Shadow of Things to Come

So now we are ready for the main message. And God tells us that we should have meet in due season. He's the one that tells us that we are to teach according to the times, the seasons, as they begin to be set up. And so, of course, we are beginning the festival of the fall feasts. Just a little bit over three weeks, and we begin with the Feast of Trumpets, which is the first of these fall feasts. So also the Feast of Tabernacles is just around the corner, just a little bit over a month from now. And when God says He wants His servants to give His people meat in due season, it means to give them the food at the proper time, not at the wrong time. And it is a great privilege as we begin to prepare for these fall feasts to rejoice. It gives us hope and meaning to our lives. And we also remember the brethren that can't make it. We send cards, notes. They're part of the congregation. Even if they're not going to be there, many times they are able to have the hookup, be able to see it online. And they are part of that spiritual family that is there for the feasts of God that we appreciate so much. As one lives out his life, you begin to look back and analyze what truly brings out happiness. Is it just when some money falls into your lap? Is that when you have the biggest happiness in your life? Or is it when you get promoted to a big position? Or is it when you win over your adversaries? Or getting a big bonus? Sure, those are things that might appear, especially in the world, to be a triumph. But really, when you look back on your life, at least that's what I have seen, the happiest moments are when you are with your friends, when you are with people that you're able to love, above all, when you have a good relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ, and you feel fulfilled. In other words, true happiness is when you are loved and you love those back.

And there are two principal things to learn today. Be satisfied if everybody can repeat them after the end of the message that we want to focus on, because it does have to do with preparing spiritually for God's feasts that are coming up.

The first point that is so important is to understand a key scripture that deals in the New Testament primarily with the Sabbath and God's feasts.

This is one of the scriptures that should be highlighted as a proof text of people in that first century church keeping God's Sabbaths and feasts. But instead, it's been distorted and it's been used against keeping the Sabbath and feasts incredible as it appears. And so that's the first thing if we can get a clear understanding of this so that you could explain it to someone. If they come up and they use the famous Colossians 2, verses 16 and 17, to try to do away with the Sabbath and the Holy Days, and you can tell them, no, that's not it at all. It is the exact opposite.

It's actually exalting God's feasts and Sabbaths.

And the second point, using the scripture in Colossians 2, 16 and 17, because it tells us something about how to observe these feasts in the proper way.

And we're also going to use another scripture to help us understand not only how this scripture fits into the Sabbath and the feast days, but also the attitude and the manner that we should keep these feast days. That's all wrapped up primarily in this scripture.

So it's very important to see it for yourself. Because if we have the right attitude when we come to these feasts, and also if we prepare for these feasts, God is going to bless.

He is going to see that person. And guess what? God is always looking for someone that He can bless.

Many times it's the person that hinders God from blessing Him. We don't want that, because God is a God of abundance. He says every good gift comes from God, and He wants to give it. Just like a loving father, but many times it's the person that hinders God from blessing Him more. And when God blesses, it's a blessing that doesn't have any negative consequences.

Because as it says in Proverbs, there is a way to acquire wealth, but it says it is going to be cursed. If you do it by stealing, lying, taking advantage of someone else, you can end up with that money. But guess what? That money is going to be cursed. There are going to be all kinds of backlash and all kinds of negative things that are going to be produced. Even if a person was able to obtain that. And that's not what God does. When He blesses, there are no negative consequences. He makes sure that you are truly blessed.

So let's look at, first of all, this key scripture. It's Colossians 2, verses 16 and 17. I'll read it here.

It says, so let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival, which is the term here, it means a feast day, or a new moon or Sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come. But the substance is of Christ.

So it says, let no one judge you in regards to food and drink or feast day or new moon or Sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come. The first thing we have to see is that it says that when you keep a Sabbath, when you keep a feast day, and I'm going to cover the part about the new moon, which is something that God says we should keep in mind to have the calendar, because it depends on counting the beginning of the moons. And so you have to also regard this as something special. It says, which are a shadow of things not in the past, but it says things to come. So they portray future events, things that are going to happen in God's plan in the future. And so they are very important to understand. So in order to understand Colossians chapter 2 in the proper context and its proper setting, we have to look at the beginning here of Colossians chapter 2 to ask what is going on, who is doing what.

And there are five warnings that the Apostle Paul writes to the Colossian brethren, saying, be careful with this. Don't do what these people are telling you to do. Don't yield. And so there are five warnings here. It's starting in Colossians chapter 2. It says, now this I say, lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. So what was happening? You had the Colossian congregation, and there were some in that congregation that were teaching false truths, false teachings, and they were false brethren. We can have people come in and start teaching false things. And so Paul, his overall supervisor of the area, heard about this, and he was writing to the Colossians to warn them. Now notice this wasn't that they were going outside of the church and hearing these things. No, it was within the church. They had a small group that were teaching wrong things. And so he says in verse four, this I say, lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. So these people were coming, and very subtly, very cleverly, they were introducing false teaching. And so Paul is warning them of that. Notice in verse eight, he goes on and warns them for a second time. He says, beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. So the remedy that Paul is giving them is remember Christ teaching, how he gave it to his apostles. And don't listen to these who are introducing pagan elements, mixing them with some Jewish teaching and serving them as something that the church should do. So all through this history of almost 2,000 years, we've always had the dangers of pagan, Greek, and Babylonian teaching coming in. And we've also had, on the other side, the wrong Jewish teachings. A lot has to do with false traditions of men. But in this case, they had combined false Jewish teachings with false pagan teachings. That's why he says here, according to the tradition of men, this isn't something that you find in the Scriptures, but you find something added from the outside. And the term philosophy, of course, has to do with a way of thinking that has been introduced.

Also, according to the basic principles of the world, he mentions here philosophical principles that usually have to do with Greek thinking that can be fooled.

The whole Christian world has been fooled by a lot of Greek Christian thinking. One of the ideas is the immortality of the soul that was taught and championed, especially by Plato. And that came into Jewish philosophy, and eventually it entered the church.

So now people think that you have an immortal soul and that you have to be judged immediately after death, whether you go to heaven or hell, and that you are still a conscious person immediately after death. So this is a false pagan concept that entered into traditional Christianity.

Paul was warning him of other Greek philosophical and pagan ideas. Notice how he says that this is not according to Christ in verse 8 at the end. It goes on to say in verse 9, So he says, look, it's Christ, the head of the church. Don't let these false teachers get you waylaid and off course, and you are complete in him.

These are the teachings that are found in the Scriptures who is the head of all principality and power.

And then it goes on with the third warning in verse 16.

It says, so let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival, or a new moon, or Sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. So he says, don't let anyone deceive you.

Beware of anyone who's cheating you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men. So what is he telling? He is addressing the brethren, and those doing the judging and the criticizing them are the false group.

They are the ones criticizing. They are the ones trying to get them to change their teachings and practices. So it wasn't the Colossian brethren who were doing the judging. No, they were doing the practicing. But we had these critics came in, and they were saying, well, you shouldn't be keeping the Sabbaths or Holy Days.

And the way you enjoy your festivals, that's not the right way to do it. And don't think that only happened close to 2,000 years ago. It also happened in our former affiliation where some inside crept in and started teaching them. No, don't worry about the Sabbath. And they actually used this scripture to try to whalae and deceive the people because they weren't properly anchored. That's why in our congregation we need to have sermons on Christian living, on practical things. We've done that. We've had two messages on practical living in the Book of Proverbs. We've also discussed other topics about practical Christian living, how to deal with each other. But also we have to learn a doctrine, which is biblical teaching. So you are not to be deceived. You're supposed to be a soldier of Christ. You are supposed to put on the armor and with the sword of truth, the breastplate of righteousness. So we have to arm ourselves because they're going to come after us. Satan does not want the Church to survive. He is going to continually siege and try to pry open those gates of the Church so he can go in and cause so much damage. And one way he does it is through heresy, teaching false things. And so there it tells us in Colossians 2, 16, Paul said, don't listen to these people that are criticizing you about the way you are eating and drinking with the feasts and with the Sabbath and how you enjoy that, because there was this element. It's called asceticism, which is when religion is supposed to be very pharisaical and very puritanical. You're not supposed to smile very much. You're not supposed to enjoy things so much. Everything has to be very serious, very austere. Well, that's not what Paul was saying they should be. Notice the fourth warning, Colossians 2, 18 through 19. He says, let no one cheat you of your reward. So he's telling brethren, you might not enter the kingdom of God if you start following this group. Don't let them cheat you of this reward. The term again in Greek is disqualify you, just like a runner who is not able to participate because he broke the rules. So he's saying here, you can become disqualified if you follow wrong people and wrong teachings. Taking delight in false humility and worship of angels. So here, right up front, Paul is showing that it's a false teaching because nowhere in the Bible is the worship of angels allowed. And anytime the angels ever appear and somebody tries to worship them, they say, no, worship God. But here, there were these mediators that you're supposed to go through before you went up to God in heaven. And so it talks about also false humility. This very austere way of dealing with things always looked like religion has to be very stern, very much uptight. And so he says, don't let anybody cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen. Other translations have it about visions they have seen. So a false teacher sometimes say, well, God told me to preach this. Or this is what I received from heaven. He says, don't listen to those types of people trying to change doctrines and teachings.

Veinly puffed up by his fleshly mind and not holding fast to the head. Jesus Christ, the head of the church, from whom all the body nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. The Tree of Life version has for verse 18, Let no one disqualify you by insisting on false humility and worship of angels, going into detail about what he has seen, puffed up without cause by his fleshly mind. So we see again, it's not the collageum brethren that are doing anything wrong, but some are allowing themselves to be persuaded into these false teachings. And of course, as a pastor, he's very concerned about that. The last warning has to do with collagens 2 verses 20 through 23.

It says, In other words, with your other way of life, through baptism, died with Christ from the basic principles of the world and all of these false philosophies that we followed before, many of us.

Why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations?

Again, these are the ascetic, these are the stern, you're not supposed to touch certain things, you're not supposed to taste certain things, you're not to handle certain things, which all concern things which perish with the using. According to the commandments and doctrines of men. So it's not talking about clean and unclean meats or what we should drink or not, it's talking about this false withdrawal from foods that God says we can eat.

Just to give you an example, when I grew up, until I was 18, I was a Roman Catholic, and there we were taught, on Friday, you're not supposed to eat meat. If you're going to eat meat, it had to be fish. That's why many places, they had the fish market, and boy, on Friday, that was the best day for them, because people come in early in the morning, all the Catholics, because that was fish day. Well, the Bible doesn't tell us anything about not eating meat on Friday.

And of course, that goes all the way back to the tradition that Christ suffered on a Friday, and so somehow you're supposed to withdraw yourself from certain foods.

When you've obeyed Lent, which were 40 days before the time of what they have Easter, well, there were certain things you weren't supposed to touch. There weren't certain things that you were to taste or to handle.

And that, I'm just using as an example, there are many others in different religions that do that.

It says, these things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion. So he says, look, some of these which you're abstaining for some special reason.

Another example, it was yesterday, I was reading in the Orange County Register, that they have one of these Catholic cathedrals, and they talk about people that make this votive vow.

And they have to walk many, many miles, many times barefoot, because they're asking a petition of God. And so they have to go and walk these distances. In Chile, where it was even more fanatic in this way, Annie probably knows they're in the Philippines in the same way. They actually had people that would crucify themselves, you know, put nails on their hands, because they thought this is the way to please God, asceticism. It's punishing the body to please God.

And in Chile, there was this special temple, that votive temple, and it was, I don't know, 30 miles from Santiago. And some people would go on their knees, walking all that way. They thought they would please God. So it says here that, it says, these things indeed have an appearance of wisdom. Oh, that it has an appearance that you're doing this great sacrifice for God in self-imposed religion.

What you are going to sacrifice yourself for. And it's a false humility, because God isn't telling you to do that. He doesn't want you to destroy your knees and kneecaps or feet to be able to worship Him. He's not some sadistic God that takes pleasure in you just beating yourself up. He says, and neglect of the body. So people go through all of this neglect, and many times they just are put on rags and don't eat for days or whatever.

It says, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. See, all of that is external. But what happens is that this isn't going to change your human nature. You're not going about it in the proper way. You need God's Spirit to cleanse you. Not some physical commitment to straining and suffering in the flesh. So I just wanted to explain to you a little bit what Paul was facing at the time.

And believe me today, as ministers, we face false teachings coming into church here or there and people listening. And pretty soon they start seeing things differently and they're not the same person. And they start getting in their minds some other ideas about things.

And we've always said, look, if you have other perspectives, you can always write your paper up, submit it to your pastor, and he will go over it. If he thinks it has merit, it'll go forward. It'll go to the Doctrine Committee, of which I'm part of. And the Doctrine Committee can send it to the Doctrine Advisory Committee, which are five long senior pastors that look at that first.

If they think it has merit, they send it back to the Doctrine Committee. The Doctrine Committee goes over all of the research, and then they have to determine whether it has merit or not. And if it doesn't have merit, then it's a decision that has to be by the majority of the Doctrine Committee members. And if there is one out of the—normally, we have five—if there is more than one that is willing to back the paper, that finds merit, if there are two— and I have to correct myself, it doesn't have to be a majority.

It just has to have two out of the five. It's sufficient that it goes before the entire Doctrine Committee. But if it's less than two, if it's one or no support, then that ends all of the research. And many times it takes years, hundreds of man-hours to go through that, and then a letter is sent to the member or minister, whoever has sent it in, explaining that it did not find support and that at least his views were fairly treated.

And so we go through that. I've got a project right now that I've got to examine. I just finished one. So I'm constantly reviewing papers and things are being sent to us, and we do it respectfully, understanding that we have to give it a fair hearing, look at the Scriptures, because we don't want to just summarily dismiss somebody's ideas on things. But we say, please follow the process so we can all speak the same thing. So continuing on, we see that the Colossian brethren as a whole were doing the right things, but there were some false brethren among them teaching this heresy based on Jewish Gnostic influence, having visions, asceticism, that the flesh is evil, that you shouldn't enjoy yourselves this way, you know, some even abstaining from marriage and going that route.

So I want to share here a book written by a Greek professor. His name is Troy Martin, professor of religious studies at St. Xavier College in Chicago, Illinois.

In 1996, he wrote a book on the Colossian controversy, titled, By Philosophy and Empty Deceit, Colossians as Response to a Cynic Critique.

And this is a summary of the book. Of course, I don't have time to go through all of his explanation, but he concluded exactly what we have been saying so far in this message. This is what he wrote in page 129. It's a summary. He says, So you see, the church was protected because they kept the Sabbath and feast days and did not participate in all of these alternative religious holidays and teachings.

So in a way, the church has this protection. As long as it keeps the Sabbath and feast days, they are protected from the influences of this pagan philosophical system that pervades and surrounds us. He says, So after all this study, he says, No, the Colossian brethren were keeping the Sabbaths. They were taking into account the new moons to determine the calendar settings for the feasts, and they were keeping the feast days. What Dr. Martin says here completely undermines the common Protestant attack of using Colossians 2, 16, and 17 to refute keeping the Sabbath, holy days, and taking into account the new moons to fix the feast days. So this is what the world does. They say, oh, you don't have to worry about those things. Those have been done away. And actually, this scripture is saying, no, don't listen to people that are denying you from keeping these days.

And so that takes us to the second point, the proper way of keeping the feast days, according to Colossians 2, verses 16 and 17.

And this is brought out in the book by Dr. Martin.

He says, these deceivers disdained feasting any type of eating and drinking for enjoyment.

So Paul instructed the Colossian Christians not to be influenced by these false teachers' objections to eating, drinking, and rejoicing on Sabbaths, feast days, and new moons.

And now the dates for observing God's festivals are determined by this Jewish religious calendar. This is the calendar that we see in the Bible when God says in Exodus 12.1, this is the first month that you are to keep.

And on the 14th day of this first month, you are to observe the Passover. And so it was given to the priests to set up and to administrate this calendar, because you would not know it unless you had to calculate ahead of time for these moons that were going to be coming.

And then the days to keep the feasts. And they had the two silver trumpets that would be blown on those days to have everybody gather together. This is why we can gather together for the Feast of Trumpets, because we take the new moons into account. And we don't use this Roman, what they call the Julian calendar, that was established by Julius Caesar around the year 46 BC. He established it as an Egyptian calendar that the Roman Empire would follow. And of course, there's no way you can set up the feast days in that calendar.

So we, for the feast days, use the Hebrew calendar.

The new moons, which mark the beginning of the months, by the way, the term month has to do with moons. That's an old term. So it talks about the month of March. It's actually talking about the new moon of March. But of course, they're not keeping the moons at that time. They're important for establishing correct festival dates.

Unlike God's holy days, however, new moons are not commanded observances in the Scriptures. They're not like a Sabbath day. It doesn't say there's a holy convocation, but it is something that has to be noted. And when Israel gathered, there would be the blowing of the trumpets and the new moon. So people would say, oh yes, well, 14 days from now, we're going to be keeping the Passover. And everybody had in mind because of the calendar. So if you want to find out about God's church through the ages, one of the evidence of being in the right church is that they are respecting the calendar established in the Bible to determine the feast days. That is one of the great biblical truths and identifications of the true church.

In the millennium, the custom of making the arrival of each new moon a special occasion will again be restored in Isaiah 66, verse 23. Let's read that. Isaiah 66, verse 23, when Jesus Christ returns, a worldwide system of keeping these feasts and Sabbaths and new moons will be established at that time. Isaiah 66, verse 23. Read it in your own Bible. See if it makes sense to you that is talking here about the coming of Christ described at the beginning here. Isaiah 66. Let's begin just to get to context. Verse 15 says, That hasn't happened yet. But one day it is going to happen. People are going to realize God is not some absentee landlord that has forgotten what's going on on this earth.

And it says in verse 23, It says, So this is in the future. And the Sabbath is going to be kept. The new moons are going to be announced. Wouldn't it be beautiful if you're in this country and other countries, you'd have the sounding of the trumpets and everybody would know when the feasts of the Lord would come. Hasn't happened, but it will happen one day.

So the feasts of God are a time of eating and drinking. Paul instructed the collagion Christians not to be influenced by these false teachings, objections to eating, drinking, and rejoicing on Sabbaths, feast days, and new moons. Now the dates for observing God's festivals are determined by a lunar calendar, as I have said. And the new moons, which mark the beginning of the months, are important to establish correct festival dates.

Here I'd like to give a summary of the collagion, chapter 2, verse 16. Let's read the collagion, chapter 2, verse 16. It says, So let no one judge you in food or in drink, and what you are eating or drinking, or regarding a festival, or a new moon, or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come. They portray what is going to happen in the future.

And of course, these ascetic false teachers were saying, don't rejoice. Don't enjoy these days. You're eating too much. You're drinking too much. You're having too good of a good time together, fellowshiping, brethren. That's not a good example, according to them. But God says we are to rejoice. Let's go to Deuteronomy, chapter 14, talking about the proper way of keeping these feasts. Deuteronomy, chapter 14, verse 22. Here are part of God's laws.

It says in verse 22, You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. So God says, look, you're supposed to take a tenth of your income that you have labored in, that you have produced the results. And here it's talking about the tithe, which we call the festival tithe, verse 23, or the second tithe. And you shall eat before the Lord your God in the place which he chooses to make his name abide. The tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the first born of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

So he says, I'm going to test you. Keep a tenth to follow God's feasts, to have enough to enjoy yourself during these feasts. Verse 24, but if the journey is too long for you so that you are not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money. Take the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses, and you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen or sheep.

What we do is we take our money and we buy slices of oxen or sheep. Just depends. A piece of steak is part of the ox and part of lamb chops or whatever is part. You take the slice. You don't have to buy the whole animal for wine. So you see, God says wine drunk properly, drunk without excess, is fine, or similar drink. So different types of drinks that you can enjoy.

Sure enjoy. Puerto Vallarta. There you have all of this all-inclusive. So I like to have my piña colada, and I like to have the corona beer or a little bit of wine with a meal. For whatever your heart desires, you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice. You and your household. He says you are to rejoice. But you see, these aesthetics were changing, and they started saying, well, the feasts aren't to be a happy moment. Changing the whole spirit. Satan is behind that because he doesn't want us to see that future coming kingdom.

Every year we, as spiritual pilgrims, get to taste a little bit of that coming kingdom of God when everybody's going to be together, when we're all going to rejoice with Christ over the nations, and everything is going to be beautified. There's not going to be poverty, war, exploitation, greed, lust. There's not going to be anything left of Hollywood Babylon over there. It's going to be completely destroyed as far as all the bad things. They're also good things.

But a lot of that stuff is going to be just destroyed. It has polluted and contaminated so many generations of people. So it's going to be a new world, a world where righteousness is going to be taught in the right way of life. And so we see here that we are to keep a tide.

And of course, here this is an older congregation. So there are people that have been keeping their second tide, their festival tide, maybe 50 years. They started going as young kids, and they've seen how God blesses them. Because you see, God tests and tries us with some of the things that we value, especially our money. Because the Bible says, wherever your treasure is, that's where your heart is going to be. God's going to test us because it's not just praising God and, oh, how wonderful, and, yes, I've given my heart to Jesus and whatever.

Well, how about your tithe? Did you give that to God? It's a lot harder than just using words because that means sacrifice, faith, trust, honesty, before God. And so he says this is part of a test that he gives us. So also, as a reference in this message, I'd like to focus on an article by a pastor of the church, Larry Walker. He wrote an article titled, Collagions 2, 16 and 17 years ago.

And he did a thorough examination. And I want to give just a summary of what he wrote in this article, which I've gone over and it's spot on.

Number one, these are the conclusions. The collagions were observing the festivals, new moons and sabbaths, just as they were eating and drinking. Number two, the ascetic, Gnostic-based heretics were criticizing them for eating and drinking and rejoicing in celebration of these festive occasions. Number three, these occasions have symbolic value and should continue to be observed as a continual reminder and source of instruction about the basic truths of the plan of God, past, present and future. Now, anybody wants some of these notes, I can send them back so you don't have to be writing all of these points. Number four, therefore, the members should not allow anyone to stand in judgment of them or criticize them for keeping these days. We would have been very different if people would have stood up and said, we're going to continue keeping these days.

And we have Colossians 2, 16 and 17, to tell us these are shadows, these are events that are being portrayed in the future. See, when we keep the feast, we're not keeping the kingdom of God on earth. We are keeping the view of the coming kingdom of God. It's just a portrait. It's just a glimmer of that coming kingdom. The feasts are these shadows that cast the shadow of the image that is going to one day be the reality.

And then the fifth point, rather, these brethren must continue to look to Christ, the focal point of God's plan, and of these occasions which foreshadow His future role in that plan.

They must also look to God, the Father, and Christ to keep God's people united together. These feasts unify us because many times we're not able to see many people from other congregations, but at least we do so here in Oceanside. Just a hundred miles away from here, we're going to have a feast, and they're coming from around the world. We can rejoice with the brethren.

The Sabbath and Holy Days also help promote this unity by bringing members together in a commanded assembly and reminding them that they are sanctified. In other words, holy or uniquely special members of the family of God.

So, as a summary, Larry Walker paraphrased the way this collagion 2, 16, and 17, really what it's talking about. This is the way he put it in more modern terms. He says, don't let any man judge you for eating or drinking or for any portion of your observance of a festival, new moon, or Sabbath, which are a shadow of future events in God's master plan, of which Jesus Christ is a central figure. But let the body of Christ, which casts the shadow as He walking in the light, moves toward the fulfillment. Be your judge in these matters. Let the church with Christ as the head judge in these matters. So God's Sabbath and holy days remind us of the past, present, and future, the role of Jesus Christ and God the Father as they carry it out, the plan of salvation, keeping the kingdom of God in mind. Then at the end, Colossians 2.18, a reminder, says, let no one defraud you of your reward. Don't let anybody disqualify you because you could be in the wrong place. And one day when Christ comes back, you're not going to be part of those firstfruits, part of those firstborn of the brethren that enter God's kingdom. What a terrible moment because a person has forgotten to obey God in this way. Don't let anyone deceive you with false teachings about this. And remember, God's feasts should be kept, or else we can be disqualified. Have a good weekend, brethren.