Why Christians Keep Holy Days

You know, the world thinks you're foolish. Some may even think you're stupid. I don't think that. Don't believe that for one second. In fact, the world thinks I'm foolish, and I'm sure there's a lot of them out there that probably think I'm stupid. But we know that they think we're silly for going off next week and observing those old Jewish holy days when we observe the Feast of Pentecost. In fact, over in 1 Corinthians 2, I'm not going to turn there, but the apostle Paul said that, in fact, that the natural mind, in other words, the carnal mind thinks God's way is foolishness.

Just a bunch of falderal, a bunch of foolishness. And most think that these things limit God. Can you believe that? Many people think that the Sabbath limits God. They think that the holy days limit God, and that you can worship God in many ways. There are many roads to heaven. How many times have you heard that? Many ways to get to heaven. Want to be a Buddhist? You've got to get to heaven, I guess, wherever it is that they go.

Or you want to be a Hindu? That's one way to go as well, at least they think. And this is what some even Christians think, by the way, of heaven, mind, and what they think. Some have this idea, brethren, that the Sabbath limits God and the holy days limit God, because you can worship God any day of the week. You should worship God, in fact, every day of the week. Now, I agree with that. I think we ought to worship God every day of the week. I remember when I was younger and I was beginning to look into the Sabbath, my dad pitched me that idea that he says, you know, I don't really think you should have to keep the seventh day, necessarily.

He says, I think you should just keep one. And he said, I think what that means is you keep one of the seven days. And that's a noble idea, isn't it? Though, some people believe you ought to keep every day. You know, my dad again thought you could just choose a day, whatever that day was.

Make sure it's just one and seven that you choose. Now, I think it's noble that somebody would want to worship God like on the Sabbath every single day. That's noble. But you and I know that they're not going to do it. They're not going to do it every day.

And they're, frankly, for the most part, people are not going to do it even. They set aside a day. They're not going to do it. Well, brethren, are these days, you know, is the Sabbath, are the holy days only binding, as many people think today, binding on the Jews? And that Christians, as many people, I guess, believe, are free to keep any days that they set aside like Sunday or Easter or other Christmas and other things that they observe.

In other words, they set those aside and they worship God, that God is going to be pleased with that. Well, brethren, I think that anyone who is a true Christian needs to answer those questions. I remember I tackled those questions when I first began to prove the Sabbath. And I began to prove whether I should go to services on the Sabbath. Well, brethren, why should true Christians keep the Jewish festivals, as many people call them, in the Bible? Why should we?

These are confusing things to people, you know, when these questions come up. But one thing that is very important to note, and one thing that most people, frankly, are not aware of, most people, you know, brethren, are not aware that the fact that time has been changed. Time has been changed. It's been over a long period of time, but time has been changed.

I'm going to explain what I mean by that. Over in Daniel 7, there's an amazing prophecy over there that covers about 2,500 years. And it pictures the successive world-ruling empires from Daniel's time to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. So that length of time, it covers the successive major world empires from that time of Daniel to forward. And, of course, the first one that it discusses is the Persian Empire. And we know that because it tells us.

It describes these beasts and it interprets the beast that is described. The first one was the Persian Empire. The second one, as we know, was the Greek-old Macedonian Empire that came along. And that was Alexander the Great, who came after, came in and conquered the Persian Empire. And remember, at a young age, old Alexander the Great died and his kingdom was divided up into four divisions by four of his generals. And you have, of course, the Ptolemaics. And then you have the Seleucid Empire. And there were a couple of others that eventually went to the wayside, by the way.

And so that empire emerged and morphed over a period of time. And finally, it came along the mighty Holy Roman Empire. Very strong. It had an iron-like quality to it. It was vicious. And as we know, it was like iron at the beginning. At the end, of course, it's not going to be like iron. It will be a mixture of iron and clay, as a matter of fact. But the Roman Empire, by the way, would go through ten successive resurrections.

And in the Bible, this drives that. Let's go over to Daniel chapter 7, because we come on the scene describing, again, this final empire, the Holy Roman Empire, that again, has these resurrections that take place. But notice here, we will begin down in verse 20 of chapter 7 here. But it says, And the ten horns that were on its head, this is the beast again that was that final beast, and so there were ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn.

So it mentions here another horn that comes up on this beast. And the other horn, which came up, before which three fell. And so there were three that were yanked up, rooted up, of, again, these ten horns. But it says, I think, if you look in the King James, it says, his look was more stout than his fellow's. So this other horn, and I think in the King James it says, little horn. The little horn emerges. In other words, there would be another government that would emerge smaller, much smaller, than all the other governments, but would dominate all the others. It would dominate all of the others. In fact, it was responsible for plucking up three of them.

And so it had power, but it was smaller, but it dominated all the others. Now, you know, brethren, we have seen this over a period of time as the great false church of Revelation 17. This little horn here is that great false church that arises. And this church, let's go on reading here, this little horn, or this other horn that comes up, is going to be speaking great words and have this pompous appearance. And it says in verse 21, and I was watching, the same horn was making war against the saints.

And so this little horn has been making war against the saints and prevailing against them. Until the ancient of days came, and judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom. So you see the time frame here, we come up on the end of the age when the saints are going to possess the kingdom.

And that, of course, is none other than the time when Jesus Christ returns. But notice this going on, and thus he said, the fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom of the earth, which will be different from all the other kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, trample it, and break it in pieces.

The ten horns are ten kings who shall arise from this kingdom, and another shall rise after them, and he shall be different from the first ones, and shall subdue three kings. Remember he yanked up the vandals, the Ostrogoths, and the perial life? You remember the study of the Roman Empire? And he shall speak pompous words against the Most High. He speaks against the Most High, verse 25, and shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and laws that the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and time and a half a time.

This is during the time of the tribulation. And so you will think to change times and laws. Like I said, brethren, most are not aware, brethren, that time has been changed. Time has been changed over a period of dispensation, where we know that there have been alterations. I mean, in order to understand the Bible, even, brethren, you have to learn a new lingo about when days began and when they end. And that's been purposeful, you know, to change times so that people would not know, or they would not understand.

You know, if you tell them, by the way, that Saturday is the seventh day of the week, some people have no clue about what you're even talking about. They have no clue about that. But in every manner, brethren, this church, this false church, has influenced to change time. The day, of course, used to begin according to the Scripture, and it still does, of course, used to begin at sunset. When does the day begin now, brethren? Midnight, right? You ever get up and check and see if the day's changed out there? You can't, can you? But you have a watch or some other way of doing it.

And I don't know of any way. And I've heard of sun dials, but not moon dials. Also, a month begins with a new moon, according to the Scriptures. But the little horn introduced the solar counter, in which that is not the case, which was of a heathen origin, by the way. A year begins when? In January, the dead of winter, both here in the United States and over in Jerusalem. It's wintertime, you know, January, you know, over in Jerusalem.

And that was changed when a year even began. When does a year begin? In God's Word in the spring of the year, when everything comes to life. God doesn't start things when everything's dead. He begins things when everything comes to life. And, you know, we know also God gave the Sabbath. We can prove that by Scripture. But man, of course, has changed that to Sunday. The little horn has done that.

And why is the Sabbath so important, brethren? Because every week it is a memorial of God's creation. Every week it reminds us of what God did when He created the entire universe, what He did when He created human beings, and what He's still doing. You know, if we can see God as a Creator, brethren, we know He's not finished creating. He's not done. He's not done with us. And for God's Holy Days, brethren, the festivals of the Bible, the little horns, substituted annual holidays. Yet they were Christianized. They were made to be Christianized.

Of course, we know anybody who studies Christmas knows its pagan origins and how it's connected with Satanalia and Vermalia. Even New Year's is a pagan origin. Of course, I don't have to tell you Halloween. Hopefully nobody has to be told that, but it's amazing to me that even some Christian churches have Halloween parties. They, of course, try to clean it up, I guess.

But still they get into witchcraft and things like that. But brethren, the world has been deceived, totally deceived, because things are upside down and backwards when it comes to time, how time is to be measured. And they've come to believe the deceiver, and you know what?

They've lost God's timetable. There's clearly evidence in the Bible. And when they lost God's timetable, brethren, they lost His plan of salvation for all of humanity. When they lost that timetable that God had given. But brethren, we've been privileged to be given knowledge through the Holy Spirit of God's plan of salvation through His Sabbath and through the Holy Days, revealing what He plans, not just for us, brethren, but for all of mankind, which is remarkable to think about. Because many people have the idea that a lot of things in the Bible, if you don't get it now, man, you know, you've lost. You know, you're going to be cast into a hell that is an ever-burning hell, and you're going to sizzle and pop and fry for all eternity and agony. If you've ever, of course, you know, read anything about Dante's Inferno, I remember reading that when I was up at Northeastern State University, and going through it, I thought, man, you know, I wonder if these people are scared out of the truth. They've got all these levels of hell, and you know, you've probably heard about the one that, you know, went, you know, Satan took him down through the levels of hell and asked him, you know, which one he wanted to be in. And so he showed him all the levels, and he came down to one. He thought, well, this would work real well. He saw a lot of them. He knew for sure he did not want to be in, you know, places where there were pitchforks and flames and all kinds of things like that. You know, he didn't want anything to do that. And so Satan took him into this one chamber where people just stand around drinking coffee standing in needy blood. And anyway, the guy loved coffee, you know. He was an avid Starbucks drinker. And, you know, admit if you read it that way in Dante, by the way, that's where, in fact, you know, Starbucks got their name. I'm just joking with you, brother. But anyway, so he says, I think I want to be in there. I love coffee, and I don't mind standing in mud. It might be good for my feet, you know. So anyway, Satan left him there. And so he grabbed a cup of coffee. Then he got out there and started, you know, he was standing there having his coffee knee-deep in mud.

And pretty soon the foreman of that particular chamber came in and blew the whistle. And he said, okay, now break this over back on your hips. So anyway, but these are some of the ideas.

You know, of course, that's not in Dante's Inferno, as far as I know. But anyway, you know, man has all kinds of ideas about what hell is like. And of course, one of them is that he will, you know, be in flames forever and ever and never find relief from it and be tortured. You know, is that a loving God that would do that? You know, it's amazing that people would even have any belief in that kind of thing, but there are many who do. But there are many people who argue against the Holy Days and say the Holy Days were part of that Law of Moses. You've probably heard that, haven't you? Part of the Law of Moses. No, you shouldn't keep it as part of that old Law of Moses and those sacrifices and those rituals, those washings and those oblations. Well, you know, are they? You know, we don't do the sacrifices. We have Christ. You know, people might say, well, let's go to Jeremiah 7. Jeremiah 7 and verse 22 over here. Jeremiah 7 and verse 22. Let's notice over here what, in fact, the Bible says.

I mean, a lot of people have this idea when they got the foot of Sinai that God said, now I want you to do all these sacrifices. Here are all the rituals that I want you to do.

Is that what God did? Well, in Jeremiah 7 and verse 22, it says, I spoke not under your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that have brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. I didn't even talk about burnt offerings and sacrifices when I brought them out of Egypt. As a matter of fact, brethren, it was a year later before sacrifices and rituals were even given to ancient Israel. And so, if somebody ever tells you that, you know, the Holy Days were a part of that old Mosaic law, you know, that's a bunch of fall draw.

Just is not true. The Holy Days were commanded before that.

Some people also go to Colossians 2 in the New Testament. You know, after they say that's a part of that old, you know, covenant, the old Mosaic law, you shouldn't be doing that as a Christian today.

Well, over here in Colossians 2 and verse 16.

You know, here Paul was talking to the Colossians, and he says to them, so let no one judge you in food or in drink.

Or regarding a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. Let no one judge you.

And some people, again, close the book and they say, well, that's C.

You shouldn't have to keep Sabbath or the Holy Days or anything like that.

You know, don't anybody judge you?

Well, if you don't understand the context of this, the context of this, by the way, is that Paul was talking to a mixture of Gentile and Jewish people, and the Gentiles were coming to the church at this time in Colossae.

And what was happening is they were beginning to do things that were looked upon in the Gentile world as Jewish. They were keeping the Sabbath. They were abstaining from unclean meats, which the Gentiles, by the way, were not apt to do.

You know, go back if you can read about Daniel, the book of Daniel over there.

Daniel had to eat, you know, vegetables because of the way that the Gentile, their Gentile host, lived, and so they had to eat nothing but vegetables, pauls, as it was called over there, for 10 days. But the Gentiles ate anything and still do.

If you ever go to Thailand, you find that out. They eat everything.

It's amazing that there's even life over there in any part of Thailand because they eat everything. Bats, crickets, you name it, you know, they eat it. Bird's nest.

You know, who does that? I mean, who experiments with that?

If somebody was telling me about this coffee, I believe it was over in India, this special coffee, very expensive coffee.

Apparently, you know, monkeys actually have to eat this bean, this coffee bean.

And it comes out, of course, at the other end. And this makes this expensive coffee.

What was the first man that, by the way, ever decided that he was going to try this coffee?

It's like the first person that ever ate an oyster, you know.

Somebody's got to say, you know, who wants to eat something that tastes, that looks like, well, I don't even know to describe it, what it looks like, but people do.

If you can, you go to Thailand, you find out to eat anything.

In fact, they eat this durian fruit that is ungodly.

You go into a hotel that says, no durian fruit. You can't bring it in the hotel!

It smells so bad. So anyway, some people have this strange addiction to the bizarre. But here, these Gentile outsiders are trying to convince members who were Gentiles coming into the church to give up on these old Jewish traditions, the Jewish Holy Days and the meats and so forth and the drink, and in favor of their own practices, of course, which is a lot of what people face today, coming to the church of God today, don't they? When you come into the church, what do people want to try to convince you you ought to do? Oh, you shouldn't do that. That's Jewish.

You should come over here to keep Sunday. No, you should keep Christmas.

You should do all of these other things. See, they were facing the same thing. We have an example here of how we ought to think.

The relatives and friends, by the way, don't want you to be different.

Besides, some might think you might just be right.

And if you're right, that makes them wrong, doesn't it? And where does that leave them?

Misery loves company, as the saying goes.

And so, really, rather than condemning, brethren, the Sabbath, the Holy Days, or the other things, it is upholding those things. And if you read verse 15 and 17 correctly, basically it's saying that you should let the church judge you. You should let the church, in other words, teach you. The word, in fact, judge means call in the question.

The church sees you doing something wrong, and it calls you into question, then you listen to the church. Because let's notice here, as you read verse 17, and talking about the things mentioned in verse 16, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Now, that reads quite differently than the King James, if you have a King James.

But in the King James, it says, but the body of Christ, the body of Christ. You don't let the world judge you or call you into question. You let the church do it. If the church sees you're doing something that you shouldn't do, the church will let you know. You know, you're going to hear from a message, or you're going to be, you know, hopefully nobody has to come and talk to you. But you know, that is what it means, and that's what it's upholding God's laws and God's way of life.

You know, again, people have this idea that somehow, you know, these things are Jewish, strictly Jewish. But you know, that's not what the Bible says. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

You know, God invited Israel and the Jews to participate in his festivals.

He didn't call them Jewish festivals or Israel's festivals, but his festival. In fact, he specifically says in Leviticus, my festivals.

And so, contrary to what a lot of people have in mind and thought about that. Another thing, brethren, I should mention, I mentioned that, you know, the Holy Days were not a part, you know, of the, you know, the Old Covenant that was made, in the sense of, you know, having been bound upon the children of Israel, you know, when the covenant was made with them. In fact, God commanded the Holy Days before they ever got, you know, out to Mount Sinai.

When they were in Egypt, he commanded the Holy Days. In fact, in order to escape death, what did they observe? They had to keep the Passover. And where were they? They were in Egypt.

And also, God not only instructed them about the Passover, but he instructed them about the days of Unleavened Bread before they ever got out to Sinai and over the Red Sea.

And so, the Passover and Unleavened Bread were observed before the Old Covenant was made, and before the Law of Moses, you know, was given. They were yet in Egypt. The Sabbath, by the way, the Sabbath was created when before God. In fact, you know, right after God created man, He created the Sabbath. Over in Genesis 2, you know, read over there in chapter 2, verses 1 through 2. I won't go there for that. But God created the Sabbath day as a memorial of His creation to remind us that He's a Creator. But God is a Creator. And, you know, we can be reminded of that, of how great of a Creator God is. And, in fact, it says the creation is clearly seen by, in fact, the invisible greatness and power of God is clear as seen by the physical creation. You could come to see God, in other words, just by the physical creation, which God brought into being. And which, in fact, many, many scientists are beginning to realize and see that God's creation is much more complex than they realized ever thought or dreamed.

You know, it's one thing back, what, in the early 1800s or even before that. But man has this, had this sort of a simplistic idea about life, you know, that, in fact, flies could be basically spontaneously generated and all that. Man has sort of idealistic, simplistic ideas about how God's creation worked. And over a period of time, He's come to look deeply into God's creation, so much so that any man or woman who is a, who looks at it, has to conclude there had to be some sort of designer. There had to be a Creator that did that. And brethren, every week on the Sabbath, we have a memorial of that great Creator. Over in Exodus 31, Exodus 31, let's go over here, Exodus 31, and Exodus 31, down in verse 13, here God, you know, was talking to Moses and He said, speak to the children of Israel, saying, Surely, my Sabbath you shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations. And why? Why are you to keep these Sabbaths, by the way, that you may know that I am the Eternal that sanctifies you? So, in essence, what God is saying, you keep these Sabbaths, these holy days, these annual Sabbaths, as they're called, so you will know me.

So you will know me. And you shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death, but whoever does not, does any work in it, that person shall be cut off among his people. And notice in verse 16, therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. A perpetual covenant. In other words, it would be a forever thing that they were to do this. Well, of course, people say, well, that's just for Israel.

That's just for Israel. Well, brother and I beg to differ. Not just for Israel.

It's for all of mankind. When God gave the Sabbath at the very beginning, did he give it just for Israel? Well, Israel didn't even exist.

And when Jesus Christ said he was the Lord of the Sabbath and the Sabbath was made for man, he didn't say the Sabbath was made for the Jew. He said the Sabbath was made for man.

And so, brethren, the Sabbath is a perpetual covenant that God has made with his people.

It's a covenant between him and his people. It's like a sign. If you ever want to, for instance, find a doctor, you look for a sign, don't you?

If you don't have a way of communicating otherwise, you drive along and you say, oh, there's a doctor. You need to find a barber. It's got a sign out, right?

Want to find God's people? That's one of the signs you look for.

One of the signs is they keep the Sabbath. Another sign is they keep the Holy Days.

It is a covenant sign between him and his people.

And the one who gave, by the way, the Sabbath that the Creator began with and made it for mankind was none other than the one who became Jesus Christ. I'm not going to go to 1 Corinthians 10 in verse 4, but it talks about how this rock that was there dealing with the children of Israel was Jesus Christ. It was Jesus Christ.

And you know, you can go through Leviticus, by the way. Let's go to Leviticus 23. We haven't gone over there for quite a while. But verse 1 over here, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, The Feast of the Jews, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are the Jewish Feasts. No, it doesn't say that, does it? Now, we always emphasize it that way, brethren, because we all need to be reminded that these are not Jewish Feasts, they're not Rubenite Feasts, they're not, you know, Zebulans Feasts, they're not the Nasite Feasts, they're God's Feasts. They're not Gentile Feasts, or the nations of other nations. You know, that they're God's Feasts. My Feasts, he specifically says. Down in verse 3, the first Feast he mentions is the Sabbath here.

And we come to verse 14 down here. Here he's talking about, by the way, the Feast of First Fruits here. He says, you shall eat neither bread nor perch grain or fresh grain until the same day that you shall bring an offering to your God, and it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations and all your dwellings. And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day you brought the sheath of the wave offering, seven Sabbath shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath, then you shall offer a new grain offering to the eternal. And so this this day is the day we're going to observe next Sunday, called Pentecost, or the Feast of First Fruits. But you notice here, again, it says, it is forever throughout your generations, throughout your dwellings, wherever you dwell, you are to observe these holy days. Down in verse 21, here, and speaking further down here, it says in verse 21, you shall proclaim on the same day that is a holy convocation to you, and you shall do no customary work on it. It shall be a statute for all in all your dwellings throughout your generations. And so all through here, brethren, you know, with Pentecost, with Passover, Unleavened Bread, with, you know, others of the holy days, God says it's forever. And you know, I remember reading those things when I, back in 1967, around there, first time I ever read them, and they just jumped off the page to me.

And after I learned about the Sabbath, and I saw the word forever, and I wish I'd never seen it back then. Now I'm glad I did, but I saw the word forever.

Once I learned the Sabbath, I realized, hey, there's more to it than I realized before, not just the Sabbath. That man are ignoring, but it's also the holy day, so I began to do that.

So God commanded it forever. Why? Because brethren, the holy days have eternal significance.

They will always have significance, like the Passover always has a significance to us.

I don't care if you're baptized now or not. It has a significance.

It's something we look back on, you know, in terms of our conversion and our calling.

But we look forward to, as well.

You know, why, brethren, are the holy days so important? Because, brethren, God's holy days keep us in a personal relationship with God, a true personal relationship with God.

When we keep the holy days in the Sabbath, we're really involved with God on His level, in His way.

And what it does, it reminds us, when we observe the Sabbath and the holy days, brethren, God's great plan of redemption for all of mankind. You can't forget it. Not just about you and me, brethren, it's about all of us. It's all mankind.

The holy days picture great epics, brethren, in the plan of God's spiritual creation.

The first three holy days are festivals, brethren. What do they focus in on?

Not exclusively, of course, but one thing that the first three holy days focus in on, the first three festivals focus in on, is the calling of God's people today, now.

Again, it's not just exclusive to us, but the last seven or the last four, what do they focus in on? Those last four holy days, the last four festivals, they focus in on, brethren, the redemption of the rest of mankind. So that's how those days look forward to the future.

And we haven't completely fulfilled, by the way, the first three yet, because Pentecost has not been completely fulfilled yet. We've been called, brethren, but we've not been totally sealed up, as it were, as the firstfruits will be born into God's family yet. You know, I don't think anybody here has been born again yet, you know, in the sense of spiritually being born into the family of God, because if you did, you would be like Christ, because you would see him as he really is.

But the whole story, brethren, of the holy days and the Sabbath itself are spiritual regeneration, that is pictured through the holy days. And that story is reenacted by us every year. We go through it every year, and it really embeds it in our minds if we really are observing it correctly.

And the reason is, is so we will never forget what God is doing upon the earth.

Let me tell you this, brethren. Anyone who profanes the Sabbath loses knowledge of the true God, and they go into idolatry. Just plain and simple as that.

I don't care if they believe in Christ, and they will claim up one side and down the other that they do. When people stop keeping the Sabbath, and they cease keeping the holy days, they lose knowledge, a knowledge of God. And this is what professing Christianity, brethren, have been doing. And they lack understanding of what man is. They don't understand what man is. I think man has a soul. They don't know what a soul is, by the way. They don't realize we are souls.

Some of us may be soul brothers, but we are souls. But man doesn't know what, again, a soul is.

He doesn't know what the spirit of man is. He doesn't know the purpose of life. He doesn't know why man was created, why Adam and Eve were brought into existence. He doesn't know what, in fact, he can read it in the Bible. He doesn't even know what born-again means. Amazing, isn't it?

It's all in the Bible. People, again, have it on their laps, and a lot of them are reading it and going over. And they also lack one of the most powerful ingredients that is known, in fact, to humankind. One of the rarest ingredients, they lack the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

And therefore, they cannot know. Man was cut off from that free of life, and only was that free opened up, brethren, in a big way, in 31 A.D.

So they do not know, in fact, many things. They don't know where the Kingdom of God's going to be. They think when you die, you go off to heaven. You float on a cloud. You know what? I think I'd rather stand in mud and drink coffee. You know, then to float on a cloud and strum on a harp for eternity. Now, I'm sure maybe floating on a cloud and strumming a harp would be fun for about, oh, maybe, you know, an hour or so. But I'm not sure I'd want to do that for eternity.

You get a long eternity. I think I would ask, could I have a guitar or a tuba?

You know, after about a million years, you might be used to learn how to do those things. You know, so mankind does not know these things. Mankind does not understand that we, those were saints are going to be kings of priests in the world tomorrow.

They know about the marriage of Christ, but they don't have any clues to what it means.

It's amazing. I always find it interesting when you go to a funeral and you have somebody who's not of the church of God, how, you know, they can say that old brother so-and-so's off to heaven, and then they preach about the resurrection.

It always confuses me. Well, wait a minute now. Is he up there or is he down here? Where is he?

Where exactly is brother so-and-so?

Well, I believe he's there in the grave waiting for the times of resurrection.

And I know you do too. But then there's no record that Christ or the apostles ever observed any of the holidays, you know, of the day. No record whatsoever in the Scriptures. You can't search it from cover to cover. And by the way, they were around. I mean, Christmas was around in the days of Christ, but he didn't observe it. Little did he know. No, I'm sure Christ knew.

But little probably did the apostles know that these pagan customs would be revamped and, you know, and they would pass them off as being Christian. But they didn't observe any semblance of those things. On the other hand, there are many scriptures, brethren, that show that Christ kept the Holy Days. I'm not going to go through them, but you know, you've read them. You know, he kept the Passover. He observed. We know the others of the Holy Days. Over in John 7, we see him keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. And he risked his life to go up to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And we know that Jesus Christ kept the Sabbath.

Luke 4, 16 says it was his custom to enter into the synagogue on the Sabbath.

And so, brethren, he was doing these things. And when Jesus Christ told his disciples, he said, I want you to wait in Jerusalem until power come from on high, as he put it, that God was going to send this power that he spoke about in John 14 about the comforter of the Holy Spirit. They waited around in Jerusalem. And you know, they didn't hang around, by the way, down at Peter's house. Where were they? They were at the temple on Pentecost.

They were there. They were observing Pentecost.

And we know that's when, of course, all the miracles begin to happen.

And, of course, we see in Acts 12 over there, talking about the Passover as well.

Often, this translated Easter, by the way. We look at other scriptures that talk about how Paul hurried to get to Jerusalem to keep Pentecost. We see that all through the book of Acts. And also in Corinthians, by the way. He was telling the Corinthians, I got, by all means, the, you know, down there in Jerusalem for Pentecost.

And so he was keeping the days and observing the days. Now, some people actually, I will say this, some people have the idea that when Acts mentions about Pentecost and Passover and unleavened bread, as it does, I believe it's in Acts 20, I believe, in which you're not unleavened bread. That Luke is just mentioning this. It's like you and I, if we were to say that it was Christmastime. Now, that's foolishness, because if this was written, Scripture was written down, you know, for us. You know, why would you only mention anything about these pagan holidays? You know, that, you know, to them, which would have been anathema, if they took the posture that many professing Christians take today, why would you even give light to them? Why would you mention them? Well, brethren, they were not, they were observing the holy days, that's why. And they were following themselves, the disciples were following the footsteps of Jesus Christ, who kept the holy days. And in fact, the Bible, brethren, tells us that we should walk even as Jesus Christ walked. And if Christ kept the Sabbath, we should keep the Sabbath. If Christ kept the holy days, we should keep the holy days. We see that in 1 John 2 verse 6. It says, we are to walk just as He walked. And in 1 Peter 2 and verse 21, it says that we should follow in His steps, following His footsteps, and that's Peter following in his example, the example that he set for us as God's people. Let's go over to Zechariah chapter 14. Zechariah 14.

In Zechariah chapter 14 here, we see again very, very clearly a time that has a, you know, at the beginning, apparently, of the millennium, the thousand year reign of Christ. This is, by the way, after Jesus Christ has come back, in fact, the whole theme of chapter 14 is when Christ is set up as a king over the entire earth as the king of kings and the lord of lords. But in verse 16, Zechariah 14, it says, it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations, which came against Jerusalem, shall go up from year to year to worship the king, of course, none other than Jesus Christ, the lord of hosts, and to keep those old Jewish holy days, the Feast of Tabernacles. Yes, we are going to observe them in the millennium.

It's kind of hard to get around those nations, those words, talking about how all nations are going to observe the holy days. And it specifically mentions Egypt, because in Egypt, of course, the holy days would be Jewish to them. They're going to be keeping the holy days.

They're going to learn all the things that the Jews know. Time is going to come when people are going to latch, hold on a Jewish ankles, and say, show us your God's way. Show us the way.

Because, you know, the one thing the Jews at least do have is a lot of them, of course, some of them have accepted some wrong ideas. But if they had the basic understanding of the Sabbath and the holy days, and many of them don't anymore, but those that do, and more do than probably we realize, but the one thing they don't have is an understanding of who Christ is.

When they know that, I think all those other things will fall into place.

And so they will be certainly prime converts, won't they, in the time ahead, in the millennium, especially. You know, we won't have to convince them about Sabbaths. We won't have to convince them about when days begin. We'll have to convince them of any of these things.

So, brethren, God has given us these great truths ahead of the rest of mankind.

And we have a chance to benefit from the blessings which come from keeping God's way of life.

You know, the Bible says, to whom much is given, much is required.

And, brethren, we simply must never lose these precious truths because they are keys that unlock understanding to us of our great God, to know who God is, and what His plan is for all of humankind. Let's go to Revelation 22. Revelation 22 over here.

A couple verses here that I think are really very important for us, brethren.

Remember, again, this is the end of the book, brethren.

Verse 13 here, it says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But the outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and adulterers and whoever loves and practices a lie.

And so, in order to have right, brethren, you know, to the tree of life that will give us opportunity for eternal life, we must obey God. We must keep His commandments, brethren, not only in the letter, but the spirit of the law.

And so, brethren, let's be reminded of the importance of the Holy Days and the Sabbath that God has given to us. Let's be reminded about, brethren, how important the Pentecost is that helps to illuminate for us the light of God's truth and shine a light, brethren, so that we can understand what God's plan, you know, of regeneration for all mankind is for the future.