Why did Yeshua receive that name from even before His deception? Because He is the Savior who will save His people from their sins. (Mt 1:21)
The Fall “holidays” in Israel are nearing, and the whole country is preparing for them in one way or another. The rainy season is also coming with them. Actually, only Sukkot is a festive time of rejoicing among the three set times: Memorial of [Trumpet] Blasts; the Day of Atonements; and, the Feast of Booths/Tabernacles. The first two are described in the Torah as being for one day each, while Sukkot goes into the eighth day. These three mo’edim are in the seventh month in the lunar/solar calendar year given by YHVH God to Israel. God is bringing to completion His perfect plan of redemption His people and for His creation. It’s interesting to me that the Jubilee cycles are counted from Yom haKippurim/the Day of Atonements, which maybe helps understand spiritually why this seventh month is recognized as also being the beginning of the year in Judaism: God is finishing the old in order to begin a new thing. (Lev 25:8-12)
The Scriptures are able to make the simple wise. (Ps 19:7) YHVH’s testimony is faithful and true, and tells us, as Yeshua said, about God’s Son, the Messiah and King of Israel and the Jews. (Ps 40:6-8; Heb 10:5-7; 1Jn 5:9-13; Pr 30:4) YHVH God has given to Israel – and through them to the Gentiles – a pattern of His plan of redemption in the holidays/appointed times which He commanded Israel to keep and observe “forever”.
If we can understand that the appointed times are also prophetic steps along the path of salvation and righteousness, they are a great tool to use in evangelism to help others see that there is a plan of God, and that Yeshua/Jesus fulfills it for the benefit of His people. We are all “simple” compared to YHVH, who alone is wise, knowing and understanding all things. But, He gives us wisdom to know and understand Him, that we have truth to set us free, and to share with others. It is not the wisdom of this world, nor the wisdom which comes from below.
So, I want to go through these appointed times briefly, praying for giving you some understanding, both to praise the Lord, and also to understand the times we live in, and to have something to explain to others when they ask, “How can we know what God is doing”?
I hope that for some of you this will reinforce and remind you of the faithfulness and goodness of God to keep His word until all is fulfilled. (Lev 23; 1Cor 10:1-11)
YHVH calls these appointed times HIS appointed times; HIS days and dates; HIS times for remembering and taking to heart and for celebrating HIM. (Lev 23:1-2) In the Book of Amos, He says that He hates His people’s feast days, for they have made them their own after their own liking, rather than keeping them with with a way of life acceptable to HIM. (Amos 5:21-24; Gen 18:17-19) Believers in Yeshua/Jesus can judge ourselves as to whether we haven’t done the same thing with the special times of remembering the birth and the resurrection of Jesus/Yeshua. Is HE the focus, or have we put Him outside, if not erased Him entirely from the celebrations?
YHVH’s Passover:
God had told Abraham that his descendants would be slaves in a foreign land, but that YHVH would bring them out of that bondage and land after 400 years, and bring them back into the land that God had promised to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob and his descendants forever. (Gen 15:7-21) This God began to do on the appointed night of the Passover in Egypt. God delivered them by grace – His covenant faithfulness – from their enemies who enslaved them. He did not mention their sins at that time. All He demanded was that they believed and obeyed on what God told Moses to tell them to do in order to be delivered from the angel of death: each family slaughter a male lamb without blemish, sprinkle its blood around the doors to their homes; and stay inside until God said so.
Moses led them across the Reed Sea after YHVH had parted the waters for them to cross over to safety from the pursuing enemies led by Pharaoh, who all died in the returning waters under YHVH’s sovereign control and power.
Passing through the waters was like the death and baptism of the people; and coming out safely on the other side was like their resurrection. Both these metaphors are remembered on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and on the Day of First Fruits of the barley harvest, the day after the Sabbath during the seven days of these first three annual holy-days. (1Cor 10:1-4)
Yeshua came in the flesh as an Israeli Jew, and He fulfilled the significance of each of these first three celebrations remembered each Spring/Aviv: He died as the Lamb of God for our redemption and deliverance; He was buried, putting to death and removing all of our past life under the rule of a cruel king; whether that king is a Pharaoh, or whether it is sin; He rose from the dead – the first fruits of the resurrection — unto a new life in YHVH God’s Kingdom, a kingdom of freedom and righteousness and love! (1Cor 15:20)
Following this exodus from out of Egypt, God led the Israelis through Moses and Aaron to Mt Sinai, arriving there in the third month. (Ex 19:1-6) Fifty days/seven weeks from the beginning of the counting of the sheaves of the barley harvest, which begins on the day after the 7th -day Sabbath during the week of the Passover and Unleavened bread, God instructed Israel to celebrate the wheat harvest. just before the Summer, at Shavuot/Pentecost, also on the first day of the week/the day after the 7th -day Sabbath. (He said nothing about celebrating the giving of the Torah on that day.)
YHVH God has been faithful in giving the harvests for feeding His people and family since redeeming them/us for Himself, based upon His faithfulness to the covenants which He has cut/made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with His people at Sinai. We appreciate His faithfulness much more when we are faithful to Him and in lovingly obeying Him with faith in His teachings, His statutes, His precepts, His testimonies, His judgments. All this makes the simple wise! When His people are lacking faith and are disobedient, God will chasten, even punish, them by not giving the rains as needed for the harvests to be full and fruitful. (Joel 1) He is a Father who knows how to discipline His children in love, that we may partake of His holiness. (Pr 3:9-18; Heb 12:3-12)
Because of their disobedience and unfaithfulness to Him and to His covenants, God sent His people into exile out of the land of promise, and scattered them as seed among the Gentiles, still being His witnesses of the knowledge of the true God and Savior, and especially through the Word of God written in the Bible, nearly all of it by Israelis. He is the God not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, whom He will also judge regarding their eternal destiny. (Is 43:1-15; Rom 3:1-4; 9:1-5; Rom 16:25-27)
During these last 2000 years/two days of prophetic history the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God, the way of salvation through repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ/Yeshua the Messiah is being proclaimed to Jews and to Gentiles everywhere. (Mt 28:18-20; Acts 20:21; Rom 10:9-15; 1Cor 15:1-8) This is the mystery of the Church which has been revealed only since especially the Apostle Paul was given to understand it by the wisdom given him by the Lord. (2Pt 3:14-18; Gal 1:10-12; Eph 3:1-13)
This brings us to the Fall, and to the end-times of the last days: the harvest is past, the Summer is ended, and Israel is still not saved. (Jer 8:19-20) This is the people’s cry and anxiety, yet YHVH their God is still asking them why are they still provoking Him to anger with their unfaithfulness and idolatry?! There is no fruit for God. (Is 5:1-7; Mk 11:12-14, 20-24) From this we can understand that the Israeli calendar year is prophetic through history in its outlook. In the tender mercies and covenant loyalty of God to His chosen treasured people, the three Fall appointed times look ahead to the determined end of their waywardness, and to His jealous zeal to take away their sinful hearts and collective amnesia, and they will be His holy people among whom He will dwell forever, and He will be their God! (Dan 9:22-27) YHVH, God of Israel, will have His fruit in the final harvest, for He has spoken life to the barren tree! (Rom 11:25-36)
As I mentioned earlier, at the Passover nothing was mentioned about the sins of the people, only that each one needed to believe and obey what God had said through Moses about their redemption and deliverance that night in Egypt. But now, after the heat and dryness of a long Summer, and exile among people “who do not know Joseph” despite all the good that he/they have done wherever they have been, God begins in earnest to call His people physically back to their homeland, and spiritually back to Himself.
Yeshua/Jesus fulfilled historically in the past the Passover and the First Fruits/Resurrection; in that He returned to Heaven to sit in glory at the Father’s right hand, the Holy Spirit is given to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God; and we become the first fruits of the final ingathering of the final harvest of all who believe in Him for salvation at His return.
The three Fall set times are still to be fulfilled for the people of YHVH God. All that is written in the Law and the Prophets will be fulfilled before these heavens and Earth pass away. (Mt 5:17-18) God’s plan through Israel to bless the whole world gives significance to these appointed times also for the Gentiles, whom YHVH has brought into His plan through the gospel. (Rom 11:13-15)
Day of Memorial of [Trumpet] Blasts:
This annual appointed time occurs on the first day of the seventh month, at the covered New Moon. The blasts of the shofars wake us up and remind us of YHVH’s covenants with Israel, and of God’s faithfulness and grace to save His holy and sanctified people, so that He can dwell among them forever as their God. They are a voice calling out to His people to return with all their hearts to Him, acknowledging that they/we have sinned against Him and His commandments. There is still no righteousness and peace for the chosen people or in the promised land. At the Passover there was not yet the Law; it was all of grace. When God gave His people the Law at Mt Sinai, they became conscious of God’s righteousness and of their sinfulness.
The shofars prepare us to prepare ourselves to cry out with our voices in the affliction of our souls for mercy and forgiveness from our God, not because we deserve it, but for the sake of His holy Name which He has placed upon us as His treasured people. (Num 6:22-27) On the Day of YHVH, God will judge and separate between those who accept His sacrifice for forgiveness of their own sins, and between those who do not. Whose names are written in
the Book of Life? (Lev 23:26-32; Zec 12:10-14; Rev 3:5-6; Jer 31:31-37; Heb 8:6-13) For us who have already repented and believed, we are already sealed and assured by the Holy Spirit. (Eph 1:13-14)
This Judgment Day is the Day of Atonements, the holiest and most fearful day of the year.
Yeshua/Jesus will fight against His enemies, and against the enemies of His covenanted people, so that His Kingdom on Earth will be one of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. The Jewish people, and all others during the coming 1000-year Kingdom of Messiah, will be joyfully free, with hope fulfilled, to serve and worship the true God and King in holiness, in their own land, and without any fear. (Lk 1:67-75) The holy city Jerusalem will be the throne of YHVH’s appointed King of Israel, and of the Nations. (Ps 2)
This is the fulfillment of the Feast of Booths/Tabernacles, when all Israel – the full remnant from all the tribes — is saved and rejoicing in their land and in their God, remembering His providential goodness and wonders throughout our own lives, and the life of our people, to accomplish His redemption of the people whom He loves (Dt 7:6-11; Amos 3:1-8) — and who will dwell among them forever – a holy and righteous people, sanctified by the blood of the cross for the forgiveness of all their sins, transgressions, and iniquities. (Rom 11:25-27; Dan 9:24-27) Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
As I said at the beginning, believing what God says in His Word can make the simple wise. He gives an understanding of Him and of His ways even as He gave it to the Apostle Paul, or to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection. With this we have an effective tool for evangelism to those who realize that the plans and ways of man do not, and cannot, bring true peace forever, nor eternal life. Only YHVH God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — the Sovereign Creator of the heavens and the Earth and the seas, and all that is in them…only He can give life and worth and significance, with living hope, in the love and wisdom that He is. (Pr 8) When this hope is full-filled, there is no longer any need for it; but love is forever.