Yom Kippur part Two

YOM KIPPUR (PART 2)

                There are many varying degrees of thought on what we should do about the Feasts, the appointed times of the Lord. Should we observe them as Israel did, or should we treat them as types and shadows that point to spiritual realities?

                Many of my Messianic friends believe that these feasts must be observed as “Dress Rehearsals” that prepare us for the actual events they represent. I personally believe that they are types and shadows… but that doesn’t lessen their importance, for if they are types and shadows then we as Christians must be experiencing the things they represent in our hearts and lives.

                One could say that the entire Law was made up of types and shadows in which the substance belongs to Christ. And indeed that is what Paul says in Colossians 2:16, 17: “Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day; things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”  So Yeshua is everything and yet we cannot and dare not ignore what it is that He desires to accomplish in and through our lives, or what it takes to be a part of His Body.

                A study of the Feasts of Israel will benefit us greatly in coming to understand what God is working out in our lives. It is for lack of understanding these things that false grace has invaded the church making shallow our salvation and causing Christians to become careless       and casual about our Christian walk.

                Many Christians today think that a trip to the altar and a quick prayer is good for a lifetime of salvation whether we honor the covenant we made with God or not. We can accept His sacrifice for us and then just go on living for ourselves and for the world just as we did before we were “saved.” But this is not the Gospel of our Salvation and it is certainly not the Gospel of the Kingdom… for we have died to this present kingdom and we have been born into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. As such we no longer live for ourselves for we have been bought with a price. Therefore everything we do from now on we do for the glory of God. We no longer live to please ourselves, but to please the Lord. We no longer live by the flesh, but by His Spirit and we don’t do our own thing, but we live by every word that proceeds from the Mouth of God.  Even better yet, we learn to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in us and we do only those things we see the father doing and say only those things we hear the Father saying. WE can live every moment of our lives by divine appointment. We are completely new creatures in Christ.

                This is something that we must learn from the feast days if not any other way. Salvation takes us out of Egypt. It marches us through a watery death, thus putting Egypt beyond our reach. There is no turning back. Then it deposits us at the foot of Mt. Sinai where we learn God’s will for our lives. Then God builds a tabernacle so that He may dwell among us. The same is true in the New Covenant as well, except that we become the tabernacles in which God dwells by His Holy Spirit.

                So what was the occasion of the first Yom Kippur? What happened to Israel that they came into a time of great judgment? Why did they need to repent and wait anxiously to see if God would forgive their grievous sin?

                We read about it in Ex. 32 for the great sin of the people that day was that they turned from the God who had so recently  delivered them  from Egypt and miraculously marched them through the Red Sea on dry ground and drowned Pharaoh’s entire army. And now, in spite of all of this evidence, they begged Aaron to form a golden calf… an Egyptian idol to worship in place of the living God. And if ever there was a blasphemy to set a precedent on what blasphemy should be, Aaron set the idol up on a high stone and proclaimed that this was the god that had delivered them from Egypt. Can it get much worse than that?

                Moses was up on the mountain speaking face to face with God who was giving him instructions for worship, specifically the Sabbath Day as we read in Exodus 31 and now here in Exodus 32 we see this horrible thing taking place. God told Moses what they were doing and He said to Moses: “Go down at once, for your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.”

                Notice that God distances Himself from the people by saying to Moses: “The people that you delivered from Egypt.” It’s like proud parents of a brand new baby boy. The father will say, “That’s my boy” until the child has a messy diaper and then he will say, “Honey, your son needs his diaper changed.”

                But this was infinitely worse. Aaron had actually given credit for their deliverance to this dumb idol which he had made with his own hands. And in effect, God said to Moses, “Step aside and let me destroy this stubborn group and I will make a new nation from your seed.” Ex. 32:10

                “Then Moses entreated the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?”

                So Moses put the ball back in God’s court giving credit where credit was due. And then he sought to defend God’s name saying: “What will the Egyptians think if you bring the people out and then destroy them? And he goes on to review before the Lord His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And then it says that the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

                In verse 32, 33 Moses even offered His own life and his own eternal destiny. He said in essence that if the Lord would not forgive their sins, then God must strike Moses’ name from the books as well.

                Friends, there is a time of judgment coming for nations and individuals in which our Lord Jesus Christ will stand in the gap to defend all who have come out of Egypt by the blood of the Lamb. This is what the cross is all about, for on it Jesus paid for the sins of humanity so that all who receive His blood over their lives may be delivered from Egypt as well. This is the real Day of Atonement of which Yom Kippur is a symbol.

                Jesus later said to His disciples, “Behold I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall injure you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.” Luke 10:19, 20

                Now, we must know that God didn’t really intend to destroy Israel, but He needed a man to stand in the gap for Israel as a type. This is why some 1500 years later God sent His own Son to stand as a Man for humanity and being also God He was able to save to the uttermost those who would come to Him. Of these things Moses and Israel formed the types and shadows, the foundations upon which the New Covenant stands.

                This is why we can’t come to salvation with a Bible in one hand and a golden calf in the other. Salvation is a complete package. It is death to the world and death to self so that we may become a tabernacle in which Christ dwells. Our life is not our own anymore. We have been bought with a price. Our body has become a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are not our own. Therefore we live to glorify God in this body.” 1 Cor. 6:19, 20

                So Moses came down the mountain on Yom Kippur and declared that the people had been forgiven and announced that God wanted them to build Him a sanctuary that He might dwell among them. So the people, grateful to be alive and forgiven, brought abundant materials of all kinds to contribute to the building of the sanctuary and on the very Day of the Feast of Tabernacles they began construction on the sanctuary in which God would come to dwell among His people.

                On the Day of Atonement the High Priest stripped off all of his royal High priestly attire and entered the Most Holy Place wearing only white linen and the people also came wearing white linen to the ceremony. So when you see things in the book of Revelation like the Ark of the Covenant appearing in heaven, (Rev. 11:19) this is speaking of Yom Kippur, for that was the only day of the year that the Ark of the Covenant was seen by the High Priest. And when we see Jesus appearing with a vesture dipped in blood; (Revelation 19:14) this is Yom Kippur and His saints appear with Him also dressed in white linen which is the righteous acts of the saints. (Rev 19:8, 14) This too is Yom Kippur talk. And when the angel takes his golden censor full of coals and tosses it to the earth, (Rev. 8:5) this is a Yom Kippur event. And so it is that the book of Revelation can only be rightly understood in light of the Feast days for the language of the book determines which  fall feast is being fulfilled, whether the Feast of Trumpets or the judgments of Yom Kippur.

                The Talmud relates four ominous events that took place forty years before the Temple’s destruction- and amazingly about the time of the death of Yeshua.

1.       The Lot for the Lord’s goat would come up in the priest’s left hand instead of his right hand.

2.       The scarlet thread stopped turning white.

3.       The westernmost light on the Temple menorah wouldn’t stay lit.

4.       And the Temple doors would open by themselves.

                Josephus records in his book “Wars of the Jews" that the Temple door was made of brass and was shut with difficulty by 25 men.

                Yom Kippur is the day of vengeance on God’s adversaries and God Himself is the blood avenger. On Yom Kippur everyone comes dressed in white linen and the high priest’s garments are spattered with the blood of the sacrifices. With this in mind let us read Revelation 19:2, 13-15:

                “For true are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand… And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treads the winepress of the fierceness of wrath of Almighty God.”  This again is Yom Kippur language and His judgments will take place. And thus His sanctuary will be cleansed.

                This very real and final Day of Atonement will take place during the Time of Jacob’s Trouble and it is tied to the wrath of God which will be poured out upon all who do not repent. All who do not have the blood of the Passover Lamb of God will be judged.

                Whether Christians who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb will be here to see this event no one can say for sure. We have been told in numerous places that we will be saved from the wrath to come, (1 Thess. 1:10) that we will be kept from the hour of testing. (Revelation 3:10) That we are not destined for wrath…. (1 Thess. 5:9) And Jesus even tells us to pray that we might be accounted worthy to escape all of these things. (Luke 21:36)

                This much we can know. When Jesus died on the cross, He took the judgment that we were destined to receive. He stood in our place. He took the blows. He paid the price so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. We were judged in Christ who became our substitute in death and then He went back to heaven to be our High Priest. As our High Priest on the Day of Atonement; He sprinkled His own blood on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant and then sat down at the Father’s right hand, where He ever makes intercession for us.

                And this is why many believe that we will not be here for the tribulation. Our judgment was meted out at the cross by the sinless Lamb of God. We do not come into judgment, but pass from death into life. Be that as it may, we know that there must first be a great shaking in which everything that can be shaken will be shaken so that what remains will be of God. We also know that there must be a time of final harvest when wheat and tares are separated and wheat is separated from its chaff. And the more we allow that process to take place in our lives now, the easier it will go for us then. And we also know that we will be here to see the great falling away which will accompany this great shaking and harvest and we will see the rise of the antichrist( 2 Thess. 2:3, 4) and I believe that we will also face the Mark of the Beast… a final test of our loyalty. So whether that comes before the tribulation or during the first half of it I cannot say. But we will be delivered from the wrath of God as it shows us in Revelation 14:14-20 by the two sickle harvests in which the righteous are reaped and then the wicked are reaped and thrown into the winepress of God’s Wrath.

                But this is why we must be cleansed by the Word and filled with the Holy Spirit and washed clean of our golden calves… crucified with Christ in order that He may live His life in us. Among other things Yom Kippur is all about the removing of the veil between us and Christ so that we may have access to Him and intimacy with Him as we prepare for the wedding to come. Selah