying, don't let anybody judge you of that. That's it in a nutshell. I can give you... could provide a whole papers on that regard, but that's the proper understanding of verse 16. And then he goes on to verse 17 and he makes a profound statement.

He says, they are a shadow, which are a shadow of things to come. But the substance is of Christ. We observe the Holy Days with Christ smack in the middle of them. He is the substance of all of the Holy Days. And when you understand them and you observe them with Christ in the middle of them, and his life, death, and sacrifice, and his present position, you then understand the full meaning of the Holy Days and there is substance to the Holy Days.

What is happening here is we're also being told that they are a shadow of things to come. Things to come.

Now remember we're still on the hiked. We're on that hilltop looking back and looking forward whenever we keep the Holy Days. When we look back at the Passover, we see the reconciling death of Christ applied to those who accept it. But in all of history, how many truly have accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? Relatively few. Even the Passover, though the event is past, it is a shadow of something greater to come. Days of Unleavened Bread.

Days of Unleavened Bread shows the churches to put out sin. Shows Christ is now living his life within us, those who are called and converted. But let me ask you a question, those of you that are still awake. When will it be that all sin will be gone? When all sin will be put out? When will that be? At the coming of Christ? During the millennium?

Nobody really wants to raise their hand? During the great white throne judgment?

After the great white throne judgment? Yeah, the rest of you are chicken. You didn't want to raise your hand at all. When the full 7,000 year plan of God is done in the human history, that's all elapsed. Sin will be gone. That's when sin will be gone. So we keep the Days of Unleavened Bread as a shadow of what is going to happen in the future. Even as we observe an event of the past, Israel coming out of Egypt, but the future.

Pentecost, Acts 2, church receiving the Holy Spirit, church beginning, only a tiny, tiny fulfillment here. When you really understand it. The Holy Spirit of God is only entered a fraction of humanity. Ultimate fulfillment is yet to come. Feast of trumpets, time of war, time of blowing of trumpets, of warning, war at the close at the age, God's intervention to save humanity, the time of the first resurrection, all of that to come. We observe it next Sabbath as a shadow of that which is to come. Verse 17 of Colossians 2. Tabernacles, time of peace, a shadow of what is to come. And the last great day when all will begin to have the books opened to them, that's yet to occur. So when you understand that, you have the future aspect of all of the Holy Days, then you have a basis to understand not only God's plan, but even if you will as a basis for understanding prophecy. And that they are even of themselves inherently prophetic. You want to really get caught up in prophecy?

Get caught up in that. Those are sure. You can understand that far better than some of the other esoteric and vague areas of prophecy that God hasn't completely lifted the veil on. It's far better to get involved in those things and to anchor yourself there, even as you would study some of the other aspects of prophecy that can tend to excite us at times and be a part of the picture. But don't lose sight of that foundation that is here.

We look to the future. And it is in the future that God's going to require the world what He requires of us today. We've come to a point by God's calling to understand that as it is written, we are to keep these days. And we keep them to the best of our ability within the culture of the 21st century, 20th and 21st century. Sometimes I wonder if we've got the best model down, best biblical model. I'm just speaking personally here for a moment.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy going to a nice site and enjoying it, as you do.

Sometimes I stand back and ask myself, have we got the best models? Is this as close as we can get to the biblical model? I'm not saying we should go out and put a temporary booth out in our backyard or someplace else. There's balance here. But sometimes in recent years I've just tried to step back and take a cold analytical look at some of the things that we get caught up in and we think are keeping the feasts, keeping the festivals.

And I turn that light on myself as much as anyone else, just to be sure that wherever I go and whatever I do, I know why I'm there. And I hope that you will as well. It is easy to get caught up in an activity and get just to be too tired and sleep in the next day and decide not to go to church thinking, this is just the third day, there will be a fourth day and a fifth day, and I'm just too tired. Or to skip the service that you're there because of some other reason that we get into. And there are times when you will miss health and whatever. Again, you don't want to go spreading your germs, especially these days. But remember that we go to the feast of tabernacles, we go to the holy days, we go to the weekly Sabbath to worship God. And worshiping God is a requirement God lays on each one of us. And it's something we do because it's required, and it's required even when it's not what we want to do. When we don't want to do it. When we don't want to go to church, when we would rather sleep in or maybe just get an early start on that activity ahead of everybody else, we'll skip worshiping God, which is at the heart of why we are wherever we are. Understand this about worship. This is a little sidebar. Worship in the Bible, when you fully understand the concept of worship, we do that because God requires it, and we do it in spite of ourselves. We do it when we should do it when we don't want to, when it's not convenient, even when we're a little tired. Because that's at the heart of worship. And it's that way, year in and year out, week after week, and we don't want to do it when we're not in the right place. And that's the way we learn to love God. When we let whatever it is get in the way of worshiping God, coming before Him in a commanded assembly, we get in that habit. We kid ourselves, you and I alike, we kid ourselves if we think we are loving God. There is a phenomenon that develops among the people of God at any time, at any fellowship, at any age of familiarity and weariness. Worship, worship stands above all of that. It's all I'll go into on that. But remember that God has called us to understand these things now, ahead of the rest of the world. And when we understand them as a shadow of those things to come, we should recognize what is laid upon us at this particular time. The Apostle Paul talks about, in one of his letters, in Romans, the book of Romans, chapter 2, he talks about becoming a Jew inwardly. It's in Romans, chapter 2, verse 28. He says essentially that the reality is, because you have to understand it in the book of context to Romans, it's again written to another group of Gentiles that's in the city of Rome, and he's up to this point, he's really laid into the Gentiles.

Chapter 1, he says they didn't like to keep God in their knowledge, so God gave him over to a reprobate mind. And then in chapter 2, he talks about the Jews and their phoniness, how hypocritical they were. They were given the law, but they're just as guilty as Gentiles.

They're no better just because they're Jews, descendants of Abraham. And he comes down at the end of chapter 2, and he says, in verse 28, he's not a Jew who is one inwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he's a Jew who is one inwardly.

And circumcision is that of a heart, in the spirit, not in the letter. We have to become Jews inwardly if we're going to be children of God. This is one of the great, irreconcilable things for people to understand from the Scriptures. Because people don't want to keep the Holy Days because they're Jewish. I got into an email conversation a few days ago with an individual who found us on the Internet. I wanted to know if we kept Christmas. I said, no, we keep the festivals. He's glad we didn't keep Christmas, and he was quasi-interested in the Sabbath. But those festivals, he didn't quite understand. He says, I don't understand why a Christian should keep Jewish feasts. That was his sentence. I haven't answered all of it. I got back into an answer with him. We'll see how that develops. But people don't want to keep the Holy Days. They don't want to keep the Sabbath because they're Jewish, they think. I've tried to show you that they're not. They're gods. But in the reality, one of the reasons you and I keep the Holy Days is to become a Jew inwardly.

Even though they're not Jewish, you and I, as we keep them, in the full depth of what I've talked about here, this is how we're fulfilling Romans 2.28. This is a big aspect of how we become Jews inwardly. And the ironic thing is, in the world to come, God's going to require the Gentiles and the Jews to keep the Holy Days when they haven't kept them in order to become a spiritual Jew. Do you get that? Zechariah 14 shows you that the Gentiles, if they don't go up to Jerusalem to keep which festival? Yeah, Feast of Tabernacles.

Zechariah 14. Verse 16, the nations go up to worship God.

They shall come to pass that everyone who's left of the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up your ear to worship the King, the Lord of hosts and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. That's all the other Gentile nations. The Jews will, in a sense, have a little bit more of an attachment to understand about the festivals than someone who never has. But believe me, they got about as long a road to go as a German, Italian, Asian, or anybody else because they're about as far from the depth of understanding as anyone else. And that's what Paul was saying. And he goes on here in this prophecy. It says, It shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not go 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'll have no rain. They will receive the plague which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. We have a head start. God requires and has laid it upon us and shows us how important these days are to him and to us today as we observe them in advance of the time when everyone else is going to. This is the one time, brethren, when you and I are on the cutting edge. We're out ahead of everybody on this curve. The trick and the key is to stay on that curve and stay out ahead of everyone. The world today has turned it all around. They're living like Gentiles with Gentile festivals instead of God's festivals. The world today thinks that Christ is ruling the world through the church. In reality, the church long ago became like the world. And God has called some and a few out of this world into his church to live like the world to come, as the sermon it was bringing out. And that's what we have before us. So, as we begin to ascend to the high days, recognize that there are summits from which we look backwards, but most importantly, we look forward to the future. And understand how they all work together and how important they all are to help us to understand that they are shadows of things to come and to appreciate what God has given to us and to worship Him accordingly.