THE FALL FEASTS

THE FALL FEASTS

                I have been asked by the pastor of our Pentecostal Church of God here in Clinton Tennessee to conduct a series of Wednesday night teachings on the feast days of Israel. Some of our friends at Rehoboth (Our beloved Messianic congregation back in Vancouver) may laugh. Bonnie’s and my involvement there was centered around running the kitchen (Me scrubbing pots and pans) and sewing and quilting projects to be sent to Israel to Holocaust survivors and Jewish immigrants returning home from distant lands with nothing but the tattered clothes on their backs.       

                So while attending Rehoboth, we experienced the feast days first hand, but am I qualified to teach them? Absolutely not and yet I have been given an opportunity to share these wonderful feasts which are so pregnant with spiritual and prophetic meaning. God help me.

                Having experienced them first hand I must confess that I am much more interested in the underlying spiritual and prophetic meaning than I am in the actual traditions. Each feast has its own kind of foods, its own level of solemnity or celebration, its own tradition of either fasting or feasting as the situation demands. Most of the feasts are joyous occasions and even the solemn ones are made happy because the true Lamb of God has come and His coming has changed everything.

                One of the things that the Feasts tell us is that God wants people to do things together. All of the feasts represent a gathering of all people into one body in Christ and even though the Jews didn’t know it at first, that family would stretch out its arms to embrace the Gentile world as well. In other words, the barrier of the dividing wall once erected in the temple court is broken down by Christ as His sacrifice makes both groups (Jews and Gentiles) into one new man in Christ.  Paul explains this in Ephesians 2:11-16 saying:

                “Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision” which is performed in the flesh by human hands- remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”

                This could be a bit confusing, unless we remember that everything that we know spiritually was first presented in physical form by the Old Covenant. For instance, in the temple there was a court for the Gentiles and an actual wall (called the Soreq) with warning signs posted every few feet telling Gentiles that they could come no closer.  So Paul is telling us that this wall of separation is broken down by Christ on His cross so that we, both Jews and Gentiles are now one family in Christ.

                In Romans chapter 11 Paul goes on to further explain how that we (the Gentiles) were grafted into the Jewish Olive tree to share in the rich roots of our faith as expressed in the Old Testament. I have discussed this lately in other places that the Old Covenant serves as the self-correcting DNA of the Gospel by which we can determine if we are still preaching the Gospel once delivered to the saints or if we have drifted off course.

                Sadly today, the church as a whole is being divided between those who are moving back to the full Gospel and those who are departing from the fundamentals of the Gospel in order to find global unity with the religions of the world.

                I am one who likes to look at the big picture and as such I see God drawing His remnant people back into an awareness of the Feast Days and their correcting codes as we press in to know the full will of God. With false grace sweeping the Christian world, we desperately need to understand the difference between false grace and that which God intends grace to be.

                In other words, does grace allow us to go on sinning while it covers our sin, or is grace the power of God to overcome sin and to be transformed into the image of Christ?

                An honest reading of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation will tell us that obedience to God is essential. For instance, people will misread Ephesians 2:15 to serve their own purposes, but it doesn’t really say what some people make it out to say. It says that Jesus broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of Commandments contained in ordinances. They take this to mean that the Ten Commandments were abolished, but how does that make sense? Can we now stop loving God with all of our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves? Can we now steal and lie and cheat? No. Jesus therefore did not put an end to the Moral Law; He put an end to the Law contained in ordinances… the sacrificial system of animal sacrifices.  These are the ordinances which Jesus Christ fulfilled as the true Lamb of God.

                Yes, Jesus fulfilled the Ten Commandments too, but He then sent His holy Spirit into our hearts and wrote His Law on our hearts so that, as Romans 8:4 says, “The Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” This changes the way the Law is fulfilled for now it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory and it is by the inward power of Christ that we live and not by the outward control of the Law. (2 Cor. 3:6)

                This has always been God’s plan. Jesus did not come to turn us all into disobedient children. He came rather to write His will in our hearts so that we would move from being servants of God to sons and daughters of God who look like their Father. He is preparing a Bride for His Son.

                This is vitally important as we study the feasts of Israel, because we are not returning to legalism as some would think. We are rather studying the DNA of our faith to make sure that we are rightly dividing the Word of truth and not drifting off course.

                We need to understand that Satan has planted tares among the wheat. The two are growing together until the harvest, but we are now approaching the final harvest. There is a great shaking going on in the world that is separating the wheat from the tares. We see this great polarization taking place at every level from politics to church doctrine. Humanity is being ripped apart into two opposing camps.

                On a more personal note, the wheat is also being separated from its chaff.  We are being sifted and we need to make sure that we understand what God is doing. He is separating us from the world. He is pulling us out of Babylon. He is delivering us from Egypt. This is a twofold process, for He must not only get us out of Egypt, but He must get Egypt out of us.

                As Romans 8 tells us; we must put away the works of the flesh and live totally by His Spirit. And Paul makes it clear that it is those who are being led by the Spirit of God who are the sons of God. Rom. 8:14.

                So this involves more than having the right doctrines, keeping the right days, or observing the right feasts… this is talking about living by the very Spirit of Christ so that we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds. (Romans 12:2 and Titus 3:5) We are not being conformed to the world, but transformed into the image of Christ. (1John 3:2) He is the first fruits of a great harvest in which He is bringing many sons and daughters to glory. (Heb. 2:10, Romans 6:5) And His intention is that we will be like Him when He comes. (Phil. 3:21)

                Salvation is the great romance of the ages, for just as God took Eve from Adam’s side and formed her into a bride for Adam, so He has taken us from Jesus’ side and He is forming us into a Bride for His Son and just as Eve became spirit of Adam’s spirit and flesh of his flesh, so we are becoming spirit of His Spirit and flesh of His flesh. We are preparing as a Bride adorned for her Husband without spot or wrinkle and for this cause He has poured out His very Spirit into our hearts by which we cry out “Abba Father.”

                So even as I contemplate a study of the feast days I pray for an anointing of the Holy Spirit upon my heart and mind so that I might bring forth something from the heart of God… a message from Yeshua to His Bride.