Feast

on This

Revelation for Life in the Last Days

(A Book in Two Parts)

BY

Susan Parsons Sumner

with Gerald R. Sumner

Introduction

יְהוֹשֻׁעַ

Yehoshua

And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Yehoshua.    --Luke 1:31

At a most blessed Feast of Tabernacles in the year 6 BCE, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. His name was Yehoshua in the Aramaic tongue, the language of His birth. Yehoshua is the name he heard with earthly ears. It is the official name declared by His foster father, Yosef ben Yacov at His circumcision, on the 8th and final day of the Feast. It was the name he responded to when His mother Miriam bat Heli called Him from play.

He was, and is, the Son of God—born of a virgin. Skeptics remain skeptical, but it is no matter. He Is Who He Is. And He is God, Incarnate.

He is Yehoshua. And His name, and the name of the Father will be examined later in this book. But in the meantime, lest the majority of readers be met with difficulty in visualizing their Savior with a name so unfamiliar (especially with the added challenge of being presented with some other unfamiliar facts and theses), this book will refer to Him by His more familiar Anglicized Greek name, Jesus.

This book is about Him.  And because it is about Him, it is also about you.

BOOK One

The Courses

Book I ~ Chapter One

~ The Postulate

I’ve never had writer’s block in my entire life. Neither have I ever been at a loss for words. That is, until I began to piece this book together.

It is a most intimidating thing—writing to Christians—because most Christian already know everything. That’s the approach of the Christian mainstream, anyway. Theology seems  pretty much set. Catholics follow the dictates of the papacy from the days of Constantine through an evolution of doctrines sanctioned by leaders in Rome. Protestants sprang out of that foundation, led by Martin Luther, and have since been adjusting and tweaking doctrine over the years to fit the times, cultures—even the canon of each generation.  Yes, even the canon has changed. Its books have been accepted, rejected, re-sanctioned, then abhorred, and now reexamined.  It is interesting to note that while Martin Luther is somewhat of a “hero” to Protestant believers, he took Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation out of the Bible. Another hero, King James, reinstated a number of books that are not included today—these apocryphal books, such as The Maccabees, were later omitted from the Protestant Bible altogether.

So through generations of time, people have not always had access to the same canon of Scripture.  The canon we now use is, of course, thought to be the “right one.” It is unthinkable to assume that God would allow us to have an incomplete Word. Yet many generations have done without some of the most powerful books in our Bible. And while God has surely seen to it that each has had opportunity to know Him personally, the Christian movement as a whole has been inconsistent in scope.

The world seems to have settled on the canon for now. For the past 100 years, basically the same Scripture has been read in churches, the same Gospels have been taught, and the same Epistles have been gleaned and picked of seemingly every possible pertinent, present-day application.  And to some, it seems tired. It seems to be just an old book, revered for its staying power, if nothing else. It seems laden with old ideas and old stories, numerous contradictions, too much violence, intolerance, and other politically incorrect ideas. Still, some use it as a handbook for how to be moral in a hedonistic world and what it means to be “set apart”—how to be “in the world, yet not of it,” and it seems less and less relevant to our present day. Songwriters sometimes make random use of it when trying to find the “hook” for the next Christian hit. Bibles manage to decorate coffee tables, get kicked around under pews, curl up in the heat of a car’s rear window, or slide around in a hotel drawer when guests are looking for instructions for internet connection.  And while some people actually read it with love, it is often pored over, analyzed, scrutinized, plucked and winnowed to get the grains of support for all kinds of arbitrary theories and ideas. It has been said that the Bible can be used to prove anything.  And sadly, in light of the way men have used it, that is true.

But the Bible is so much more powerful than we ever dreamed. It is not just a book. It is alive! Really.  It is a supernatural book.  It was written by at least 40 men who did not realize how very inspired they were. The prophetic essence of each book is encoded in the others in a way that is humanly impossible to do. These things are coming to light in our day, where they were hidden for millennia.

The Bible—especially the Old Testament—has endured through the ages, despite its abuse. It is still around, it is still influencing governments, and it is till the best-selling book of all time, although its use by individuals is relatively marginal. But today, even with controversies regarding translations, there is coming a renewed interest in Bible. The spirit of the Lord is drawing us back to the beginning—back to Jerusalem from Babylon, as it were—to rethink some of the arbitrary religious decisions of mere men and reclaim Truth. The Bible is an old, old book, written in very ancient times, and from a Hebraic perspective.  For these reasons, we need to go back in time, back to Jerusalem, with all available writings and histories to help give perspective. Previous generations could not know what we know—but God knew that the unfolding of time would present these opportunities in a day when it was most necessary. It is fast being revealed that this is the day.

A deeper look into the Word is available for the diligent seeker.  And this book is merely a gathering of some “new” information, interpretations and understandings, to give you a taste of what is now available to be known.  In order to do this correctly, we have to go back to the places where believers took some wrong turns.

Most people don’t care to look backward, or even sideways to see what we might have missed. It’s almost a doctrine in itself to be progressive: I’ve even preached myself on subjects like, “Remember Lot’s wife.” “Don’t look to the past.” “Forgetting those things which are behind, press on!”

But what if we’re on a wrong road? What if we’re progressing in terms of money and membership (the two do go hand in hand), but the Church is really kind of a powerless fellowship of well-intentioned folk who believe there is a God and a Jesus, and who practice a modicum of morality?  Do we just keep doing what we’re doing?

Think about a road trip. If you’re supposed to be on Interstate 390, but you see a road sign that says you’re on 77, you don’t just keep moving forward. You stop and check the map—and go back to where you made the mistake in navigation.

And this is where the difficulty lies regarding my book. This book postulates that the Church is off course, and that offends people. But it becomes obvious when we take a look back in time, before Luther, even before Constantine, and we find that men have erred by obscuring Truth by adding untruth.  In this book, we will see evidence of this. We’ll even take a look at our foundations in Judaism and see the errors the Pharisees manufactured—and how Jesus warned us all concerning man-made doctrines such as theirs. Their doctrines caused them to be spiritually blind. They felt they knew it all. Today, Christians feel they know it all—not every detail, but most Christian leaders feel they have a good grasp of how God’s plan works. It must surely sound self-righteous for me to say that most do not.  But there must be some who take the beating as pioneers in a revolution. No man knows the things of the Lord by his own wisdom, but these things are either revealed by the Spirit or subsequently imparted by the Spirit, person-to-person. These revelations and impartations are snowballing today. I am simply one of those who is using a God-given means (in this case, writing) to help spread the Good News!

So a book such as mine is not so new—there are many others with my message. It is a message to examine our Christianity, to realize what we do NOT know. It is a move of the Spirit that prompts the writing of this book; I am merely one whose pen is that of a ready writer. The Lord is using writers, webmasters, speakers, scientists, astronomers, historians, eschatologists and teachers for this task. And yes, some of us are housewives.

You may have read The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn. It is a book that shows the events of September 11, 2001 to be fulfilments of Scriptural prophecy in a very specific and profound way.   Cahn is one of the ready writers. He has a message—the Lord revealed to him how His Word works.  Similar truths abound and are coming to light through ordinary people!  These are exciting revelations, and once you begin to unravel the cords that hold you to a stale religious existence, you will see God’s hand in every single thing created, every constellation, every cell, every major event on the news. This is not contrivance or conjecture—it is very real. God is speaking all the time. The heavens declare—are declaring—His glory; the earth IS showing forth His handiwork, continuously, and in a very literal way. This is not just poetic verse, although much of the Bible has a very pleasant sound when read. They are Truths, the depths of which have been severely limited through the errors of men who have been responsible to lead others; and through the further error of the blind followers who failed to seek to see whether those things be so. (cf. Acts 17:11)

By now you are asking, “What things? Where does she think the Church has gone astray?”

To answer that in the first chapter will either offend you to the point of closing the book, or it will inspire you to inquire further.  But I urge you to resist resistance to new perspectives. Approach the things of God with humility and an open mind, knowing that the Word has already said that we all see in part. Closing the door to a new perspective is exactly what the Pharisees did. It is also what I did for most of my Christian life.  I was like the man Solomon referred to in Proverbs 18:13:  “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.”  On many interpretations, I had already made up my mind and refused to be objective—and missed out on the most wonderful opening of Scriptural Truth I had ever imagined! It is changing my entire life, instilling it with joy and a new sense of security in the Lord that goes beyond hope. It is no longer faith, but sight!

Bible scholar Chuck Missler shares the following quotation frequently:

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is condemnation before investigation.” --Edmund Spenser

I challenge you to refuse ignorance, to press through the veil of piety and investigate the things in this book. Investigate and see whether the Church has been remiss in understanding its Hebraic foundations that greatly affect the interpretation of Scripture, both Old and New Testament. Investigate the idea that we have been strategically distracted from the Feasts of the Lord which are encoded with awesome revelation that should have tipped off the Pharisees regarding His identity, but they missed it. Now the Fall Feasts remain, and should clue us in regarding His Second Coming.  And here is one example of where the Church has erred:  ironically, our major “Christian” holidays have been the instrument of distraction. It is no secret that their roots are mostly pagan although some Christian ideas and intentions have been grafted in. Nevertheless, in the process of elevating them as highlights of the year, we have failed to acknowledge and understand the Feasts of the Lord and the depths of them—and if you enjoyed The Harbinger, you will love what the Lord has revealed to us all in His Feasts, regarding Jesus birth, death, resurrection, and second coming!

One might ask what gives me the right to think I know anything—enough to write a book that postulates errors in the Church at large. Well, I cannot tell you what I am, beyond being a believer and a perpetual student of the Word.  I have no particular accolades that are usually demanded by a reading public. But I can tell you a few things that I am not, to give you an idea of where I’m coming from. I am not “Messianic” in the sense of being “Torah observant.”  I believe the Torah (the laws, the Feasts) are shadow-pictures of Jesus, not the other way around. There is a movement to draw people back to the Law in practice. I am not there. I am drawn back—and would draw others back—to consider the Law of Moses as a type of code, showing us good things to come.

Even from the earliest times, The Law was unable to show what Yahovah God wanted us to see. People perceived the Law as the point; the reality. It presented a rigid outline of dos and don’ts which became an end unto themselves.  It seemed that their keeping was what God was after.  But God wanted us to cultivate the motivation behind their keeping.  Jesus made this clear. This is why He said,

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.  –Matthew 5:27, 28

This was not a new idea. It was not a new take. It was what was intended to exist within the framework of the commandment.  Obedience to the outline of the Law was only the beginning. He wanted us to develop hearts that trusted Him as our Source, and to develop love for one another, which would actually eliminate the need for laws to keep us in line.  But it seems easier to just keep a rule and declare such to be the makings of clean conscience. That is how empty religion works. You just do what you’re told while thinking your own thoughts. You clean the outside of the cup to look shiny and clean, but the inside of the cup is filled with bacteria.

Jesus zeroed in on this kind of religion. It was the stuff Pharisees were made of. Jesus despised it, because it missed the target.  The Torah, beautiful as it was, was not seen for Whom it represented. This is why they did not recognize Him when He came.

So, no, I am not Messianic in the sense of keeping Torah, per se, but I would like to think I keep it in the spirit with which it was intended to be kept.

Neither am I out to quash Christmas. My name is not Ebenezer Scrooge.  But folks, December 25 is not the birthday of Jesus, and this we now know for sure.

I was the Christmas Queen—I loved the season, the trappings, the decorations. Christmas was magical, and it was the culmination of a year’s worth of living. It all came to its apex on Christmas Eve, when we opened the tokens of our year’s love, and when we gathered with family whom we hadn’t seen for months. It was what we lived for.

I was sad, in a way, when my illusions about Christmas began to come apart. I lost a few friends—or at least some credibility—over my initial knee-jerk response to the revelation that Christmas had pagan origins.  And I felt left out of the time of celebration. But to my delight, I later learned that December 25 is likely the time of His conception (astronomical data, combined with Scripture, seems to bear this out).   I maintain that God has a sense of humor in this!

In any case, I am all for Jesus being celebrated any time! However, I do not promote the pagan elements of the season, as I feel they have caused errors and effects in our culture that have done harm in the unseen realms.  Some folks get offended by this, but it is simply a fact that our Christian “holidays” are evidence of the fact that our religion has been tampered with.  And one should wonder how far the tampering has gone.  Consider Easter. Easter represents the height of tampering.  The Easter bunny and dyed eggs aren’t as abominable as the fact that we have allowed a hybrid festival to distract generations from what was and is really important—recognizing the details of Jesus’ second coming in the same way the Jews failed to recognize the first.

As for Easter—it really is another blended pagan celebration, like it or not. Some Christians call it a celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection. Some even say it has been “redeemed” by good intentions, despite the fact that a holiday with a Christ-focus is still called by the name of a pagan goddess, Ishtar, because the Resurrection occurred on her day. Surely God has given grace to us for our error, but it is still error. God forgives sin, but it is still sin. Shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid!  Once we recognize it, we change our thinking, and our behavior.

I do not want to belabor the subject of Christian holidays, as they will be covered in subsequent chapter.  Yet my previous hints regarding Easter’s pagan heritage require explanation, lest you close the book. And here it is. Easter is the anglicized name for Ishtar (Ashtoreth). She is a goddess whose fame has endured since ancient Babylon. Ishtar reportedly hatched from a giant egg that fell from heaven into the Nile River. She later took pity on a beautiful phoenix who was freezing in winter and turned it into a rabbit. The well-winterized rabbit, having been a bird, still retained its ability to lay eggs, of course. Hence the bunnies and eggs of Ishtar Sunday.  (There is more on this subject in a later chapter.)

While sitting in church in their Easter bonnets and ties, Christians have long missed the fact that by Divine design Jesus’ Resurrection happened on a far different festival. Not the ancient feast of Ishtar with the dinner of wild boar and eggs dyed in the blood of sacrificed infants, but on the God-ordained Day of Firstfruits, according to the prophetic Law of Moses . Jesus was crucified on Passover; buried during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He sent the Comforter on the Feast of Pentecost. Do you see the pattern? These Feasts and their fulfillments are highly significant to every Christian living today.  Because each of those Feasts that He fulfilled were Spring Feasts. The Fall Feasts are yet to come! He will surely fulfill each one in some similar manner, but how? We cannot know, unless we know what the Feasts are and how they were ordered. Then, by the Spirit, we can see the parallels and recognize His coming in a greater way!  The enemy of our souls has long blinded the hearts of men with a conspiracy of distraction. But the Lord, by His grace and mercy—and in fulfillment of the words of His prophets—has revealed them in this day! Every Christian should spread this news!

I urge you—I could beg, and would, if it were necessary—to read this book in its entirety. It is a gathering of facts and Truths and interesting things to consider and weigh as we approach the end of the world as we know it.  I am just a woman who has chosen to join other researchers in a step back in time, to see the Church as the very first apostles saw it, before the body of believers became a political force that was manipulated by greedy and power-seeking men. And we will see some new things, things even the first apostles could not see, for those things were sealed up until the end and could not be known before time and technology revealed them, according to God’s plan. But the time has come, and we are able to partake of things Daniel could not even write about—they would have made no sense in that day. He sealed up the book.  But it is being opened at last.

This is a book in two parts. The first is a narrative of Jesus’ last month on earth, interwoven with details most Christians today have never known—nuggets of truth that emerge when Hebraic customs are applied to the historical record. The applications of these things change the way we understand the Gospels, for they cause our shallow traditions to pale in the glory of profound wisdom. The untaught details of the way Jesus fulfilled the Feasts of the Lord, for example, will add a dimension to your understanding of God’s Word that you never even dreamed could be! In my case, these truths have changed my entire God-concept—it is as if my faith has turned into something closer to sight! I have tried to put into these pages much of what the Lord has enabled me to gather and discover in this day of widespread revelation. These pieces of a Divine puzzle have come together so convincingly in recent years that I truly cannot imagine anyone remaining skeptical of Salvation through Jesus Christ after reading this book.              This book revisits the ancient foundations of the Salvation message. In doing so, we discover that man has meddled with it along the way.  Once you see it, it may make you angry, disgusted, and even righteously indignant. You may want to go about lambasting the Church at large, or make it your personal goal to tear them down and set them straight. Whether that might actually be your calling is not for me to say—but experience has taught me that it does more harm than good. Consider Jesus’ own parable concerning His Kingdom:

Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:  But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.  So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. --Matthew 13:24-30

Surely  the errors in the Church have been planted there—perpetuated and promoted at the hands of men who fell victim to some carnality that made it seem right. But at this late hour, the weeds of doctrinal error are too enmeshed with truth to be separated all at once.

Chapter Two

~ Misconceptions

I was a little Pentecostal girl, growing up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. If you were not a Jew in that particular Detroit suburb, it meant you must be Catholic, for there were few Protestants in our area. And although there may have been a Lutheran or even a Baptist kid here and there, Pentecostals were virtually unheard of.

I remember during Christmas time, which always fell around Hanukkah time, my fellow classmates and I would gather around the classroom piano as the music teacher passed out song sheets for both Christmas carols and Hanukkah songs. As we sat cross-legged in the floor, the teacher would lead us in “Silent Night,” or “Away in a Manger”; and while the Christian children sang with all their might, Jewish children would sit, tight-lipped, arms crossed in defiance. And during the Hanukkah songs that followed, we Christian children sat likewise, arms crossed in defiance, or both hands over our mouths in refusal to join in the boisterous chorus of little Jews.

I didn’t really understand why there was such division, until a fellow classmate whispered to me that Jews don’t believe in Jesus. I started putting it together that these children and their families were of the same mindset as the ones who put Jesus on the cross. My conclusion—which was shared by other Christians and by members of my own family—was that since Jews reject Jesus, their whole religion was on the side of the devil. So, although I was a musically inclined child who wanted to join the catchy chorus of “Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah, the sweet celebration…!”  I thought if I did, I would somehow be denying Jesus; I would surely receive the indelible, damning mark of a traitor and thus condemn my soul to hell.

How many Christians feel the same way today?

Little did I know—little do many others know still—that Jesus Himself was a Jew; that He celebrated Hanukkah. And those little ones surrounding me with their learned resistance of Jesus were descendants of His own dear people.

Yes, Jesus was Jewish in every way, and He celebrated Hanukkah right along with his relatives and friends. In John chapter 10, we see Jesus, touring the Temple of Herod (a remake of the second Temple) with His disciples. It was during the Feast of Dedications—even your trusty Strong’s Concordance will show that the original word was Hanukkah.

My childhood fear of somehow offending Jesus with things Jewish was a crazy paradox – but a great many full-grown and educated Christian leaders have shared that idea. In fact, it was one perpetuated by early Christians not long after the first disciples had died in the first century AD.  In the year 70, Jerusalem was attacked by the Roman army and the Temple was destroyed. The Jerusalem Church of early Christians was scattered. Considering that more than 1,100,000 Jews were viciously and indiscriminately killed in the attack, and 97,000 were captured (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews VI.9.3), Gentile Christians’ associations with Jewishness were surely strained. But besides the tension and fear that came with association, other things factored into the ease with which things Jewish were cast aside as irrelevant. It seemed logical to sever all Jewish connections for a mixture of these reasons:

·         Christians knew that sacrificial lambs were no longer necessary (in that Jesus was the final Sacrificial Lamb);

·         Christians knew that God now dwelt in men and not in temples made with hands;

·         Herod’s Temple was destroyed in 70 AD anyway, making it impossible to keep the Torah the old way;

·         Christians knew that our Lord Jesus was constantly challenging the traditions of the Jews, likening Pharisees to white-washed tombs full of dead men’s bones;

·         The Jews were the very ones who cried out for His crucifixion.

In light of these things, it seemed obvious that Jesus and Jewishness don’t mix. Besides, when the Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem was taken by the Romans in 70 A.D., along with the slaughter of thousands, it was dangerous to be a Jew—it was also dangerous to be a friend of Jews.

By this time, a number of Christians had already migrated to Europe and passed on, leaving their legacy of faith—Joseph of Arimathea, who was a wealthy businessman with dealings in Britain; and his niece Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Christianity spread to Rome quickly through the work of the Apostles, and by 306 A.D., when Constantine came into power, the Church was a political force to be reckoned with. And Constantine, a shrewd politician and a worshipper of Mithras the sun god, in his last days professed himself to be a Christian also; yet his policies and behaviors do not reflect a change of heart with a reborn spirit. For his attitudes were far from the mind of Christ. He put many to death, and he disdained the Jews with a venomous hatred.  Yet, because of his position, he managed to change the very course of the Church, redirecting it right back to religious bondage and pride—a new, Christian Pharisaism.

The following is an actual quote from Constantine concerning the celebration of Passover. While it would appear to come from a Christian perspective, in that it seems an effort to support the cause of Christ, it is merely a political religious perspective, and obviously not one born of the spirit of the Lord:

“And truly, in the first place, it seems to everyone a most unworthy thing that we should follow the customs of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who, polluted wretches! having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds. It is fit, therefore, that rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of our "Lord's" passion even to the present times. Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews.” (Council of Nicea, pg. 52.)

This hostility toward Jews was spread throughout the Church and throughout most of the world, and vestiges of the animosity remains to this day—just as it showed up in my second grade class.

But Jesus does not hold the Jews accountable for His death, even though they were the ones who shouted, “Crucify him!” Nor does He hold the Romans accountable—and they were the ones who hammered the nails.

His words concerning them, and the rest of us, was, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Constantine did not understand the nature of Jesus. He understood a political force called Christianity.  And this, my friends, is the very spirit that was in the Pharisees, which spirit Jesus opposed and opposes still. It can be called “vain religion,” and regardless of the central personality of that religion, it runs contrary to the cause of Jesus Christ.

In the centuries following the deaths of the first disciples, Constantine, his contemporaries (the Council of Nicea), and apparently much of the Church has acquired many misconceptions about Hebraic foundations.

Let’s look at them.

MISCONCEPTION # 1:

JESUS FULFILLED THE LAW

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.  -- Matthew 5:17

This is an interesting verse. It was Jesus speaking. He is saying, in effect, “Don’t think that I am out to do away with Jewish laws or to discard the words of the prophets. I am not here to do away with them, but to fulfill them.”

Has He fulfilled them? NO! Not all. Not yet.

Certainly, our sins are now forgiven; God came in the flesh to live a blameless life without the taint of sin, so that He could give perfect, earthly life as a ransom for many. His death and subsequent resurrection (for death could not hold Him!) opened a new realm of existence for mankind—a spiritual one; an eternal one. This new existence is even better than the original existence of Eden, for in this God has been glorified as man’s journey through time has come full circle! We are better for having rid earth of its dark side—a work our Messiah has begun, and one which shall soon be complete.  You see, Jesus’ mission was not over when He said, “It is finished!” That was a reference to man’s personal redemption—it was something the High Priest said each year when the final lamb, the Paschal lamb, was slain. But there is more to do—and for that, He is coming back again!

Jesus’ time on earth fulfilled the pattern of the Spring Feasts—Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits and Pentecost, which you will see in another chapter. His birth also fulfilled Tabernacles, in one sense.  But the Fall Feasts generally pertain to His (soon) return. We do not know the day nor the hour when Jesus will return—but Paul made it clear to us that we can, and should, know the “seasons.”  In the following passage, he was continuing on the subject of Jesus’ second coming. The previous chapter told how Jesus Himself was going to descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of the Lord. This is a scary prospect for some; for even Jesus said that no man knows the day nor the hour when He shall come—even Jesus doesn’t know. Only the Father knows. Paul continues his letter:

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.  For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.  For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.  Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.  Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.  For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.                                                                                     --1Thessalonians 5:1-7

This passage gives us an opportunity to see the benefit of understanding Jewish, Hebraic and Levitical customs when studying the Bible.

To shed a bit of light on Paul’s words above, let’s look at an excerpt from chapter 7 of The Temple: Its Ministry and Services by Alfred Edersheim, a Jewish scholar who converted to Christianity in the mid-1800s:

The Rounds of the Captain

During the night the 'captain of the Temple' made his rounds. On his approach the guards had to rise and salute him in a particular manner. Any guard found asleep when on duty was beaten, or his garments were set on fire— punishment, as we know, actually awarded. Hence the admonition to us who, as it were, are here on Temple guard, 'Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments' (Revelation 16:15). But, indeed, there could have been little inclination to sleep within the Temple, even had the deep emotion natural in the circumstances allowed it. True, the chief of the course and 'the heads of families' reclined on couches along that part of the Beth-Moked in which it was lawful to sit down,  and the older priests might lie on the floor, having wrapped their priestly garments beside them, while the younger men kept watch.

So we see that Paul was referring to a Jewish Temple custom that was well-known at that time when he spoke of “a thief in the night.” Peter used the analogy in the same way (II Peter 3:10). But Paul assured his hearers that, knowing perfectly concerning the seasons, they did not have to be taken by surprise at the Lord’s return!

Certainly their generation did not seem to see the Lord coming in His Kingdom—and some think this is a sign that the words of Jesus did not come to pass.

Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.    --Matthew 16:28

The Greek word for “some” that was used here is τίς, or tis, an enclitic indefinite pronoun meaning some or any person or object. Let it be known that there was at least one τίς in that company who saw the Son of man coming in His kingdom—and that man is John, who was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day when he was shown the secrets of the Kingdom in the most famous vision ever recorded! That record is the Book of Revelation.

The Word of God will never fail!

MISCONCEPTION #2

JESUS OPPOSED THE TORAH

Jesus was always refuting the words of Jewish leaders, and holding them up as examples of how NOT to be. Why? Because the Law they were keeping had become so program-driven that it was hardly recognizable from the original (a bit like modern Christianity). And the leaders were not keeping it in the spirit of the Torah, but rather for personal gain, position, respect, and even safety through connections with the ruling empire of the day.  The holy rites that had been passed down, and that were designed to foreshadow Christ in a picture, had lost their meaning. The Jewish leaders, each vying for control like members of a modern church board, had become political entities—factions, such as the Pharisees (conservatives) and Sadducees (the liberals of the day).  The resulting carnal agenda is what was meant when Jesus said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” He said this more than once:

Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.  --Matthew 16:6

How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? --Matthew 16:11

And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod. --Mark 8:15

In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. --Luke 12:1

Jesus’ attitude toward this self-serving new model of piety by no means made Him an enemy of God’s Law. He was rather an enemy of the way the Torah had been altered by the meddlings of men.  Since their release from captivity in Babylon, the Jews had been forced to conform their government to the templates of other governments that ruled over them. And since Jewish government was based on God being their Sovereign, God had to be squeezed under the umbrella of a pagan empire, which was of course, impossible. So they ended up with a mess of a religion and a chancre of hypocrisy.

Submission and compromise was what these Jewish leaders chose. And For refusal and revolt posed great risk of more bloodshed. And thus their allegiance was clear. They would not die for their God.

It is no wonder Jesus said, “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39).

And what about us? Will we die for our God? Or would we deny Him to save ourselves and our families from earthly death?

This question is not outside the realm of possibility in our present day.

Take for example the imminent requirement that you and your family members must have a microchip implanted under your skin or face charges of noncompliance to governmental regulations. The chip itself is already approved by the FDA. The natural outcome of a nation using such a chip is ultimate mandatory implantation.  This identification chip is expected to be in full use by the year 2010Back in 2007 (and you can watch it yourself on YouTube, if it is still there at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YJsxMcAJoA), Brian Williams hosted a news story that opened with a hypothetical scenario, the gist of which was, “You’re out of town, you’re badly injured and unconscious, and you have no identification. But thanks to a microchip implanted under your skin, all your information is right there!” Williams went on to say that within 10 years — which would bring us to 2017 — such technology was projected to be up and running in the United States.

In 2009, NBC’s Today, Katie Couric and Lester Holt opened a news story with these words:

KATIE COURIC: “Would you implant a computer chip under your skin if it would save your life? Well apparently it’s not just science fiction anymore.”

LESTER HOLT: “The government has just approved the use of a computer chip that would be implanted under your skin, so doctors can quickly access your medical records.”

Holt went on to interview Scott Silverman, the chairman and CEO of Applied Digital Technologies, the maker of the FDA-approved implant called the Verichip (now called PositiveID). The chip was described as a tiny miniaturized RFID radio frequency identification microchip…about the size of a grain of rice.  According to Silverman, it “gets injected just like getting a shot of penicillin or any medicine you would get in the doctor’s office.” Where would it be injected? The upper right arm is the area is most physicians have chosen for ease of access, as well as biocompatibility. Interestingly, fingerprints and iris scans are already being used in this way, availing who-knows-whom of your driver’s license information, medical information, financial information and security information—to know where you are and where you go.

My point for sharing this is simply that the reader might consider how easily Jesus can be denied when one’s life or livelihood, comfort or even reputation is at stake. For, suppose the coming microchips in a unified world system were indeed the “mark” John warned us about in Revelation—the mark our grandparents warned us about; the mark that seemed like a far-fetched, bad episode of The Twilight Zone. Suppose the mark is going to be a literal companion to heart-allegiance, and that it will be your pass to operate in a world system that promises peace, prosperity and all the other things you ever asked God for and never got. But all you have to do is take it willingly.  Read John’s words:

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.–Revelation 13:16, 17

And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, --Revelation 14:9

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.  --Revelation 14:10, 11

And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. -- Revelation 15:2

And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.          -- Revelation 16:2

And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. -- Revelation 19:20

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. -- Revelation 20:4

The government and the media are already billing these implants as helpful, convenient, and a means of security for your family. Those who resist this program will find it difficult to maneuver in society. It will be impossible to get a bank account, to buy, to sell, or to get health insurance. Those who resist this program—for whatever reason—will face persecution and even prosecution for things such as child endangerment (by failing to provide it) and for failure to follow government requirements for health and commerce. If religious terrorism finds a way into such an administration, beheading is certainly not impossible, seeing as it happens regularly in certain sects. And if microchips contained GPS technology (an easy thing, given the ease with which phones can be traced), it would be impossible to hide. These are not ridiculous prognostications. These things seem to be right around the corner, with even national, secular news talking about it as if it were something to be desired. Hopefully, the Church will be raptured out of here before being faced with such decisions.

Nevertheless, could you die for Jesus?

MISCONCEPTION #3

ISRAEL IS NO LONGER GOD’S CHOSEN NATION

You might be familiar with the term “Replacement Theology.” It is the idea that God’s “chosen” people were rejected for rejecting Jesus as Messiah, and that God subsequently transferred His loyalty and favor to those who accept Jesus as Savior. “We are spiritual Israel,” is the common summation.

And it’s a true statement. As believers in Jesus, we are spiritual Israel. However, God has not removed His favor from the natural nation He established with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. His promise to the natural nation is a picture of the spiritual reality.

To understand this, let’s go back to Eden.

God created Adam and Eve as physical, organic beings, but when He breathed His breath into them, man became spiritual as well. Don’t try to wrap your mind around that concept. You can’t. Science cannot explain consciousness.  Let it suffice to know that we were made in the image of God the Father.  Man’s relationship with God was based on spiritual communion. When Adam chose to heed Satan’s suggestion and question the Father’s authority, man nullified his own God-given authority on earth and seemingly handed it to the devil himself. Thus, the spiritual tether was cut—he was separated from God; the spiritual communion was interrupted. And from that day, man’s being longed to be reunited with God, to behold the beauty of love and life as it was in the beginning.

Thorns and thistles has been our lot; we have to work just to survive. We suffer discomfort; and we’re on a never-ending quest to make things easier for ourselves. We are not lavishing in spiritual delight; we are languishing in natural death. It’s this flesh realm that seems so real to us; but the reality is actually the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm surpasses this earth realm. Most folks have it backwards, saying that seeing is believing…  Remember what Jesus said to Thomas:

Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.  And Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God.

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.    -- John 20:27-29

The word “blessed” here means “fortunate; better off.” Jesus was trying to express that those who do not primarily trust this natural realm but trust the truths in spirit are better off in their perspective than those who perceive all things within a natural framework. That is because the reality is the spiritual realm, not the physical. These natural bodies are going to die off; yet our spiritual life will continue. Those who are not in touch with spiritual truths find this frightening because they cannot imagine pleasure without perceiving it through an earthly body.

From the beginning, God seeded a plan to bring mankind back to spiritual life, where joy and pleasure is not limited to the senses. It would take millennia to prepare for a new kingdom, beginning with preparation for His Incarnation, His birth, death and resurrection. Mankind had to be prepared to receive Him spiritually! This required a modicum of faith. He found favor with Abraham, who amid the pagan, hedonistic people of Babylon, managed to disdain stupid idolatries and preserve faith in the true—yet unseen--God of Adam, Enoch and Noah. Through Abraham, God promised to make a nation of faith out of which the spiritual nation would be born. And to prepare the way and preserve an openness to Him in a mentality that seemed bent to rely on the senses (even to the point of building idols), He gave the Law—the Torah in Moses’ day.  Not only would the Torah provide temporal peace and safety; it would provide a pattern, a shadow-picture of His coming!

Part of this system included the building of a Tabernacle, with a place inside where God would meet with the High Priest, the leader and mediator between God and the people. In that Holy of Holies, God manifested His Presence in a cloud of glory called Shekinah. Surely the Shekinah kept the High Priest engaged in his job! Surely it caused him to be energized and convincing in his relaying of the words of the Lord.

So why didn’t God appear before everyone that way?

Because seeing and hearing are not really believing! God desires for us to seek Him spiritually, to know Him spiritually. It is that realm where truth abides. His Kingdom is a spiritual one. Blessed—better off—are the ones who believe, yet have not seen a glory cloud!

Abraham’s faith eventually found its best fodder in his grandson, Jacob. And from Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, twelve tribes were born. These tribes—these children of Israel—were eventually given Laws through Moses, that nurtured their faith by giving a formula for blessing and cursing. When Israel followed the Laws, they found blessing. When they stopped following and turned to other modes of worship, trouble came.

Thus, God chastens and corrects His people. He allows them—He allows us—to experience the results of our own choices and actions.  Eventually, the misery of it all drives the humble heart to his or her knees, and we cry out to God. As we cry out to God, we turn (repent) back to the ways of obedience, where God’s blessings already abound. And God Sovereignly restores what the locust and cankerworms have eaten in our lives through our disobedience. He works all things together for good to them that truly love Him—those who are called, by virtue of responding to the call of the spirit, according to His purpose.

God has guided Israel throughout history with great love, great promises that have led us all to this glorious place of access through Jesus. The pattern He established in and through Israel is precious; He will not forsake them utterly.

Besides that, everything God does is in layers. You may have noticed that yourself as you read His word and apply it in your life. The stories of Israel have applications in modern times, in nations, on state levels, church levels, family levels, and personal levels. That is because His truth is eternal, and eternity isn’t only about time. It is about existence—height, depth, bigness, smallness…  How many times can a thing be divided? There is no end to smallness. How many times can a thing be multiplied? There is no end. God has no beginning, no end. He is in the smallest subatomic particle with no starting point; He is in the largest galaxies in space.  Yet, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:4; Hebrews 2:6)

God will keep His promises to Israel, and His plan will unfold to cause Israel to recognize His Son as Messiah, so that the nation might be redeemed. So beautiful is this picture! It is a picture of every man’s redemption. It is a picture of God bringing Adam back into spiritual life.  All earth will enjoy the moment when Jesus takes His throne again in Jerusalem. It will all happen there—in that nation that He has not cast off. And we Christians who call ourselves “Spiritual Israel” must not put ourselves in a class above the Jews, “boasting against the branches” into which we, by faith in Jesus, have been grafted and welcomed. For they will be redeemed as well in days to come. Heed the words of Paul:

Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.  Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.  And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.                                                                      --Romans 11:18-29

Remember, the outward Law was designed for the heart, and to point a nation to its Source—it was designed to train a culture to honor God, to recognize His patterns in creation, and thus to recognize Him. Natural Israel still has not—yet—but we, as spiritual Israel must not be heady and high-minded, as though we were somehow better. While we have received Jesus as Messiah, we have discarded the ancient patterns that shows us things to come. For that, we should humble ourselves and study to know the things that God has ordained that His people should understand from the beginning. If we are spiritual Israel, let us not fear the spiritual empires of this world to the point that we create our own “spiritual Pharisees” our own “spiritual Sanhedrin” and turn our houses of prayer into dens of thieves as our forefathers did.

Selah.

Chapter Three

~ The Torah, the Tanakh and the Talmud

Jewish Law as we know it today is much different than it was when God first gave it to Moses. The Law began with the Torah; the words of the prophets, and the historical accounts and inspired writings (ex., David’s writings) constituted the Tanakh, or the whole of what Christians know as the Old Testament.

The Torah includes Genesis, which is a record of creation and the establishment of Israel as the people of God and was written by Moses.

Exodus records the story of Moses, and of the Hebrews’ flight out of Egypt. It also records the Ten Commandments and instructions for building the Tabernacle.

Leviticus through Deuteronomy lists a great many finer points of the Law—how to worship, and how to live before God; how to gain peace and prosperity.

Those five books constitute the Torah. But God’s people also gleaned from the prophets and from the historical and inspired writings of David and others. These books, combined with the Torah, constititute the Tanakh, which is another name for the entire Old Testament.

Here is a breakdown of the Tanakh of the Bible used by Jews, and which is known by Christians as the Old Testament:

The Torah

·                     Genesis

·                     Exodus

·                     Leviticus

·                     Numbers

·                     Deuteronomy

The Prophets

The Former Prophets

·                     Joshua

·                     Judges

·                     Samuel

·                     Kings

The Latter Prophets

·                     Isaiah

·                     Jeremiah

·                     Ezekiel

The Twelve (Minor Prophets)

·                     Hosea

·                     Joel

·                     Amos

·                     Obadiah

·                     Jonah

·                     Micah

·                     Nahum

·                     Habakkuk

·                     Zephaniah

·                     Haggai

·                     Zechariah

·                     Malachi

The Writings

·                     Psalms

·                     Proverbs

·                     Job

·                     Song of Solomon

·                     Ruth

·                     Lamentations

·                     Ecclesiastes

·                     Esther

·                     Daniel

·                     Ezra-Nehemiah

·                     Chronicles

THE TALMUD

There was a third book added to the laws of the Hebrews, and that was a book of interpretations, definitions and applications of the laws that men put together. This is no small commentary on the Tanakh—rather, it is approximately 6,200 pages of personal interpretation by thousands of rabbis. It also includes numerous homilies and stories designed to make personal application more understandable.  This book is called the Talmud.  The problem with this book—for Christians and for certain Jews who reject it—is that the interpretations were arbitrary, of course, and tended toward extreme hairsplitting. For example, there are laws for using the right side of the body over the left because someone noticed that a number of verses in the Torah seem to give preference to the right side.

This may seem unbelievable to a non-Jew, but it certainly gives an understanding as to what Jesus found so wrong with the Pharisees. Read the following article portion from Chabad.org and see whether you can agree (from Laws of the Right Side, written by Eliezer Wenger, http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/260661/jewish/The-Laws-of-Using-The-Right-Side.htm#footnoteRef1a260661):

Dressing

• Thus, when one gets dressed one puts on the right sleeve first. Similarly, one puts on his right sock and the right foot is put in his pants first. Likewise the right shoe should be put on first. Additionally when one is washing, soaping, putting on lotions, etc. to both hands, preference is given to the right side. However, when we remove our shirts, shoes, socks, etc. one should remove the left first (since by doing so, he honors the right).

• However, when it comes to tying, the left is given preference. The reason being that, we find in the torah the idea of tying in relation to Tefillin. Since the Tefillin is bound on the left hand, one should tie knots and bows on the left side of the body first. Therefore, the shoelaces on the left shoe should be tied first. Thus, one puts on his right shoe first (without tying them), then the left shoe, ties the left shoe and then the right shoe.

• The same would apply to sleeves which are tied with laces. Since left-handed individuals wear their Tefillin on the right hand, they tie their right shoe first.

• According to Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach, since women do not wear Tefillin, they should always tie their right shoe, etc. first.

Washing of the Hands

• The proper way to wash hands upon awakening and give honor to the right side is: He picks up the vessel containing the water with his right hand. He passes it over to his left hand and then pours it over the right hand first. He then passes the vessel to the right hand and washes the left hand. The vessel is then passed again to the left, pouring the water over the right hand. The vessel is again passed to the right and the water is poured over the left hand. This process is repeated one more time.

Left Handed Person

• Regarding a left-handed person, he should do the reverse, because his left hand (the stronger hand) is considered as the right hand and thus take the vessel in his left hand first, pass it to the right and wash the left hand first.

Prayers

• When taking the three steps back at the end of the the Amidah one should first walk back with his left foot. Since one is taking leave of G-d, the left foot (which is the weaker foot and not so natural to move) is raised first to indicate that is is difficult to take leave of G-d. Hence, one who is left-footed would first step back with his right foot, which is his weaker foot.

Meals

• When one says Kiddush over wine, or leads the benching -- grace after the meal (and a cup of wine, Kos shel Bracha - "a cup of blessing," is being used), the cup of wine should be held in the right hand only. A left-handed person holds the cup in his left hand.

• Regarding Kiddush, the Chabad custom is as follows: The cup, which is already filled with the wine is lifted up with the right hand and passed over to the left hand. One then lowers the cup into the right hand, which is already cupped, resembling a vessel by having the four fingers (other than the thumb) raised. The thumb is just resting on the side.

• Based on what we said in the earlier paragraph, a left-handed person would do everything in the Reverse manner, picking it up with the left hand and passing it over to the right hand and lowering it into the left hand.

• When one is saying a blessing over food, it is proper that the food be held in the right hand while saying the blessing. A left-handed person should hold the food in his left hand.

It is not difficult to understand how such things were detestable by Jesus. Jesus did not follow the above ritual of hand-washing:

And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness.  Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also?

--Luke 11:37-40

In other words, Jesus may have been saying, “You careless thinkers, didn’t the God who made the outside of things also make the inside? And you make all things in your life appear so religious and clean and perfect—but the inside of your person is neglected. Your hearts are full of evil thoughts and motives.”

God gave us the Law to represent the reality of righteousness. But merely religious persons think the Law itself is the point. The reality of righteousness is not done outwardly, but in the heart. The heart is where sin is conceived. The heart is where Eve and Adam made their individual rationalizations and choices. As James said, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:14, 15).

Jesus taught a righteousness that begins within.

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” --Matthew 5:27, 28

The Talmud created a bondage that was not intended by the Law of God, and sidetracked its followers away from Truth and into a mire of religion that disillusions and perplexes. Many of the applications were also designed to accommodate the ideas and absolutes of the empires under which the Jews were required to fit their religious beliefs. Simply put, Jews living under the domination of other governments (such as the Roman Empire) were required to submit a list of their laws so that they might be understandable and therefore enforceable by Roman police. So, whereas trespasses were formerly judged on an individual basis by a High Priest (the religious judge) or the King (the civil judge), the Talmud lumped them all together and gave no room for wisdom, grace or even exception that a man under God might be inspired to give.  The Talmud created a rigidity of law that made it not only tedious for ordinary persons to keep, but it was also made uninspiring as a pattern of spiritual things.

It should be note that the tag “Jewish” applies to God’s people while the Oral Law and the Talmud were being developed. Therefore, the word “Jewish” as a descriptor is somewhat misleading and confusing to a Christian seeking unadulterated Truth in Hebrew roots. The Hebrews came to be called “Jews” because the tribes of Israel had split into two kingdoms, one retaining the name Israel, and the other Judah. The geographical realm of Judah became known as Judea. And although all twelve tribes were scattered when Judah was captured by Babylon and held for 400 years, Judah (Yehudah=Judes, or Jews) became the nickname for them all. Yehudaim was the plural name in Hebrew. “Jews” is the Anglicized term.

So Judaism is the name given to the religion of the Hebrew remnant, after the law had been meddled with by Pharisees, Sadducees and the unsanctioned court called the Sanhedrin—a board created after the pattern of the pagan Greek Synedrion to “interpret” the length and breadth and application of each Torah law.

Therefore, not everything “Jewish” should necessarily be considered foundational to the Christian faith. Jesus Himself took issue with the manhandled Jewish religion of His day—also knowing that the leaders who upheld it did so for political advantage and favor. He often rebuked and challenged the Pharisees and Sadducees and their writers--Scribes—with Truth so different from their law that it wasn’t even recognizable as coming from God. They had stoned the prophets, conformed to other governments, became just like every other people group with arbitrary ideas of right and wrong. They did the very thing their laws were supposed to prevent.

In summary, the people group to whom the Torah was initially given were called Hebrews, the children of Abraham. The name comes from Hebron, the place where Abraham settled. His descendants, the Hebrews, were the ones made captives in Egypt; Hebrews were the ones released, under the leadership of Moses. After dividing into Israel and Judah, they were all scattered, taken captive, but became known by the name of Judah, Jews for short. Modern Jews have inherited a somewhat corrupted form of God’s Law that was created between the writings of the Old and New Testaments with the addition of the Oral Laws and Midrash which have since become the Talmud.

Jesus agreed with the Law, but not with the interpretations of men that hindered the understanding of heart-righteousness—and the ability for men to discern the times through knowledge of the Law as a picture.

“And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.”    –Luke 11:46

“Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.” –Luke 11:52

Generations were hindered; but the time has come when Truth is being revealed for the redemption of nations. May all who “get it” preach it.

Chapter Four

~ The Genealogies of Mary and Joseph

If ever a chapter was about to blow your mind, it’s this one.

Few people realize that Jesus was born into families with royal heritage. He had legal rights to all of the most powerful and coveted thrones of earth—the throne of David in Israel, the Jewish High Priesthood, the Egyptian monarchy, and even the Empire of Rome.

How this has remained a buried treasure for so long is a great mystery.

Surely there are naysayers regarding any and every historical document, including the Bible. There are, and will be, those who are skeptical regarding the things in this book.

In order to understand the import of this marvelous network of royal lineages as it pertains to the Gospels, we first need an overview of the political climate of the day.

Let it be said here that some of this is tough reading—there were many things going on at once in the politic of Jesus’ day. But if you desire to understand the Lord Jesus in a greater way, if you desire a deeper grasp of Truth, then determine yourself to wrap your mind around this. It will change your life.

THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN JUDEA

The Roman Empire controlled the world at the time of Jesus. King Herod the Great had been nominated by the Roman senate to be king over Judea. He was not a Jew by birth, rather he was an Idumaean (descendent of Esau) whose people had been forced into Judaism by John Hyrcanus, who was a priest-king after the Maccabees restored control of the Temple to the Jews. That line of leadership, with priest-kings descended from the re-worked ancestral line of Zadok (a son of Aaron), became known as the Hasmonean Dynasty. Herod and the Romans later took control of Judea, and did away with the Hasmonean Dynasty that descended from the Maccabees.

King Herod chose to practice Judaism—but obviously he didn’t “get it.” He was tyrant; a murderer who even killed his own sons and his wife Mariamne because of their Hasmonean ancestry!  Hardly a follower of Torah.

And so when Jesus was born, this crazed King Herod was in power over Judea as a Roman client king.

Meanwhile, another group of people in Judea felt they had a right to the throne—and by God’s word, they did. These were the Davidians, or descendants of David’s kingly line. One would think that being a descendent of King David during Jesus’ day should be quite a wonderful thing. But the princes, or male descendants in this line, were hunted by the Romans because of the threat they posed to Caesar’s leadership.  Any small cause they were given to suspect them or try them became a larger cause, and many were executed. The Davidians clung to the words of II Chronicles 7:18 (and several other such verses in Scripture) that said, “Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel.”

This, and several other verses that declared the same, all had contingencies of an upright walk before the Lord—and they had slipped and fallen along the way. Furthermore, the Davidians knew that the Messiah-King was to come through their lineage and reign forever. For this reason, the Davidians were intent upon re-establishing the throne of their father David, and the Romans knew it.  So did Herod. And he executed a great number of Davidian princes, even before the slaughter of infants he called for at the time of Jesus’ birth.

The Jewish temple leadership during that time was also aware of the Davidian aspirations. These leaders were not considered by everyone to be direct descendants of Zadok, Aaron’s son, since High Priests were supposed to have descended through the male line, and that line had become extinct. The Sanhedrin voted that the sons of three daughters at the end of the line were allowed to take the positions and re-establish the priesthood of Aaron.

The Davidians rejected their rulership. The Zadokian “cousins” were likewise jealous of the idea of the Davidian line to repossess the throne. Besides, the majority of them were happy to be puppets of King Herod the Great. He manipulated them, and they were content to partake of his riches and glory.

MARY'S ANCESTRY

There was a respected man in Jewish history named Heli the Davidian.  This young man was also called, Prince Alexander III Helios.  He was the son of the future Maccabee Queen Alexandra II. He was a descendant of both the Maccabee Kings of Judea and a prince of the House of David. His father was Matthan ben Levi, a Davidian Prince.

Prince Heli found favor with the High Priest Yeshua III, who had three daughters—Hannah, Joanna, and Elizabeth (who became the mother of John the Baptist).

Heli married Hannah, and they had a daughter, Princess Miriam, or Mary. Therefore, she was a Davidian on her father’s side, and a Zadokian priest heiress on her mother’s side.

Her Davidian father was one of those executed by King Herod the Great.  Hannah, died a few years later, leaving Miriam an orphan. Some writings say that she was raised in the temple until she was eligible for marriage about the year of her bat Mitzvoth at the age of 12-13 years of age. This has not been confirmed to any satisfaction, since evidence that the Jews had an order of Temple virgins is sketchy. However, knowing that Anna the prophetess abode in the Temple, it is feasible that there may have been a place for certain orphaned girls (such as the great-granddaughter of the late High Priest Yehoshua III) to serve.

If this is true, then Mary had unusual access to, and an appreciation of the Temple laws that she would surely pass on to her son.

JOSEPH’S ANCESTRY

For centuries, Joseph’s role in Jesus’ family has paled in comparison to that of Mary. Certainly, being the birth mother of Jesus was an honor beyond comprehension. But Joseph’s role was essential, and strategic on the part of God. Through Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ natural and legal lineage is an incredible fusion of kingdom authority!

Joseph was a Davidian prince, a Maccabee prince and heir to the High Priesthood from the legitimate House of Zadok. He was also—and this is the kicker—a legitimate heir to the Egyptian throne, AND to the throne of the Roman Empire!

Joseph’s father was apparently Jacob ben Matthat, Prince of Jerusalem. He was sent to Egypt with 3000 men, as an emissary of King Herod the Great. There, he was given the young orphan, Cleopatra VIII, to be his wife. Her mother was Cleopatra VII, the Cleopatra we associate with Mark Antony; the Cleopatra with the black hair and short bangs and eyes painted with kohl. She’s the Cleopatra played by Elizabeth Taylor in the Hollywood movie.

This Cleopatra was Joseph’s grandmother.

The young Cleopatra never knew her father—he was Julius Caesar, and he died not knowing his wife was with child.

After the double suicide of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony, young Cleopatra was in danger—not so much for being a threat to the seat of Rome, for as a female, she was not a contender. However, as a potential mother in the royal line, her future sons would be. Her uncle Octavius (who became Augustus Caesar) killed her brother Caesarion before he could even think about leadership. Apparently, it was at this point of volatile Caesarship that Jacob took his wife, the young Cleopatra, and returned to Jerusalem, where she became known in history as “Cleopatra of Jerusalem.”

Jacob (Yacov) and Cleopatra had a son, Joseph (Yoseph), then a set of twins, Ptolemy and Cleopas (this was the one in Luke 24:18), and a daughter, Salome.

When Joseph was about six years old, his father Jacob was executed by Herod for “seditions.” Cleopatra was then given to Simon Boethus, a priest, who was later killed by Herod as well. Eventually, Herod took Joseph’s mother for his own wife.

Imagine—Herod was Joseph’s own stepfather. And little did Herod know that the child whose birth was so threatening to him so was his own step-grandson!

As the son of Cleopatra VIII, Joseph had connections in Egypt. Thus, when the angel of the Lord told him to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt during Herod’s tirade at Jesus’ birth, Joseph had places to go.  It adds another dimension to the verse, “…Out of Egypt I have called my Son.” (Matthew 3:25)

It is also interesting to note that Joseph of Arimathea was Mary’s uncle (brother to Heli) and he was a very wealthy dealer in tin and antimony, and he had many business holdings and connections in Egypt. Thus, Egypt became a place of refuge on many levels for Jesus and his family.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Jesus’ ancestry—legal and natural—is significant in understanding and appreciating the reason why it took so long to manifest the Messiah. God’s plan played out perfectly! Jesus was born into a family network of rivaling authorities—He summed them all up in a single man. Truly, Yehoshua BenYosef, Jesus, son of Joseph, was born King of Kings, with rights to all the thrones of earth! The fact that so many thrones could fuse into a single Heir is mind-boggling! This knowledge should enhance your sense of awe at the wisdom and majesty of Yahovah.

This Grand Inheritance is also key in understanding the temptation of Jesus as recorded in Luke 4:

And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. –Luke 4:5-8

Think about it. Jesus had family in the highest places, even though threat of assassination forced them into obscurity.  But He knew who He was, even in the natural. Thus, the realms of glory offered by the devil were very real. If Jesus had lowered Himself (bowed) to Satan by pursuing His own agenda, He could have garnered respect, admiration, envy. No longer would He have to hide. No longer would He not have “a place to lay His head.”  He could have overthrown Caesar Augustus and assumed the throne of Rome. He could have lorded over all subkingdoms for the glory of a temporal reign.  But He did not follow His own agenda.  “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me,” (John 5:30). Jesus submitted to the plan of the Father—and that was to die for sinful, hateful, spiteful, greedy, covetous, selfish and lustful people and make a way for the heart of mankind to be reborn.

THE DISCIPLES AND APOSTLES

Many of Jesus’ disciples were also his cousins. Knowing this should help stir your study of the Bible and bring the characters to life in a new way.

James and John were the sons of Zebedee and Mary’s first cousin, Salome. Salome was the daughter of Joanna. Joanna was sister to Hannah and Elizabeth, the daughters of Yehoshua III.

So they were no strangers to Jesus when He called them. They were well-acquainted with Jesus from childhood, and well-versed in the details surrounding the time of His birth. These boys shared cousinship with John the Baptist, their grandmother, Jesus’ grandmother, and John’s mother all being sisters.

John the Baptist was, of course, Elizabeth’s son, and therefore Mary’s first cousin, and a cousin to Jesus.

Joseph’s brother Cleopas was married to “the other Mary,” and fathered James the Less and Jude. These were referred to as Jesus’ “brethren” in the Greek—but it should be noted that the Greek language uses the same word for brother as for many other kinsmen. It is likely that Jesus was an only child. It is also likely that after Joseph’s death, Cleopas (Joseph’s brother) saw after the care of Mary and Jesus according the Jewish tradition of kinsman redeemer, at least in a sense of oversight and availability, since Jesus was likely old enough by that time to work and provide for his mother. Because of this tradition, the boys would have been called brothers in a strong family sense.

The tradition of kinsman-redeemer would also be something Jesus cared about as He hung on the cross. In a sense, He facilitated the kinsman-redeemer tradition by giving his beloved mother into the care of his closest disciple--and little cousin—John, who was as near a kinsman to Mary as any other.

This would clarify the words of Jesus as He hung on the cross:

“When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”  -- John 19:26, 27

Chapter Five

~ The Names of the LORD

Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

--from Romeo and Juliet

by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is certainly no prophet, neither was theology his chosen life pursuit. But he spoke some beautiful words and came up with some great-sounding concepts.

This is one of them. It sounds good.

Yet, while a rose, by any other name, certainly smells the same, to make an all-encompassing doctrine out of it would be unwise.

Yet again, on some levels, it sure makes sense.

For example, my name is Susan. In Spain, I am Susana. In Israel, Shoshanna.  I’m Mommy to Aurora; GrannySue to Jojo, Camilla and Liam. I’m Aunt Susie to Ryan and Kyle, Mrs. Sumner to students, and SuSu to a little girl named Sara. I’m Pook to Kerry, I’m Suz to Sylvia, Tootie to Rosemary, and to my cousin Brian, I was Fooshie for many years since his infancy.

And my husband calls me Sue.

I respond to any of these names without thinking twice. They all represent who I am to a group or an individual.  But when it comes to signing my checks or registering to vote, I write Susan.

My legal authority is in my legal name.

I am not out to split hairs regarding authority in the name of Jesus, Yesu, or Yashua—I personally call Him Yehoshua when I pray alone, for that is His original ancient Aramaic name, and the one He was called on earth.  The language evolved and it became Yeshua or Yashua. The Greeks called Him Iesous, and the “J” came in with the Anglo-Saxons.  Now He’s Jesus, Yesu, and Hay-soose, depending on international pronunciations.

For centuries, people have prayed to the Father in these names. And when they prayed in His nature and character, I do believe they were praying in His Name.

Yet, His birth name was Yehoshua, and it seems important that people know that. Today, in these last days, there are many Jesuses.  “Jesus” is a name most precious to those who pursue His nature and know the true Rose of Sharon by that name or by any other name. But to the masses of unregenerate and even the nominally religious, the name has become a religious byword with little meaning; a generic catch-all for all that is wrong with religion. Even a byword and a curse. That we have opportunity today to know Him by His real name is a gift to this age.

As for the Father—He has been saddled with a generic noun for too long. “God” is not a name—it’s a noun. While it has been capitalized to set him apart from pagan gods and goddesses, “God” is still not His Name. It is a title. And one with little meaning in this age.

Throughout the Old Testament, we see the word LORD used in place of הוהי.  The title LORD was translated from the Hebrew Adonai, which is another noun, not a name. It is the Hebrew word for lord.  Sometimes Elohim was even used in the Hebrew, which is just another word for “God.”Interestingly, any pagan god was also elohim in the Old Testament  ( Do a search with a Strong’s Concordance and be amazed).  Jewish leaders put these words in place of הוהי in the 2nd century A.D., when they declared it forbidden to speak or even write the name by which God calls Himself.  “HaShem” was used in casual conversation, meaning simply, “The Name.” These substitutions were used for fear הוהי would be mispronounced, misprinted or otherwise abused, and that it could constitute the breaking of the commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain…”  Sadly, they missed the point of the commandment—mispronunciation and blasphemy are miles apart.

Mispronunciation was a very real possibility, however, and still is today. The Name of the Father is made up of four Hebrew letters—letters that, placed together, cannot be correctly pronounced with certainty. The letters of His Name, הוהי are individually pronounced YODE-HAY-VAV-HAY, which are abbreviated by the Latin letters YHVH. These four letters together form the mystery name of God, and is called by linguists the Tetragrammaton, meaning “four letters.”

But how to pronounce it all together is a mystery.  The letters that make up His Name are Hebrew vowel-consanants or semi-vowels. They usually require other adjacent letters or marks to give them their full pronunciation. Otherwise, it is like putting kcgx together, or fvfh or uiyw.  These are impossible to pronounce.

Scholars have admitted that the widely used “Yaweh” as a pronunciation was a guess, at best.  More recent linguistic studies have come up with a different take on how הוהי should be pronounced. The studies are based upon Hebrew word structures, uses of vowels and other rules of the language, along with comparisons to the many variable uses of the individual vowels.  The resultant pronunciation is YAH-HO-VAH with the accent on the last syllable. It is much like Jehovah, which has been used by some, except that there is no “J” sound in the Hebrew language, but a “Y”.  And the accent should be on the last syllable.

There is no doubt that the actual name of God is significant—it was part of His Word.

Does the Name of God matter?

This question brings us back to Shakespeare’s line, “…a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet…”

But it also brings us the words of the Father—

“I am  הוהי, (YHVH);  that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.  --Isaiah 42:8

As we have read, Jews changed His Name to Adonai (Lord), Elohim (God), and the detached and telescopic Ha’Shem  (“The Name”); subsequently King James and others followed suit, using LORD in all capitals (to give Him reverence, which was commendable).

But He has a Name! It is הוהי—YHVH.

Yahovah God made a distinction regarding the name by which He is known. He spoke about it to Moses when He disclosed His Name for the first time:

And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am הוהי:

And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name הוהי was I not known to them.

-- Exodus 6:3

The Hebrew  הוהי in the above verse (and throughout the Bible) is where the KJV has used “LORD.” The word first put there by Moses is not LORD, but YAHOVAH. God was establishing an intimacy with Moses and the people of Israel that had not been known. The people of Israel knew Him by the title, “God” (Elohim), but not by His name. Surely Elohim had become a worn out concept as they languished in bondage. And in Egypt, there were many elohim— the word translated “gods” in all the Old Testament references to pagan gods.

Yahovah God desired to have a more intimate relationship with His people—that they might truly be a set-apart nation, not one led by a generic, unseen Elohim, but by a God who is distinctly above every other:  one who has a name and a personhood, YAHOVAH.

We must consider what Yahovah meant when He said,

And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.

-- Exodus 9:16

But I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there…--2 Chronicles 6:6

Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The LORD [הוהי, YAHOVAH].                                                                           --Jeremiah 16:21

Who is man to arbitrarily figure that God is not interested in names, but natures only? To reject this question as rhetorical is foolish; to reject it as invalid is proud.

Our God has declared that He has a Name! His Character was declared to Abraham, but to Moses, He declared His Name. And to the nation He set apart, He declared His Name to be known and spread throughout the earth.

In this book, I refer to YAHOVAH as God, because general readership is not going to take kindly to His Name initially. Having spent at least 50 years of my life calling Him God, I understand how YAHOVAH resembles the Jehovah of certain cultic groups. Truly, calling one’s lifelong God by a “new” name seems suspicious.  It smacks of a religious movement, or a cult, or a legalistic sect that is getting off track with semantic issues. But we are not talking about grammar or even context. This is not Shakespeare we’re discussing, but the God of the Universe, who declared a very personal Name to those who would follow Him. It is a privilege to call Him YAHOVAH.

On a personal note, I think that calling God by His Name has a profound affects the one praying. To know and call upon the actual name of God is to doff religion and don a fresh dimension that is both personal and reverential. YAHOVAH is not just any god. He is not the cuss word we are so accustomed to hearing. He is not even the God of corrupted Judaism or corrupted Christianity. He is the God who established a Covenant with His people—a Covenant that was a picture of the Messiah. And this God of the Universe has given us a name by which we might know Him. It is הוהי.

Even so, YAHOVAH has chosen to exalt the name of His Son over His own!

I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. -- Psalm 138:2

Jesus, YEHOSHUA, is the Word made flesh! (cf John 1:14)   He is the Word that the Father has magnified above His own name.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name…            -- Philippians 2:9

I have heard it taught—and have probably taught, myself—that the “name” spoken of in the above verses and others is better interpreted as “nature, character and authority” rather than a written or spoken word. Truly, the spirit of a name is higher than the earthly characters that represent it, they being a pattern or representation of the real thing. Nevertheless, names seem to have an importance to God beyond what we understand. Who are we to say there is not more to a name than meets ear and eye?

To say that names were more significant in Old Testament times, or to cultures before Jesus, is foolish.  The Book of Revelation, which is a combination of things past, present and which is more futuristic than any book ever written, refers to “name” or “names” 36 times in the King James Version.

And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. -- Revelation 14:1

Certainly there could be a layer of metaphor in this verse. But names are written of throughout Revelation—names of the saints, the Beast; the Great Harlot; the names of stars and angels. John gave more than their nature and character in these references. Except for the mystery name/number of the Beast, John wrote their names as dictated to him in his vision. If they are only metaphors for principalities and powers, then dare we also look at the name of God—or His Son Jesus—as a metaphor?  I think not.

You see, there is import in names, and there is import in words.  And if we believe in the God of Israel who revealed to Moses the name of YAHOVAH, and if YAHOVAH is the name of the Father to Whom Jesus prayed, it seems that it would be rather important for us to call Him by name as well.

Furthermore, if YAHOVAH gave His Son a Name above His own, and if the angel said to Mary, “Call His Name YEHOSHUA” (Luke 1:31), why do we continue to call Him by an Anglicized Greek nickname?

If it seems petty to consider these things, consider this. If you meet a Mexican man named Miguel, which you know is Michael in English, shall we insist on calling him Michael just because it is our language? Or will we do him the courtesy of calling him by the name spoken over him by his mother and father, as a respect of the beauty of the culture into which he was born and known?

The culture of the Hebrews is beautiful, and meaningful beyond all cultures, for it was designed by YAHOVAH as a pattern.

To be spiritual does not mean we are above respect for these things.  There is much we still do not know about the ways of YAHOVAH.

Selah.

Chapter Six

~ God’s Calendar

The seven Feasts of the Lord are getting more press these days. And that is by God’s design! This is the age spoken of by the prophet Daniel—

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

-- Daniel 12:4

It is the time of the end. Many are running to and fro with the knowledge they receive, making quick work of a spiritual awakening, even turning the hearts, minds and eyes of His people back to Jerusalem, where He will make His glorious return!

Part of this awakening concerns an awareness of the Feasts of the Lord and their significance in end times. The Feasts of the Lord should not be deemed as mere “Jewish Holidays” with pagan corruptions. In their original state, they are prophetic shadow-pictures of good things to come.  And they are and have been prophetic on numerous levels.

We know that the Law of God was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. We know the writings of Moses as the first five books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. We know that these five books constitute the Torah, or the Law.

The Feasts of the Lord are part of the Torah. They were commanded to be kept. And it was not a hard thing to keep these glorious parties—they were exciting! The Feasts offered families great times together with music and food and celebration of the bounties given by God as a result of following His formulas for success! God’s law of sowing and reaping was celebrated in the Feasts. And woven throughout them was a larger “agricultural” picture—a picture of sowing the Savior into the grave in death and harvesting souls in resurrection; a picture of times and seasons on a greater scale. These Feast offer a codified celebration of Christ’s coming to redeem mankind with His own Blood.

We are about to see how wonderfully coded these Feasts are.

But before studying these Feasts, it is necessary to understand God's calendar—His reckoning of times, days, months, and years.

It may come as a surprise to you to realize that the Bible clearly outlines God’s calendar. And it does not begin with January 1.

January is part of the Gregorian calendar, named for Pope Gregory in 1582. It was adapted from the Julian calendar of Julius Caesar in 46 BC. Prior to that, the Roman calendar was the most widely used, named for Romulus, the founder of Rome, around 753 BC. Prior to that, there were numerous calendars scattered worldwide, including the famous—and now expired—Mayan calendar, which “ran out of days” in 2012, causing people to expect the end of the world. The truth is, the stone upon which it was written was just too small!

These calendars which men have devised and calculated have nothing to do with God’s timetable. But God, in fact, has His own calendar—and it provides a framework whereby man might keep track of time on many levels.

God’s idea of a calendar year was first played out in the events of the Exodus, when the Israelites were freed from bondage in Egypt. God used that year as a pattern for timekeeping for the children of Israel.

DAYS

God’s calendar, like all calendars, begins with a 24-hour day. But the thing that sets off God’s calendar from the rest is the fact that with God, a day begins in darkness—at sunset. Moses and the people of Israel knew that a day begins at sunset, as he repeatedly writes in Genesis 1, "...And the evening and the morning were the first [second, third, etc.] day...."  A day begins in darkness, and the light comes upon it with the dawn, as the sun rises over the horizon. It is a microcosm of creation. First there was darkness upon the face of the deep. Then, God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light.

So every 24-hour-day begins at sunset. To this day, it is so with the Jews.  It is the way Jesus observed days on earth. They began at sunset. They ended at sunset.  It is important to know this as you study your Bible, for it is a basic Hebraic postulate.

WEEKS

Moses' account of timekeeping has a strong basis in what God said to him regarding weeks. In Leviticus 23:

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings. --Leviticus 23:1-3

God created the earth in six days of whatever length they were—and on the seventh day, He rested. In like manner, and as a reenactment and remembrance, mankind was commanded to rest on the Sabbath (seventh, or Shabbat, in Hebrew) day. Days of the week were simply called "the first day, the second day, the third day," and so on. (The names of the days of the week on our Gregorian calendar were named for pagan gods--Sunday after the sun god, Monday after the moon god, Thursday for Thor, Saturday for Saturn, and for other lesser known gods and planets.)

Today, according to God’s calendar, the Sabbath begins Friday night at sunset and ends Saturday night at sunset. So if you have a Sunday job, let no man accuse you of working on the Sabbath!

MONTHS

The next element of the calendar is of course, the month.

In God’s reckoning of time, a new month begins with each new moon.

God declared the first month of the year in Exodus:

And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,

This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. -- Exodus 12:1

The time of year at the time this was spoken can be determined by a single clue: the barley was ripe.  We know this because it was ripe when it was smitten with hail (see Exodus 9:31). Barley in Israel is ripe in early spring.

While every month was declared with the sighting of the first sliver of a new moon, the first month of the year was not necessarily the one that came after the 12th month called Adar. In fact, if a certain criterion was not met, there could actually be a 13th month inserted in a given year. That month was called Adar Bet, or “Adar II”.  Adar Bet afforded the compensation for the planetary rotations that create Gregorian “leap years.” This extra month happens seven times in a 19-year cycle.

The criterion for Aviv, and hence the new year, was simply that the barley would be ripe at the time of the new moon.

When a new moon appeared and the barley in the fields were white, the shofar was sounded, and the High Priest declared that the month was Aviv—the first month of a brand new year. Aviv, or abib simply means “ripened barley”, and this became the name of the first month of the year until pagan influence caused Jews to change the name to Nisan, after a pagan god. Considering the true holiness of the events in the month of Aviv (which you are about to learn), the name change seems to be one of many strategic moves from the kingdom of darkness to symbolically defile Paschal season on some level. This will be revealed in greater detail as the Feasts are revealed in a later chapter.

WHEN DID PEOPLE STOP FOLLOWING GOD’S CALENDAR?

Although God’s calendar system was interrupted due to Jewish captivity and forced submission to other empires, it was finally done away with in the third century A.D., when the Sanhedrin adopted a modified version of the calendar that was no longer dependent on ripened barley and the new moon, but on a system of mathematics. The problem with this Rabbinic calendar is that it changes the dates that God has already set in motion with the stars and planets. The calendar was perfectly kept when Jesus was crucified, buried and raised, and when the Day of Pentecost followed seven weeks following Passover. The question is, if His return is based upon the predetermined seasons, how can we “know perfectly” the seasons, as Paul said?

Chapter Seven

~ The Feasts of the LORD

Each Feast was established during the very first year from the time of the Exodus from Egypt and followed the events of that first year in the wilderness. Therefore, the Feasts may be observed on a variety of levels: HISTORICAL, PRACTICAL and PROPHETIC--past, present and future!

The following study will show the Feasts, but also the significant days that led up to them--particular days that also parallel spiritual and prophetic things. You will understand as you read.

DAY ONE (AVIV 1, the first day of the year)

When the first day of the first month of the new year was declared (see Chapter Three to see how that happened), ten omer of standing barley shocks were marked immediately by the priests for the firstfruits harvest--but they were not yet cut.

This barley season was chosen to be the beginning of the year because it was the season during which the children of Israel were released from Egyptian captivity. Remember that Exodus 12 says, "And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 'This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.'"  As the previous chapter said, the plague of hail had just destroyed the barley crop that was in an advanced stage of development, or aviv. If the barley was not ripe, it would have been resilient enough to survive; however, the grain was in the head, and it was smitten.

At the end of a given year (the first year, it was after winter, and the expected time of barley), and after the waning of the moon, two priests went out to the Mount of olives in the evening and looked down toward the barley fields to see if they were white unto harvest. Then they looked toward the sky, and waited to see the first sliver of a new moon. If the first sliver of a new moon was sighted, and the barley was indeed ripe, the new year was declared, and the month was called Aviv. The shofar was sounded, and the High Priest marked ten shocks of barley to be cut later. No one could harvest the barley yet.

When Aviv was declared in the last two weeks of Jesus’ life, it was near the time when Lazarus was raised from the dead. Jesus had been staying near the place where John first baptized when He heard that Lazarus was sick.

He waited two full days before going to him.

This was upsetting to Mary and Martha, who were certain their brother would not have died if Jesus had not taken His time in coming.

It is interesting that Jesus wept. Certainly He loved Lazarus. But his tears were probably not tears of mourning, knowing that He was about to buy eternal life for all mankind. More likely, the tears and groans came from the weight of knowing what time it was. Jesus knew the times and seasons. He knew that the Spring Feasts that the Jews had celebrated for thousands of years pointed to the time at hand—His death, burial and resurrection. The timing was perfect, and by stalling that extra two days, He ensured the death and burial of Lazarus so that He would not heal him, but raise him up. That way, a major story would be spread throughout all Jerusalem, and it would spread quickly as thousands came to the city to be atoned for at Passover. This would create the stir necessary for a hasty trial and crucifixion. He was being sought by the Jews already. The news would travel fast; the Sanhedrin would have to convene and discuss how this Jesus was drawing followers who could create a new faction, cause a revolt and disturb the shaky-yet-working relationship between the Jews and the Roman Empire—and cost them all their jobs, if not their heads.

After raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus called his followers and disciples, and instructed them to meet at a certain place near the North gate on Aviv 10.

Hold that thought.

AVIV 10

The first recorded Aviv 10 is back in Egypt, when the Israelites were preparing for the plague of the firstborn with a sacrificial lamb—a lamb for a house (Exodus 12:3).

This is one of the most exciting connections I have come across in my Hebraic studies. It concerns the happenings of this particular day as the prophetic picture played out in the reality of Jesus’ life.  Aviv 10—the tenth day of the declared new year—was the day when each Jewish household was required to take a perfect lamb from their flock and separate and inspect it for four days (see Exodus 12:5, 6). The High Priest, meanwhile, selected a lamb without spot or blemish to take the sins of the nation as a whole. This was also the day when the Jews would officially begin purging their homes of all leaven for the Feast of Passover, which would occur at the onset of the 14th day, which began at sundown at the close of the 13th day.

This day of Aviv 10 was prophetic, of course, and it was fulfilled in Jesus' final year on earth. This is the day of Jesus' "Triumphal Entry" into Jerusalem, and it is where we get Palm Sunday.  But Palm Sunday should be so much more awe-inspiring than we have made it! We've actually had the facts a bit skewed.  Most people think that all the people who were waving palm branches and shouting, "Hosanna!" were ALL believers and supporters of Jesus. It didn't seem to compute with the idea that three days later they would be shouting, "Crucify him!!"

So let's see what was really going on that day, Aviv 10, in Jerusalem.

It had become a custom that the High Priest would leave the Temple Mount by the North Gate, flanked by a crowd of Levites (priests) bearing palm fronds. That High Priest would make a trip a few miles down the road to Bethlehem to choose a spotless lamb from among the country's choicest flocks. (Now isn't that a remarkable parallel already? Jesus, the Lamb of God, was born in Bethlehem!)  Meanwhile, approximately 100,000 people had flocked to Jerusalem, as it was commanded that Jewish men should be there for the High Holy Days.  Of course, their wives and children came along, so the city was jam-packed with celebration, reunions, family, excitement.  It was customary to deck the city with palm branches and boughs of cedar and pine and other greenery. The occasion was extremely festive and the big-city excitement was looked forward to by all.

The night before this, Jesus was in Bethany visiting Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead not many days prior.  Jesus' fame had spread, and certainly many folk in Jerusalem would wonder whether they might catch a glimpse of this new celebrity who reportedly healed the sick and raised the dead.  While he was there, Jesus prepared some of His local followers--perhaps 100 or more--to meet Him at the North Gate with a donkey covered with their robes, or tallits  (tah-LEETS).  While the High Priest was coming in the distance, a crowd of celebrants was gathering fast, each wanting to catch a glimpse of the High Priest in his God-designed garments, and the very special spotless lamb that would die for the sins of all Israel.

Late that day, every eye was facing Bethlehem as the High Priest appeared in the distance with the  Paschal lamb in tow.  Meanwhile, our High Priest and Lamb, Yehoshua, Jesus, was riding the little donkey toward the East Gate—where the High Priest was expected to enter. One hundred thousand people were ready to cry out as one!  And Jesus waited for the perfect moment.

Perhaps on cue, Jesus' followers pressed in around Him and behind Him, waving branches and crying, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!" The greatest number of people could not see the High Priest and Lamb; neither could they see Jesus on the donkey.  But they heard the shouts and saw the palm branches waving, and the rippling effect of ecstatic celebrants must have completely blocked the gate, leaving the High Priest with the Paschal lamb standing outside in an awkward state of confusion.

Jesus' triumphal entry might seem rude to some, but consider that His entry was the real thing--the High Priest and lamb were simply a type and shadow of Jesus! He was both High Priest and Lamb of God! He was the reason the Feasts were established in the first place!

The priests finally discovered the source of the clamor, and sought to regain control of the crowd. They demanded that Jesus' disciples stop shouting. But Jesus said, "I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out," (Luke 19:40). That is because all creation knew Him! His signature is embedded in every atom, every molecule, every particle of Creation.

Jesus went on to the Temple Mount, where He drove out the moneychangers who were selling sacrificial animals at unfair prices for profit.  Imagine how He felt, knowing He was Himself to be a Sacrificial Lamb. There was nothing sacred in these merchants' approach to sacrifice. It was a way to make a buck, since everyone had to be atoned for, and not everyone had the animals to die in their stead. The merchants took advantage of the situation and probably sold inferior animals at a premium rather than help their fellow men in the keeping of the Law.

The ruckus in the Temple surely angered the Pharisees, especially since the blind and the lame came to Him there and He healed them as little children continued shouting their Hosanna's meant for the High Priest. Which, in truth, He was.

For the next couple of days, Jesus, like the Paschal lamb, was under scrutiny by the Jewish leaders. Finally, they decided they had grounds to arrest Him, and they sought Him.

On Tuesday evening at sundown the 13th day began, as did the preparation for the next evening's Passover meal. As the sun begins to set, it is supper time. The Lord Jesus knows this is His last supper. But it is not the official Passover meal.  If it were, He would not have girded Himself with a towel and washed the disciples' feet, for it was a High Sabbath, and no servile work was allowed to be done. Furthermore, when supper was ended, He took bread, sopped it, gave it to Judas. It was the last bit of leaven, and He sent Judas out with it. The disciples thought He was sending Judas to buy something for the Passover meal, for it was preparation day. If it were Passover, the disciples would not think that Jesus would send Judas to buy anything, for it was the High Sabbath, and such dealings were prohibited.

So it was Tuesday evening to a Gentile. To Jesus, it was the beginning of the fourth day of the week. After supper, He and the disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemene. Jesus wanted to pray there. As you recall, Judas betrayed Him and brought four quaternions of soldiers there to apprehend Him--four quaternions, or 16 armed men were sent to arrest Jesus!

That night was a busy one for the Lord. After a mock trial, He was taken to the northern quadrant of Pilate's judgment hall. Why Pilate and not the Jewish leaders who normally took care of their own business within the Roman Empire?  Because it was preparation day. The Jews were getting leaven out of their homes, becoming ceremonially clean as required, and the religious leaders did not want to go in and be defiled and have to go through all the cleansing again. So Pilate had to go do the talking himself. Of course, Pilate thinks it’s all ridiculous.

Now it is early in the morning, what Gentiles would know as Wednesday. The High Priest is busy with final inspection of the Paschal lamb, and is about to declare the lamb spotless. Meanwhile, Pilate's has awakened, having had a horrible dream that somehow related to the situation, and she tells Pilate to have nothing to do with Jesus.  So Pilate stands before the people early--at the same time the High Priest is closing up the inspection. And they probably declare at the same time--one regarding a Paschal lamb, and the other regarding the Lamb of God--"I FIND NO FAULT IN HIM.”

But the Jews wanted Him crucified. Jesus is subsequently beaten; the wood of the sacrifice is laid on His shoulder. He is led up to what was once the highest peak of Mount Moriah. And there, on that same ancient mountain where Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God provides Himself a Lamb.  The Temple Mount was darkened. The last lamb--the Paschal lamb--was about to be slain. It was the ninth hour. And as the lamb was offered upon the altar, the High Priest, in garments soaked in the blood of the lamb, would shout the final proclamation, "IT IS FINISHED!"

AVIV 14--FEAST OF PASSOVER

After four days the lamb was slain and the Feast of Passover took place.  It was marked by the eating of the lamb at sundown, to commemorate the evening when the death angel passed over the blood-marked Israelite homes during the plague of the firstborn in Egypt.

These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD'S passover.     -- Leviticus 23:4, 5

He was prepared for burial quickly, without the usual anointing (but it should be remembered that He was anointed with oil days before in Bethany, by the woman with the alabaster box). The lambs that were slain throughout the day were being roasted and readied. He was buried before sunset on Wednesday evening, which was right before the Passover meal. They hurried, because sunset began the High Sabbath wherein no work was allowed, and His body had to be buried in time for all persons to be cleansed and ready for the Passover meal. It was surely a hectic time.

It was also a hectic time for the High Priest, who, after declaring "It is finished" with the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb, had to descend from the Temple mount and put the sickle to the barley shocks that had been marked at the foot of the Mount of Olives. It was the harvest of firstfruits. The shocks of grain were then laid out in the Temple where the priest was cloistered until the first day following the Sabbath. This was the pattern that had been observed since the time of Moses. Sometimes the grain would dry for one day; sometimes two; sometimes five. But this time, it was three days and three nights.

Jesus lay in the grave for three full days and three full nights, in keeping with the sign of the prophet Jonas, which was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish. The High Priest was also secluded in the Temple until the next weekly Sabbath was ended before he was able to present the barley unto the Lord as the firstfruits. This year, he was cloistered for three days and three nights.

AVIV 15--FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

This seven-day observance required advance preparation of cleansing the house of all leaven. For seven days, leavened bread was prohibited.

And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. --Leviticus 23:6-8

The Feast lasted seven days, and two High Sabbaths were included--the day of the Passover Feast and the seventh day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (which was the eighth day of the Passover season).   High Sabbaths were holy convocations during which no work could be done.   These high days did not necessarily fall upon a regular Sabbath (Friday night). They could occur any day of the week. So there were potentially three Sabbaths during that week--the two high days and the regular Sabbath.

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.  And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD. And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin.  And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. -- Leviticus 23:9-14

AVIV 17--THE FEAST OF FIRSTFRUITS and THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS!

When the morning dawned on what we know as Sunday, Jesus had already been raised from the dead. But He had not yet gone to the Father--He told Mary at the tomb, "Touch me not; for I have not yet ascended to the Father." Yet, a few hours later, He actually told Thomas to touch his hands and side. Why could Mary not touch Him?

It is because the High Priest had not yet ceremonially offered the firstfruits of grain--so Jesus, our great High Priest had not yet presented Himself as the Firstfruits of the resurrection until the appointed time, the appointed hour! It is interesting to note that on that morning many dead appeared in the city and were seen of men. The graves had opened; the bodies of the saints which slept, arose. Were they among the firstfruits harvest that our High Priest waved before the Lord?!

He was raised from the dead sometime Saturday night (which to a Jew was the start of a new day, remember), for the women who came to finish the anointing came to the tomb before daylight.

AVIV 21--THE FINAL DAY OF THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

This day was also a High Sabbath. It was probably a very needed time of rest, since Jerusalem had been so crowded and busy and exciting.

THE NEXT MONTH

The next month was calculated by watching the moon. The first sliver of the new moon signified the start of the new month. There were no "leap years" as in modern Gentile calendars; but the slack was made up with the month of Adar Bet that was added to the end of a year if the barley was not aviv. Adar Bet occurred about every 19 years. This is how the months were figured throughout the rest of the year.

THE FEAST OF PENTECOST—SHAVUOT

The next feast—which was Pentecost—was calculated by counting the days the way Yahovah instructed. In Leviticus 23 we find that He told Moses to count 49 days (7 weeks) from the first day that follows the Sabbath that follows Passover--in other words, from the Feast of Firstfruits, seven full weeks were to be counted. In Deuteronomy 16:9 it says something that would seem to be different: "Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee; from the time the sickle is first put to the standing corn shalt thou begin to number seven weeks." We know that the sickle was first put to the grain by the High Priest on Passover. However, the people could not begin harvesting until the Feast of Firstfruits; for the Lord required an offering of the first portion by the High Priest before the masses could begin harvesting their fields. This, of course, occurred on the first day that followed the Sabbath that follows Passover.  So the Scripture is not contradictory. Can you see how it helps to know the customs and ways that were instituted by the Lord? Without understanding them, many accounts written in Bible are very difficult to reconcile.

This season between the Passover season and Pentecost was called the "counting of the omer." From the time the omer of barley was offered, they commenced to count the days. The 50th day would be the day after the Sabbath, and it was called The Feast of Pentecost. It would include another Firstfruits offering--this time, one of wheat.

This 50th day was also the anniversary of the Ten Commandments! The Lord wrote His Laws on tables of stone that day.  But when the Day of Pentecost came for the disciples, after Jesus had gone to the Father, the Lord sent the Holy Spirit and wrote His Laws on their hearts!

The Day of Pentecost was the last of the Spring Feasts of the Lord.  Jesus has satisfied each of them--He has fulfilled them Himself. We can see it now, and we have a greater appreciation for the rehearsals that are depicted in the Feasts. We cannot keep the Feasts as the Jews did before the Messiah came, because now there is no need for animal sacrifices and the priestly service in the Temple. But we can still observe them, and certainly keep the Law to the best of our ability. Yehoshua made it simple: Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself! On these two, He said, all the requirements of the law and the admonitions of prophets are hung. It is not as easy as you might think. Therefore, keep the rest of the Law handy to remind yourself of what it means to be that unselfish.

The Fall Feasts

The Fall Feasts--Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles, or Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, should be of particular interest to you, the seeker. That is because Jesus, Yehoshua has fulfilled the Spring Feasts to incredible detail...but the Fall Feasts have not yet been fulfilled! So the next time someone tells you that the things of the Torah or Law do not matter because "Jesus already fulfilled the Law," perhaps you can teach them the way a little more perfectly.

It is presumed and expected by students of our Lord's return, that the event will occur on the Feast of Trumpets at some time in the future. It is a bit more than possible. It is obviously something the Lord has planned from the beginning. It fits His patterns and prophecies in every way.

THE FEAST OF TRUMPETS (YOM TERUAH)

The Fall Feasts were ordered by date: "On the seventh month, on the first day of the month...", etc.  The first day of the seventh month  (now called Tishri 1)  marked the Feast of Trumpets, or DAY of NOISE. When the sliver of the new moon was sighted on that day, the trumpets (shofars) blasted all across the land--the blowers of the shofars, or ram's horns, were situated across the miles, each listening for the trumpet blast from the sighting on the Mount--it was their signal to sound the shofar in their areas.  Thus, with trumpets sounding 100 haunting blasts each, the people knew that the "Ten Days of Awe" had begun.

THE FEAST OF ATONEMENT (YOM KIPPUR)

The Ten Days of Awe was a period of self-examination and repentance before the High Priest offered a sacrifice for the nation, the priesthood, and himself. The final day, the Day of Atonement, was a culmination of soul-searching. It was the one day of the year when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies and sprinkled the blood of a sacrificed lamb on the Mercy Seat--the lid of the Ark of the Covenant--and hoped that God would accept it.

It was a very serious time, since the High Priest who entered the Holy of Holies did not know whether God would accept the offering of blood. If the Lord did accept it, the shekinah glory of God would appear above the Mercy Seat between the two golden cherubim. If it was not accepted (and only the Lord would know the hearts of the penitent), the priest would die on the spot.

THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES (SUKKOT)

On the 15th day of Tishri, the Feast of Tabernacles began. This was a joyous 8-day occasion, especially following the season of awe and atonement.

Each family was required to spend the week in a sukkah, or a tent-like hut made to Yahovah's specifications. It was three sided; it could only be made of wood. The ceiling was required to be latticed, or open enough to see the stars. Families enjoyed this "camping out" time, and women decked them with greenery and gourds, for it coincided with the harvest of fruits and vegetables before winter.

While we still await the fulfillment of this Feast by the rebuilding of the Temple where Jesus will rule, we need to remember that the Feast of Tabernacles had TWO High Days within it--the first was Tishri 15. The second was eight days later, on Tishri 22, the final day of the year's Feasts.

Did Jesus already fulfill the first High Day of this Feast? I personally think there is something to it. In fact, all evidence points to His birth on that very day.

According to the calculation of hints in the Gospels (the time of Zecharias' ministry; the time of Elizabeth's sixth month of pregnancy; the time of Roman taxation in Bethlehem, which likely took advantage of the family pilgrimages) Jesus was born during the Feast of Tabernacles, probably on the first day, Tishri 15, a High Day. Eight days later on another High Day would have been the day of His circumcision.

Another thing to consider is this:  The word translated manger in the Bible is the Greek word, skene. If you were to translate the Hebrew word sukkah into Greek, it would be skene as well. The Greek text recorded Hebrew situations.  My point? My point is that Jesus was probably wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a sukkah, not a feeding trough. And that would be appropriate for a Law-keeping male Jew who just happened to be the Lamb of God.

These were the Feasts of the Lord. These ARE the Feasts of the Lord!  It is impossible and unnecessary  to observe the Levitical rituals that God’s people once did, since there is no longer a need for sacrificial lambs (Jesus is our Lamb), and since the sons of Aaron have long been scattered. HOWEVER, the Feasts of Yahovah are still patterns of things past, present and things to come. We were never told to forsake them altogether. Christians as a whole have discarded them as something anti-Christian. This is a complete misconception. The Feasts of the Lord are the most complete picture of Christ than anything we have available to us. The Gospels cannot even contain the depth of His Purposes that are contained in His Moadim, His Feasts. They are a complete pattern; a history of the Law, a history of Jesus, a pattern of the Father’s ways that can be applied to your life today; and they are definitely a shadow of the second coming of Yehoshua—Jesus Christ. The more we understand the fabric of the Moadim, the more we will understand the book of Revelation. You cannot separate the two; the Law and the Spirit are one.

This is the very reason why the Babylon Conspiracy (as I have dubbed it in this website) exists. If Satan can get people to avoid understanding the Feasts and why God instituted them, then he can keep people operating on an earthly plane. They will not understand the plan of God, and therefore the thoughts and intents of God will be nothing but a confusion of religious ideas with a lot of holes. That is where Christianity is now. We are observing a one-dimensional religious idea that is too easily shot down by naysayers and “proven” to be as weak as every other religion. Didn’t you ever wonder why you have so much trouble defending your faith? If you really understood its foundations, you would have an answer for every question.  It ALL goes back to the beginning. We need to understand the beginning, and where Judaism and Christianity both went wrong. Jesus constantly came against Jewish tradition—the additions and reworkings of the Pharisees, the lawyers who nitpicked the life right out of the Law by interpreting it as a “to do” list rather than an eternal pattern of being.  Christianity started out with foundations in non-Pharisaical Judaism—the kind Christ preached—but wound up with its own kind of Pharisees. Christianity began to be corrupted by the third century, by persons such as Constantine. He was a self-proclaimed father of the faith while yet a worshipper of Mithras the sun-god, and thereby brought much idolatry into Christendom. Constantine was also a politician. What he did, he did for his empire, and he sought to please persons of all faiths. This “politically correct” approach made puppets of the people, and marginalized religions to fit the dictates of the state. And so it is today.  Most Christians don’t even seem to know it. If you’ve ever watched Star Trek, think of traditional religion as assimilation by the Borg.  Christians say they are one. But what kind of collective is it?

But Jesus, Yehoshua, IS coming back to dwell among us in glory.

If you would like to really know the Creator, if you would like to really understand the salvation proposed in the person of Jesus Christ, then go back to the beginning. Study the Feasts of the Lord—the pattern. By knowing the pattern, you can recognize when things are not according to pattern. You will be able to recognize what is man-made religion and what is Truth. This you will do, not by the letter only (rather, not simply by a formula of literal things) but by the Spirit; and this Spirit will only work where there is faith in the basics—the existence of God, the desire to be in right standing with Him, the willingness to pursue the requirements, and ultimately embrace the Truth of John 3:16.

NOW A WORD ABOUT HANNUKAH

Hannukah, or the Feast of Dedication, is not part of the Seven Feasts of the Lord, but it was mentioned in the Bible, so it bears looking into. It is perhaps better known as the Feast of Lights because of later additions of pagan trappings and Talmudic tradition. But it was first instituted after the Babylonian captivity, when the Jews returned to their homeland only to find that the Temple was still occupied by pagans, had been planted with trees and shrubs for their worship of earth, and was being defiled by them with the sacrifice of pigs on the site that was once God's Holy Altar.

A Jew named Judas Maccabeus and his brothers started a revolt and took over the Temple, reclaiming it for the Jews. They uprooted and burned the trees and hauled out the stones of the profaned altar. They cleansed the place and brought in new stones, building the altar according to the original pattern of God. They burned Holy sacrifices on the altar for eight days nonstop, to re-dedicate it to the Lord, Yahovah God.  This is Hannukah--the Feast that has been shunned and disdained by Christians. But in the Gospel of John, chapter 10, Jesus was in the Temple on the Feast of Dedication--Hannukah--as was customary for devout Jewish men.

It is also interesting to note that if Jesus was born on Tishri 15, His conception (and Mary's visitation by the angel Gabriel) occurred on or near Hannukah. John the Baptist would be born three months later--at Passover. Six months after that would be Tishri 15. These things are interesting to consider. God does nothing at random. If He knows the number of hairs on your head, He certainly orders all things with meaningful order and precision. Oh, how I love Him!

DO WE NEED TO KEEP THE FEASTS TODAY?

The Feasts were a shadow picture of things to come—the Messiah! Jesus the Messiah did not come to point us to the Law; the Law was given to point to Jesus. We must be careful not to get it backwards and wind up hallowing the pictures that point us to worship and righteousness and miss the heart of worship, and righteousness that surpasses ritual.

We know that we can no longer perform Temple rites in the natural--Jesus is now both High Priest and Lamb; and we are His temple.

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? --1Corinthians 3:16

There is no more need for a temple made with hands at this time. There is no need for the mercy seat, the candlesticks, the table of showbread. We are now His temple, His place of dwelling. And the elements of the temple were fulfilled in Him—He is the Living Water in the brazen laver that washes us clean; He is the Bread of Life; He is the Light of the world.  And His Blood sprinkled the mercy seat for us, once, and for all. Jesus life and death was not a metaphor or symbol of a sacrificial lamb; rather, sacrificial lambs and the elements of atonement and cleansing were a prophetic picture of Him! Everything in the temple pointed to Him.  The communion, the visitation that once took place in the temple now takes place in us.

Paul made this clear in his letter to the Hebrews, chapter 9:

1  Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.

2  For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary.

3  And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all;

4  Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;

5  And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.

6  Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.

7  But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:

8  The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:

9  Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;

10  Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.

11  But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;

12  Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

13  For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:

14  How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

15  And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

16  For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.

17  For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.

18  Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood.

19  For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,

20  Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.

21  Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.

22  And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

25 Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;

26  For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

27  And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

28  So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. --Hebrews 9:1-28

But what do we do with the words of Moses—the recorded words of Yahovah God, who said we must keep these laws and ordinances and feasts forever, throughout our generations?

Let’s look at some of these words:

And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. --Exodus 12:14

And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever.  -- Exodus 12:17

And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always.

In the tabernacle of the congregation without the vail, which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before the LORD: it shall be a statute for ever unto their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.  -- Exodus 27:20, 21

So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they die not: and it shall be a statute for ever to them, even to him and to his seed throughout their generations.  -- Exodus 30:21

All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations concerning the offerings of the LORD made by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy.   -- Leviticus 6:18

Which the LORD commanded to be given them of the children of Israel, in the day that he anointed them, by a statute for ever throughout their generations.  --Leviticus 7:36

Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations:    -- Leviticus 10:9

And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations. --Leviticus 17:7

And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. -- Leviticus 23:14

And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations. --Leviticus 23:21

Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.               -- Leviticus 23:31

And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month…

-- Leviticus 23:41

Without the vail of the testimony, in the tabernacle of the congregation, shall Aaron order it from the evening unto the morning before the LORD continually: it shall be a statute for ever in your generations. -- Leviticus 24:3

And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubilee...  -- Leviticus 25:30

And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow with the trumpets; and they shall be to you for an ordinance for ever throughout your generations. -- Numbers10:8

One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation, and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance for ever in your generations…  -- Numbers 15:15

But the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations…-- Numbers 18:23

These are the words of Yahovah—they are not to be taken lightly. But the purpose of all of these laws were to provide a pattern for them to follow—they were not an end in themselves forever. The blood of lambs stayed the hand of judgment for a time; but it could not buy eternal life.  Those who died under the Law did so, still awaiting the Messiah, still awaiting the promise of Eternal Life. It was not until Jesus descended into the place of the dead and opened the gates into Heaven that they could enjoy the fullness of eternity in the Presence of the Lord.  Rituals could not provide this—only the resurrected Lamb of God!

Does Yahovah desire that His people return to a pattern or picture instead of the reality? No, not according to Paul, as we read in Hebrews 10, the first 18 verses:

1  For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

2  For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.

3  But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

4  For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

5  Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

6  In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

7  Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

8  Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;

9  Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

10  By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

11  And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:

12  But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

13  From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

14  For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

15  Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,

16  This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

17  And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

18  Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. --Hebrews 10:1-18

The law, being a picture, is bondage. Yet, it still provides a pattern of good things to come; for Jesus has only fulfilled the Spring Feasts with His coming. He will return to fulfill the Fall Feasts!

Chapter Eight

~ Babylon

I remember few things about freshman college courses. But a few moments do stand out in my mind.  One of them happened in a World Civilizations class.  Somehow a discussion arose concerning the Madonna-and-child theme of many ancient religions. "The virgin birth and mother-and-child ideas have been around for thousands of years before Christ," the professor said, citing proofs of ancient engravings and statues significantly pre-dating the time of Jesus. The discussion that followed seemed to summarize that Christianity was a copycat religion that simply piggy backed other ancient myths. I wanted to defend my faith, but I couldn't argue--as an exceptionally young college student at age 17, I was emotionally intimidated by the whole college experience. Besides, I had very little intellectual ammo on the subject. All I had was my blind, traditional faith. I knew I would be slapped down with facts that I couldn't refute, so I just sat quietly and let the rest of the class crucify my Christ yet again.

The topic moved on, but I couldn't get the faith-testing burr out of my head. It needled me and bothered me, and I remembered it for more than 30 years.

Three decades after that class, the availability of internet study tools and limitless information offered knowledge with a single click. And by doing a bit of research, I eventually discovered that my old professor was right. Between the ages marked by Eden and Bethlehem, legends emerged regarding several mythological gods who were said to have miraculously been born of virgin mothers.  And they were all traceable to Mesopotamia, to the days surrounding the Tower of Babel.  But people of faith in Yahovah God know that the citizens of Babel had a common ancestor--Noah. And God preserved more than animals on the ark. He preserved an oral record of all he had done, and perhaps a written one as well in the Book of Enoch, which was quoted by Jude.

So the copycat religion was not Christianity, not even its Hebraic foundations.

For millennia, pagan religions have woven their savior stories and virgin birth motifs with a thread of truth based upon an eternal pattern--one that was outlined in Eden when God declared the coming One who would rise from the seed of man and undo the effect of sin. Besides the oral passing down of that information (which became polluted), there were—and are—actual signs in the heavens: constellations that have told the story of salvation from the beginning of time!  And there you have it. God, who created the stars and hung them in place, told the celestial story first. All other versions—with constellations renamed Virgo, Aries, and other mythological gods—are adaptations inspired by Satan himself to thwart the purposes of God from the birth of civilization.

Satan has had reason to fear. He knew that God had promised a Savior through the seed of woman--a Savior who would crush the serpent's head.  From that prophetic declaration, Satan immediately set out to bruise His heel and hinder His cause. One of his strategies was to undermine the miracle of His coming incarnation. By "getting there first" with the virgin birth idea, Satan sought to make Christ's coming look like a cheap copycat religion that thinking persons would never buy into.  Nevertheless, Satan's claims are not original.

Consider that the ancient peoples of Babylonia were ALL descendants of Noah--and that Noah was the one who passed down all the history of Eden to those who survived the Great Flood. Noah carried on the words of Adam and bore the records of Enoch.  He was well versed in the prophecy that a Savior would be born of a woman (Genesis 3); he knew that the sun, moon and stars were created by Yahovah. And he knew that the heavens declared the glory of God, even telling the story of the coming Savior.  Noah conveyed these things to his sons, and his sons conveyed them to their children. It is obvious that the very ones who devised the first pagan religions since the Flood, borrowed ideas from these original truths of the Sovereign Creator, who had been revered  by faithful men from the Beginning.

Who were these rebellious descendants of Noah?  For this, we have to look at secular history as well as Scripture. And this is where many Christians fall short, thinking that anything outside of canon is evil.

We have to realize that history is history, and it is all necessary in order to put the pieces of this earth puzzle together. And when we look back to the place where it all began to fall apart, we find that all available historical information points to the likes of Nimrod, Noah's great-grandson, and his wife, Semiramis. The two ruled Mesopotamia and oversaw the building of the great Tower of Babel.

I should point out that there is a theory of history circulating which came from the writings of Alexander Hislop, a Scottish theologian, in the early-to-mid 19th century. His book titled, The Two Babylons created quite a stir in the Catholic Church, as his writings lambasted Roman Catholicism for its pagan elements, tracing it all to ancient Babylon.  While, it stands to reason that one is going to be scrutinized for speaking out against the religious mainstream, Hislop seems to have erred in not citing his sources.  The history of ancient Babylon is existent only in bits and pieces of ancient written and less ancient but very old written oral records. The writings of Eusebius, Orosius, Justinus, Josephus, Valerius Maximus, Homer, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Lucian  and Armenian History among hundreds of other sources, is necessary to piece it all together. Hislop took the numerous similarities in mythology, found some common denominators, and developed a formula as to how it all evolved. It is not far-fetched at all. Few have attempted to do this from a Judeo-Christian perspective it seems, but Hislop seems to have been a pioneer. His theories may have been arbitrary, but truly they make spiritual and historical sense. And while details may not be precise, the roots of paganism in the Church and the World cannot be disputed.

One author who used Hislop’s materials as basis for his own book is Ralph Woodrow, contemporary author of Babylon Mystery Religion, which rocked the Church in the 1960s through the 1980s. The book paralleled Babylon with the Catholic Church. Woodrow, having since discovered (with burgeoning availability of internet information) that Hislop was seemingly arbitrary in some of his deductions, recanted parts of his book.  I think the recanting may have been hasty and over-reaching, as some of the controversial theories seem alive and well among Wiccans and other modern pagans. While Hislop may have taken some liberties with imagination, the basic chronology of pagan development is feasible.

Nevertheless, to isolate Catholicism and bash Rome for its paganism in religion is unfair—we all have our share; we have all sprung from the same religious roots, and it is our individual responsibilities to study to see which things be so and which do not.  To not see Dagon in the mitre of the Pope is just being stupid. But to cite Christmas ornaments as the testicles of Nimrod is perhaps equally stupid. The bottom line is that almost everything in the modern Church is pagan in origin.    Woodrow seemed to use that idea as a reason for not going after the pagan roots. On his website, he writes:

“By this method [citing numerous similarities in paganism and drawing conclusions], one could take virtually anything and do the same—even the “golden arches” at McDonald’s! The Encyclopedia Americana (article: “Arch") says the use of arches was known in Babylon as early as 2020 B.C. Since Babylon was called “the golden city” (Isa. 14:4), can there be any doubt about the origin of the golden arches? As silly as this is, this is the type of proof that has been offered over and over about pagan origins…

…By this method, one could condemn Protestant and evangelical denominations like the Assemblies of God, Baptist, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Methodist, Nazarene, etc. Basic things like prayer, and kneeling in prayer, would have to be rejected, because pagans knelt and prayed to their gods. Water baptism would have to be rejected, for pagans had numerous rites involving water, etc.”

--Ralph Woodrow (http://www.ralphwoodrow.org/books/pages/babylon-mystery.html

I think Woodrow’s argument is overblown—the kneeling in prayer example, for one, seems born of frustration and leans toward absurdity. While kneeling may be pagan, we also know it is biblical. (cf. Psalm 95:6)  But I have heard similar arguments before: “If we start pulling out everything pagan, there won’t be anything left in church!”

I could get very quiet here.

If we removed the smoke machines from worship, the celebrity copycats, the “seeker friendly” accoutrements, the pulpits, the altars, the banners and flags, the sound systems, the impressive architecture, the comfortable chairs…surely these things in themselves are not wrong. But say we removed them, along with anything pagan or idolatrous. What would the church have left?

Perhaps we would have Isaac and not the bondage of Ishmael. Perhaps we would have a membership whose staying did not depend on how “awesome” the services are in terms of sensual enjoyment, and we wouldn’t feel compelled to please them. Perhaps we would see who comes to worship and give God a sacrifice of praise.

Having to reduce a church to home groups would not be a catastrophe. It could actually be a blessing.

Tearing down idols is a good thing—but there needs first to be a conviction regarding them. Just tearing them down can be as destructive as pulling out weeds and accidentally pulling the wheat with them. I have no solution to offer, except to preach the positive Truth of God as seen in the Torah and the prophets, and as it relates to the New Testament Gospel of Jesus. Revelation tends to overpower the tawdry things of earth.

Let’s examine the origins of paganism as put together by many ancient sources:

Historical writings and mythologies as well, tell of Queen Semiramis and her evil quests for power and adoration. Hislop maintains that she created a persona for herself--the goddess, Ashtoreth. This is the same goddess warned against in the Bible at least 56 times, translated into various English terms, including Ashtoreth, Ashtaroth, Asherah, Astarte, Oestre, Oestra, Isis, Estra, Ishtar, Easter, and “groves” (the places of her obelisks and statues) in the Old Testament (do a word search in a Strong’s Concordance). The husband of Semiramis, Nimrod, seems to be the foundation personality for Baal. These mythological deities truly appear to be at the root of all idolatry.  In any case, their attributes and relationship to fertility, sun and moon are consistent with other religious objects worldwide.  Whether Mayan, Egyptian or Chinese, all pagan religious systems have these same emphases. That is because all human civilizations started with one religious system, and that is the reverence and worship of the Creator, Yahovah.  All other religions seem bent to copy elements of the true.

The Baal of Old Testament record shares the attributes of the gods of other lands. It stands to reason that after the dispersion at Babel, the people of new languages took the essences of their old gods with them and simply changed the name to Horus, Zeus, Helios, Jupiter and many others. Baal, Nimrod and all the others are purported to be the god of the sun who brings forth the blessings of agriculture.  These were depended on for life—the sun could be seen, and was therefore deemed more real than the unseen God. So they gave him names and legends.

Let's look at the beginnings of idolatry as we know it. After the Flood, Noah's ship came to rest on Mt. Ararat in Turkey. The ark had safely kept Noah, his wife, their three sons (Shem, Ham and Japheth), and their wives. God told them to be fruitful and multiply, to spread out and cover the earth. And for the next 177 years, they multiplied and settled throughout Mesopotamia and some surrounding regions. This is the heart of the most ancient civilizations.

Keep in mind that longevity was very different then. The DNA of mankind had not yet suffered the consequences of looking aside from God for prosperity and supply.  Toxins and pollutants and inbreeding of genetic disorders that came later as natural consequences to venturing outside the safety of God's design for the earth and its inhabitants. Failure to trust and depend on him is the reason for disease.  In early days before the Flood, people lived for hundreds of years, the oldest recorded human living to be 969 (Methuselah). So the sons of Noah multiplied quickly across the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Ham had a son named Cush, and Cush had a son named Nimrod, who was listed in a verse separate from his brothers--apparently he warranted his own note in Genesis 10:

“And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.  And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.”--Genesis 10:8-10

Some readers tend to assume that Nimrod was a good man because he is called "a mighty hunter before the LORD." It is taken by some to mean that God was somehow pleased with him. But the phrase "before the LORD" is interpreted much differently in the original Hebrew language. In Hebrew, the phrase "before the LORD" easily has a connotation of "in the face of God," implying impudence and rebellion.

Of Nimrod, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote the following:

"Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to reach. And that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers.

Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than anyone could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion…”

The following is excerpted from Clarke's Commentary of the Bible regarding Nimrod:

His name Nimrod comes from מרד, marad, he rebelled; and the Targum, on 1Ch_1:10, says Nimrod began  to be a  mighty man in sin, a murderer of innocent men, and a rebel before the Lord. The Jerusalem Targum says: “He was mighty  in hunting (or in prey) and in sin  before God, for he was a hunter of the children of men in their languages; and he said  unto  them, Depart from the religion of Shem, and cleave to the institutes of Nimrod.” The Targum  of Jonathan ben Uzziel says: “From the foundation of the world none was ever found like  Nimrod, powerful in hunting, and in rebellions against  the Lord.” The Syriac calls him a   warlike giant. The word ציד  tsayid, which we render hunter, signifies prey; and is  applied in the Scriptures to the hunting of men by persecution, oppression, and tyranny. Hence it is likely that Nimrod, having acquired power, used it in tyranny and oppression; and by rapine and violence founded that domination which was  the first distinguished by the name of a kingdom on the face of the earth. How many kingdoms have been founded in the  same way, in various  ages and nations from that time to the present! From the Nimrods of the earth, God deliver  the world!"

By Genesis 10, there were millions of people upon the earth.  And some, the Bible states, sought to build a tower to heaven that would draw all people to the great metropolis--they would cease to scatter and subdue the earth; rather, they would settle, join forces, and create an empire. And of course, this empire would serve the evil desires of certain individuals to rule over masses and acquire honor, wealth and admiration.  Nimrod was at the core of this movement, according to common historical sources.

There is a theory widely circulating, regarding the super-technological state of man during Nimrod's time. It was during this era that the Pyramids were built--an engineering feat yet to be equalled, even in our computerized day. Stonehenge is a mystery; other strange archaeological wonders exist, and it has been supposed that mankind had found a secret of harnessing energy somehow, perhaps even to the point of being able to communicate in ways similar to radio. It's easy to laugh at and scoff at, but where is the evidence that it was not so? We know that Nephilim had been in the earth—giants, offspring of the “sons of God” (supernatural, not holy beings—they were demonic in nature, as were mentioned in Job 1:6, Job 2:1 and Daniel 3:25) and the “daughters of Adama” which  can be translated as either Adam in particular or men in general.  Somehow these fallen beings, driven by envy of men or by a desire to thwart the promised Seed who would redeem mankind, had some way of procreating with women.  In any case, it seems logical that these would have supernatural understanding beyond that of mortal men; yet, they would need men to do their bidding. When Noah was found “perfect in his generations,” perhaps his perfection was not so much in piety as it was in his untainted DNA. And perhaps the two went somewhat hand in hand.

God found it necessary to destroy the earth in that day—to purify mankind, and annihilate the Nephilim.

How did they get back into the population after the Flood? This is another mystery, which I will not pursue in this book; but apocryphal books such as the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees allude to some possibilities. These books are not thought to necessarily be books inspired by God, but Enoch was quoted by Jude in more than one place. It is interesting to study apocryphal books; the early Church used them as canon. We should read them with caution, but with an open mind as well.

In any case, the population grew after Noah, and under Nimrod’s leadership, man had become ambitious and idolatrous. God found it necessary to confound language. And with that confounding at Babel, mankind instantly ceased to be so smart as a people. The quick rise from the time of the Flood to the incredible masteries of architecture, language and civilization, suddenly fell. Man retrogressed to primitive ways while evidence of their former glory stuck around in the form of masterful buildings, ingenious paintings, and records of a more powerful day.

Nimrod's plans to build a tower to the sky that reached to the gods was foiled in an instant. But his quest for power wasn't over.  And his wife was not content to let the dream pass her by.  Her name was Semiramis. There is little to be studied about this woman, but she is mentioned by Josephus, by Diodonus Sicurus, by Alexander Hislop, and others previously mentioned. Like all historical accounts, there has been some corruptions of fiction thrown in. But the bulk of these accounts make perfect sense in light of the evolution of paganism.

A quick rundown of Semiramis' deeds:

According to the writings of the 19th century Scottish theologian and historian Alexander Hislop, whose sources, remember, were not well cited (as is the case with nearly everything!), Nimrod was married to Semiramis, a woman who might better be termed, Mystery Babylon, the Great Harlot, for she seems to be the mother of a religious system from Babylon's very core.

Semiramis presented herself to the people as a goddess, and Nimrod, a god. The two were city builders. According to Diodonus Sicurus, Queen Semiramis built several port cities on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and did a lot of business between them.

The story goes that Nimrod was murdered (Jewish texts say by Shem), and he was cut to pieces, and his parts were scattered as far from Babylon as Egypt, a place of frequent trade. Semiramis sent out troops to retrieve all the parts, and all were found but one—his male organ. For this travesty, Semiramis raised the first obelisk to commemorate the procreative power of her husband. This obelisk was reported by Diodonus Sicurus (circa 60-40 BC) as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It was said to be 135 feet high and 25 feet wide. Mysteriously, in our day it cannot be found, although there remain numerous ancient obelisks of similar fashion.

Semiramis also created a celebrated persona for herself—Ishtar, a Mesopotamian goddess, also known as Ishtar in the Roman Empire, and Astarte in Greece, and Ashtoreth in the Bible  (Note that idols of  "Ashtoreth," "Ashteroth," and "groves"--translated from the Hebrew Asherah, which is a sister-version of Ashtoreth with the same attributes--are spoken against more than 56 times in the Old Testament with severe judgement to Israel for relating to them). Semiramis mysteriously disappeared at age 62, but her legend lived on as Ishtar (see the list of her other familiar names at the bottom of this page), the goddess-wife of the now-deified Nimrod. Known to have been promiscuous, Semiramis had a son, Tammuz, who was conceived after Nimrod's death. She attributed his conception to her glorified husband, thus making Tammuz the "son of god".

Ishtar (Ashtoreth)

Here she is. Ishtar, the bare-breasted goddess of fertility. She is the forerunner of every major goddess; her idols were despised by holy prophets, torn down by good kings and godly men. People have been martyred for refusing her. The Lord mentioned her by name at least 56 times in the Old Testament (Hebrew Ashtoreth, Ashtaroth and Asherah), with warnings about hanging on to vestiges of her worship. Yahovah knew the trappings would eventually find their way into the hearts and lives of those who were not watching--those who let others decide what was right and wrong, rather than search the Scriptures to see if things be so. The result has been a very confusing and contradictory system of religion and a distraction from things that matter—such as, the revelation of Jesus in the Feasts of the Lord.

Knowing how abominable was the influence of this goddess, why then do we still call the blessed day of Jesus' resurrection and Firstfruits by HER name?  A goddess who has for centuries stood in contempt of Yahovah, and in competition for His glory?

Tammuz was reportedly gored to death at age 40 by a wild boar while hunting.  Semiramis declared a 40-day fast of sorts--one day for each year of his life. Each day, the citizens were to give up something so that Tammuz might have it in the afterlife-- until the 40-day celebration ended with a grand feast on her Spring celebration, the vernal equinox, Ishtar Sunday, during which time they ate wild boar to commemorate victory for Tammuz. The parallels to Lent, Easter Sunday and ham are interesting. They may reveal a great deal about man's failure to cast down idols.

Continue reading to put the pieces of the conspiracy theory together:

Jesus was crucified on the eve of the Feast of Passover, which was a Wednesday that year.  Precisely three days and three nights following, He arose from the dead. That day was also the Jews' Feast of Firstfruits. It was a week of celebration for Jews, and would become a week of celebration for Christians thereafter. But the pagans were also celebrating that week. The day Jesus rose from the dead was the end of the 40-day fasting for Tammuz. It was Ishtar Sunday.

Not only was the day named for Ishtar. The weekdays had already been named for pagan gods. Sunday was named for the sun, which would have suited Semiramis just fine, since she gave Nimrod the attributes of the sun, and she the moon. The very rays of the sun sprang from the heads of ancient pagan gods in sculpture and painting. Those pagan designs were soon transferred by Christians to depictions of the baby Jesus as a holy halo on his head, and also to his esteemed mother, Mary. The Madonna and Child motif was complete, and was completely indistinguishable from Ishtar, Osiris, and a host of other figures.

Other images of Ishtar show her clothed with eggs, a symbol of her fertility and enduring power. A Mayan version is shown with a rabbit, symbolizing her procreative power. Among modern Wiccans, she is known as Oestre. She is also connected with the goddess Inanna, and Isis. She is the goddess of fertility and sexuality, promising blessing in these areas that only Yahovah God can really give. Her images are lifeless, dead, hewn stone, hand-carved wood and cold metal. Such things have no power in themselves. But they are given power by disobedient and/or gullible humanity. And in its reception, it is power, indeed.

THE POWER OF ISHTAR

Consider the $16 billion that was spent this year in the United States on Easter candy, Easter grass, plush bunnies, and jelly beans, and new outfits for church. That’s a lot of money. And our government loves it. It provides seasonal boost to the economy, but defies Yahovah God in the process. These images—eggs and rabbits— are tokens of idolatry, not in themselves, but in their association with Ishtar. They have been associated with Ishtar for millennia. And the people of Jesus’ day were well aware of it.

BUT IS EASTER REALLY THE ISSUE?

Continuing to tear down idols and vestiges of unholy things is an issue of principle for those who would be perfect. Yahovah God expressly told His people not to worship in the ways of the heathen (see Deuteronomy 11 and all of Jeremiah, for starters). But a greater issue is at hand, not so much in the blind worship (adoration, loving, enjoying) in the style of pagans. The real issue of concern to us should be that we have been diverted from knowing the Feasts of the Lord, for they ALL speak of Jesus Christ (Yehoshua) in prophetic shadow pictures. HIS Feasts, are holy convocations; dress rehearsals of wonderful things to come! He has already fulfilled the Spring Feasts by His death, resurrection, and by sending His Holy Spirit on the Feast of Pentecost.  But the Fall Feasts are yet to be fulfilled! By not familiarizing ourselves with the elements of His Feast Days and the Calendar and timing that goes with it, we are less aware of the time in which we're living--as it relates to His return.

GRACE AND REDEMPTION

The conspiracy of Babylon is one of diversion and counterfeit. Some Christians are worshiping Jesus within a framework of paganism. For the individual with a heart toward God, there is Grace for this. The pattern of Passover applies here. Individuals and families sacrificed Passover lambs for their transgressions. Jesus was the final sacrificial Lamb for every individual. But for society as a whole, there is not yet full redemption for the world. It does not grow in grace; it continues in its decline. For the nation of Israel, the Feast of Atonement was given as a pattern of the redemption yet to come. It was a time when the High Priest made atonement for the nation, and for a cleansing of the temple and all the priests and utensils within it.  The Feast of Atonement was a dress rehearsal for a day that is yet to come. At that time, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ, Yehoshua Ha'Mashiach is LORD, to the glory of GOD the Father, Yahovah! He will be glorified as all mankind sees and recognizes His Plan and that it has been accomplished through His Son!

Truly people have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. Redeemed means paid for; bought with a price.  But idols and their names and connotations are not redeemed. They are to be cast down and destroyed. The keeping of the pieces of broken Dagons and other idols were, and are, abominable.  Surely the ignorant are given grace; but you, dear reader, are no longer ignorant.--S.S.

FOR YOUR PERSONAL STUDY

Keep in mind that the spiritual conspiracy of the Babylon (pagan) system is about far more than the gods and goddesses that symbolize the system. Casting down a stone idol is easy. Casting down a rock-hard tradition is not.  The conspiracy against humanity is to divert worship from the on true God by creating disobedience to Him, intentional or non-intentional. By ignoring the principles for life on earth that God has given, we take on idolatry by default.  To prevent this, God has given us commandments, and they were not given with ire. They were given with an admonition to keep them, for the sake of peace and prosperity, which make for happiness.

The trappings of Babylon are pervasive in Christianity, so much so that to try to isolate specifics tends to divide the Body of Christ--it all takes too long to explain, for issue leads on to issue. Harping on the celebration of Resurrection or Firstfruits under the banner of Easter (Ishtar) has tended to provoke. We must be careful not to rip out the wheat with the tares. Some people celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, not knowing that the name of a goddess has been used in the translation of Pascha, Passover, in the book of Acts. The intention of their hearts are not to give glory to a goddess; they are simply unaware of the pervasiveness of a spiritual conspiracy to divert mankind away from the meaning of the moadim, through which the Lord for millennia has tried to speak to us.

The tearing down of idols is a controversial idea today, with many ramifications. Although our world and the Church have been influenced by idolatry and paganism, the extent of idolatry on the heart-level is personal.  And each person should tear his own idols down when he is convinced in his heart that he should.

Ralph Woodrow maintains in his recanting that “No Christian has ever worshipped a Christmas tree as an idol,” but that statement is impotent as a support to his thesis.  Truly individuals who put up Christmas trees do not think to bow to it and pay homage. HOWEVER (and this is just to balance the argument), ask them to cease putting it up every year, and the adoration becomes evident.  People are hooked on the “Christmas spirit,” and if they’re honest, they will admit that most of the “spirit” it is not about Jesus at all, rather it’s about a mood—decorating the home, buying presents, spending money. It’s all fun, to be sure. But for most, it is not a worship experience. It is an opportunity for festivity. Some may take no issue with the pagan roots at all, and it is no one’s place to judge such a nebulous and complex matter of the heart.  When it is time to forsake the tree, the bunny, the elf and the eggs, the individual will know, for there will be no more joy in these things, and there will be no sorrow in the forsaking. Neither should there be even a silent judging of others. It should be as personal as one’s devotional habits.

He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.                                                                              –Romans 14:6

BOOK TWO

Come and Dine

Book II ~ Chapter One

~ Bethabara

It was thirty-one years after the birth of Jesus.  His ministry had almost reached the prophetic mark of seventy weeks—one and a half years, not three, as tradition holds. And His short ministry on earth was coming to a close. He was a wanted man.

Jesus had just healed a blind man, and for it, a group of misguided religious men called Pharisees wanted to stone Him to death. You see, the day He healed the sightless man happened to be a Sabbath Day, a day of rest. What God had intended as a non-work day for man’s benefit had been over-defined by men to exclude any remote resemblance to work on the smallest scale. To the judgment of Jewish lawyers, this included no tying of knots (for knots were utilitarian by nature); no dealings with soil (for soil was related to farming or laundering); no picking apples off a tree, no matter how leisurely and no matter how hungry one was—for the act of plucking was an act of harvesting, and harvesting was work.  And there could be no healing on the Sabbath, for healing could be considered to be work to a physician.

Sabbath notwithstanding, Jesus healed the blind man, and not simply with a word, although that was well within his power. He was not breaking the Sabbath in the Sabbath, but in the way mere men perceived the letter. He was not breaking rest, but imparting it.

For whatever reason, to allude to the fact that He was the one who made an entire man from the dust of the ground, or perhaps even to stir things up and manifest the ridiculousness of Pharisaical law, Jesus spat on the dirt and made a little ball of clay out of it and put it on the blind man’s eyes. Then He told the blind man to go wash it off in the river—another violation, for washing fell under the list of activities deemed as work. But the man did what Jesus said, and lo, he could see!

So the man who received his sight was interrogated by Jewish leaders regarding Jesus’s methods, and was asked whether he thought this man was the Christ. This they asked because there had recently been this crazy new law published, which made such a faith in Jesus of Nazareth punishable by death. The man wisely responded, “Whether He is or not, I do not know. What I do know, however, is that once I was blind, and now I see!” And after the man answered with a few understandably sassy remarks, he was put out of the Temple.

When Jesus heard of this, He departed into the wilderness with his disciples on the far side of the Jordan River, to abide in Bethabara, the place where his cousin John the Baptist began his ministry of baptism.

Perhaps, as Jesus abode there, He thought with compassion on the healed man who had incurred such hardship on his account. And perhaps He called to mind all the other people who were likewise affected and persecuted on his account.  No doubt, He gazed out at the vastness and remembered John. John had lived a hard life out there as a child-fugitive sought by Herod the Great, who had killed the male babies of Bethlehem and its surrounds in an effort to snuff out the life of his competition.

John had escaped this first Herod, but not the second.

John’s father, Zacharias, too, had died as a result of the sword that manifested in the earth when Jesus, the Son of God, was born. Zacharias had been a priest of the division of Abijah. That particular division served in the temple or two terms during the year. One of those terms covered the Feast of Pentecost, which happened around June on the Gentile calendar.  Zacharias was chosen by lot to serve in the Temple at the altar of incense in the year before Jesus’s birth.

Zacharias and his wife Elisabeth had no child. Elisabeth was barren. But as Zacharias served before the veil in the holy place, the Angel Gabriel appeared next to the altar of incense and told him that a son would be born to him and to his wife, and that his name should be called John. This child would herald the coming of the Messiah. He would do great things to prepare hearts for the kingdom to come.

Zacharias was an old man, and while he was raised knowing about Abraham and Sarah having a child in their old age, it was apparently a difficult thing to believe for himself. So he asked for a sign — something to confirm that he had indeed heard from God (as if seeing an angel in the Holy Place was not enough!). So Gabriel gave him a sign. He told Zacharias that he would be mute and not able to speak until the child was born, because he failed to believe the message he brought from the Lord. And it happened just as Gabriel said.

Six months later was December on the Gentile calendar. And it was the Feast of Dedications — Hanukkah.  Elisabeth was six months pregnant with John, just as the angel had said. It was at this time that Mary the mother of Jesus was also visited by the Angel Gabriel and told that she would conceive and bear a son, and called his name Jesus. Mary was the niece of Elisabeth. Mary’s mother, Hannah, who had died when Mary was small, was Elisabeth’s sister, along with Joanna. The three women were daughters of Yehoshua III, a respected Levitical high priest and a convenient namesake for the Christ child, whose name would mean “Yahovah is Salvation!” This family shared a great heritage of faith and service before God.

Mary’s father was Prince Heli (Prince Alexander III Helios), who on his mother’s side was the heir apparent to the Hasmonean Royal Throne and on his father’s side was a Prince of David.  Descendants of King David felt that the throne of Israel belonged to them, as the Lord had spoken unto David, “If your children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail a descendant on the throne of Israel” (I Kings 2:4).  Of course, there was a contingency factor involved here, which explains why the trend was interrupted. Nevertheless, the “Davidians” had their eyes set on the throne.

Meanwhile, the throne was occupied by King Herod the Great, who was not a descendent of David, neither was he Jewish at all. He practiced Judaism in a corrupted form, but had his origin in Idumea — he was a descendent of Esau.

King Herod was a tyrant and a crazy man, and he hated the Davidians for their aspirations concerning the throne. He also hated the Hasmoneans — the family and descendants of the Maccabees, a family who restored control of Jerusalem to the Jews more than 160 years before. The Hasmoneans were on the throne until the time that Herod, with the support of the Roman Empire, conquered them, and took the throne for himself.  King Herod found it necessary to marry a Hasmonean, a woman named Mariamne. It was a political move, one to appease the people for a time. But he wound up killing her and the sons she bore him, so fierce was his antagonism toward Hasmoneans and their lingering desire to rule.

Herod despised yet another people group — the Jewish priesthood. For the priests also felt entitlement to rulership, since they were the ones who ministered between God and man.

Jesus had his mind on these things always. He was well acquainted with the political conflicts, for each of these groups converged in his very person.

Try to wrap your mind around this:

Jesus was an heir of them all — Davidian, Levite, Hasmonean. And, unbelievably, he was even a legal heir to the throne of Egypt, for his stepfather Joseph was the son of Cleopatra VIII, who married Jacob ben Matthan, Prince of Jerusalem, the most eligible Davidian in all Judea at the time. This young Cleopatra was the daughter of the noted Cleopatra portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood. And those who know the story of Cleopatra and her lover Mark Antony, also know that the elder Cleo was once married to Julius Caesar. And Julius Caesar fathered a child he never knew; for he died six months before the birth of none other than Cleopatra VIII, legal grandmother of Jesus. This, of course, also means that Jesus was, by adoption, in line for the very throne of the Roman Empire. His grandmother fled Egypt when her uncle Augustus came into power, shortly after he killed her brother Caesarion, because he posed a threat to the throne. Jacob moved her and her own young sons to Jerusalem, where, living as Judeans, they would pose no threat—although in Judea, Jacob posed a threat to Herod! And to add yet another twist, King Herod took Cleopatra for himself after killing her previous two husbands, making Herod sort of a stepfather to Joseph, and step-grandfather to Jesus. Indeed, Jesus was born the King of all Kings!

So imagine the dysfunction of this family. Consider (if you can separate your thinking from the traditional Gospel presentation) that Jesus Christ, was networked very personally to nobles and royals of every dominion. He was not a poor carpenter’s son. He was the son of a Prince who chose to keep a low profile. And it was the Cleopatra connection that made the flight to Egypt feasible. Although Cleopatra was married to Herod at that time and living in Jerusalem, Joseph was likely well-connected to his mother’s family, and to the Jewish Temple in Egypt.  Hence the prophetic words of Hosea were fulfilled, as recorded by Matthew:

…And  [Joseph with Mary and Jesus]was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.  -- Matthew 2:15

Jesus knew who he was, on earth as well as in heaven. And how well He understood the very real possibilities of fame and admiration when Satan tempted him with all of the kingdoms of the world! It was a very do-able prospect. Other men would have reasoned their lust for power right into a convenient idea that such dominion and fame was all part of God’s plan. Many a celebrity singer started out with such dual-serving ideas, and great has been their fall.  But Jesus refused to submit to fleshly bents that leaned toward the devil’s bidding. He could have done so and ruled the world then. But He chose a greater kingdom, an eternal one. His would be a kingdom based on obedience to the Law of love, not selfishness. And His kingdom would unselfishly offer a place for all mankind to live and rule forever with Him, far beyond the confines of this temporal world.

Surely the days Jesus out there in Bathabara were filled with intense prayer concerning these things, and painful memories that reflected the price required for this new kingdom. And there was just so much death! His grandfather Heli had fallen victim to Herod’s sword while his mother was a child. His grandfather Jacob ben Matthat, Prince of Jerusalem, was eventually murdered by Herod as well, for fear he would rise up and take the throne.  John’s father — Mary’s uncle Zacharias — was killed in the temple because he would not tell King Herod’s soldiers where to find his young son during the slaughter of infants in Bethlehem and the surrounding areas.  Baby John ben Zacharias was of particular interest to Herod when the Magi came looking for the King heralded by the stars; for news of Zacharias’ angelic visitation, muteness and miraculous recovery at John’s birth had spread far and wide. Zacharias sent Elisabeth with the child into the wilderness, likely with an entourage of servants. And in a matter of days, Zecharias was murdered in the Temple where he served, and Elisabeth and John were stranded in the wilderness—the same untamed land where now Jesus abode among the wild beasts, separated from Judea by a river of water, and a flood of false witness against Him.

Jesus was, in effect, abiding in exile, but only for a short time, unlike his cousin, who lived on locusts and wild honey since his infancy. John was a wild looking man, who wore an unconventional camel-skin tunic and lived off the land in a most primitive fashion. Surely Jesus had visited Him here many times with his mother, and played in the water with other cousins such as James, John and Mary Salome, the sons and daughter of Zebedee and Salome, while the mothers chatted and brought gifts to Elisabeth from the city from whence she was forced to flee.

Maybe during this time apart Jesus waded out to the very place where He was baptized by John, the place where He first heard the voice of the Father, saying, “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased!” Perhaps He recalled the gentle Holy Spirit descending upon Him in the form of a dove, and resting upon Him there, in a way no restless dove had never settled in Scripture.

Possibly Jesus looked up at the sky at dusk and saw the first sliver of the new Spring moon, its horns facing upward like a smile in the twilight sky. Perhaps He could hear the jubilant sound of the shofars echoing from peak to peak across the Jordan, announcing that the new year had come and the barley was aviv. If so, He surely knew that in 14 days would be the Passover Feast – the Feast, which for thousands of years, had served as a shadow picture of his very impending death. Surely He knew, by the positioning of events and what would add up to a 70-week duration of ministry (see Daniel 9:24-27), that this was the true Appointed Time.

The new month was called Aviv, after the ripened barley. Jesus knew He must soon traveled to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of the Passover, for it was required that all Jewish men gather to worship in Jerusalem during the Passover Feast. But it would be dangerous, because the Jewish leaders desired to kill Him. He had lambasted their religious traditions—the rules and forms and fashions that were so warped that they no longer fit the spiritual pattern that would help them recognize the Messiah. He had challenged their understanding and revealed flaws in their religious interpretations, the things God had not ordained. He challenged them with words—and by his words, He had drawn people to Himself, for the people were hungry for truth. They found it resident and rooted in Him. He spoke with authority, and not as the scribes who had no passionate connection to what was written. He healed the sick, even on the Sabbath day, because God is always for life! He broke the laws as they had been defined by the man-sanctioned Sanhedrin, but never missed a beat concerning true righteousness. And now He was out there in the wilderness, heart-heavy with the burden of things to come, and knowing the precise days in which they must come. Surely He wept much, biding his time; praying; strategizing; knowing He must keep a Divine schedule. It was imperative that He stay hidden for just a few more days. For once his arrest was made, his mock-trial and execution would be swift—and it had to take place at a certain day, in a certain hour.

So intense was the angst of the Jewish leaders, and so intense was Satan’s design to get Him out of the picture (although Satan did not hold the secret of the Appointed Times, for there is no Truth in him) that Jesus’s death would be pushed through the judicial red tape system in record time.

Did anyone else know what time it was? Did anyone realize that the Passover Feast was a picture of the death of the Lamb of God? Did anyone—even his disciples—realize that He must lie dead in the grave for three full days and three full nights during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and be raised again on the Day of Firstfruits?

No. No one knew.

II ~ Chapter Two

~ Timing

During this time of intense contemplation, something else was going on in the Roman Empire. It was nearly the time of the Spring Equinox—which to a Jew held no meaning. But to the pagan Gentiles, it was the season of Ishtar, the goddess of fertility. This goddess, according to legend based in the days of Babel, had a son named Tammuz, fathered by the god of the sun. Tammuz was supposedly gored by a wild boar while hunting. He was forty years old.

For forty days before the Spring Equinox (Ishtar Sunday), people sacrificed something each day—something Tammuz could have in the afterlife. And during these forty days (one for each year of Tammuz’ life), there was much weeping and ado in the pagan temples.  Sadly, this Babylonian tradition had not only reached Rome, but the Jews as well:

He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

--Ezekiel 8:13-15

The forty days of “weeping for Tammuz” would culminate in a great feast on Ishtar’s Day of the Sun (Ishtar Sunday), wherein they would eat wild boar—a symbol of revenge against the beast who had killed Tammuz.

So during the days while Jesus abode in the wilderness, Jews were anticipating the Passover season while the rest of the world was observing the pagan roots of what would later morph into the Christian Lenten season.

Someone came to the camp of Jesus and his disciples with news of an urgent need. Their friend Lazarus was deathly ill, and his sisters had sent word for Jesus to come quickly. Jesus, who healed the sick, raise the dead, gave sight to the blind — He could certainly heal him.

But Jesus did not go quickly. He waited two full days before setting out to Bethany, which was only two miles from Jerusalem, the city where every religious leader carried a mental wanted poster with Jesus’ face on it.  He was not afraid. He simply had a plan.

He said to his disciples, in effect, “This sickness is not for the purpose of death, but for God’s glory, that the son of God might be glorified by and through the circumstances of it.” Perhaps by this, the disciples figured Lazarus was in no real danger—and that Jesus was still avoiding his own danger on the other side of the river. But there was no fear in Jesus. His delay had purpose. He knew that this opportunity would afford a fast spread of news that would facilitate his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and stir more motivation for his timely capture.

After tarrying for two days, He said to his disciples, “Let us go into Judea again.” It was time.

And his disciples replied, “Master, the Jews only recently have sought to stone you after the incident with the blind man. And now you want to go there again?”

And Jesus said something rather cryptic. He said, “Are there not 12 hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles because there is no light in him.”

This author would propose an interpretive paraphrase to consider: “Is there not a set time, a limit for the light of day? If any man walks in the day, he can see where he’s going because he is illumined by the light of this world, which in this case represents a spiritual purpose. But if a man waits and it becomes night, he can’t get where he needs to go because there is no light.”

Jesus is the Light of the World. He had, and still has, a purpose to fill. And there is a time to every purpose under heaven.

Jesus told the disciples, “Our friend Lazarus is sleeping. Let’s go wake him up.” His disciples saw little benefit in risking his life just to wake up a man who probably needed the sleep, if indeed he was only sleeping. But then Jesus spoke to them plainly and said,

“Lazarus is dead. And I’m glad, for your sakes, that I was not there. Because now you are more likely to believe what you are about to see.”

Then Thomas said to the others, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Thomas surely thought Jesus would be caught and killed. And he wasn’t really wrong. (But oh, how he changed his tune days later, after the Lord was captured in the garden and all disciples forsook Him and fled!)

By the time Jesus got to Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Now, I don’t know about you, but I would have a lot more faith that someone could be raised from the dead after 30 minutes, then I could for one who had been dead, and in the grave for four whole days.  And I believe that the delay was by design. Such a great miracle it would be to see one raised from the grave after the effects of decomposition should have set in! There would be no question that the raised one had been dead. There would be no skepticisms, no surmising that he had merely been comatose. For none could survive being sealed in a tomb for four days, wrapped tightly in grave clothes, having no food, no water, and no fresh air—especially one who had been so very ill.

Upon arriving in Bethany, Jesus heard the throng of mourners, many friends who had come from Jerusalem to pay their respects to Lazarus. And the sisters of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, came to Him with disappointment that He had waited so long to come. They seem to accuse Him, saying, “If you had been here, Lazarus would not be dead!”

Jesus wept.

Surely He wept, not for mourning the death of Lazarus, but for the sorrow of these dear friends who could not understand the real reason for his delay. There was no earthly friend with which to share such unbelievable things that were about to unfold. His closest disciples, even Mary and Martha, had no idea what was coming.

Jesus must have also looked at that grave, realizing how many souls were still held captive, and what it was going to take to set them all free. Besides that, from a human standpoint, He was aware that such a grave would be his lot in a matter of days, after a long and agonizing destruction of the tabernacle of his flesh—a death that He would soon request of His Father that He might avoid, if there was any other way. And I am sure that, faced with agony, He wrestled to keep His eye on the glory that was set before Him until it was finished.

As the Bible records, Jesus indeed raised Lazarus from the dead, before the witnessing eyes of a great many onlookers. Many new believers were surely made that day, and Jesus gathered them together with a plan.

He gave instructions to his disciples — not just the Twelve, but many of his disciples — for meeting Him in Jerusalem on the 10th day of the month.  And they did as He said.

On Aviv 10, which was a Sunday in the Roman Empire, an estimated 150,000 people had gathered in the city of Jerusalem for the annual procession of the high priest and the Paschal Lamb. The high priest’s journey began in Bethlehem, where the Lamb was chosen from the finest flocks. From there the priest walked the ten-mile trek back to Jerusalem, where a long path had been prepared, lined on either side by priests holding ten-foot palm branches and people of all ages waving cedar boughs and other greenery. The high priest and lamb would parade up to the Temple Mount where the lamb would be held for four days of separation. During that time, the Lamb would be scrutinized for flaws. He would be checked over for scars, blemishes, disease, or any other faults that might prevent him from being considered a spotless Lamb.

As the High Priest neared Jerusalem, the priests were already in place, and people were pressing in around them to see him when he passed by, dressed in his priestly white raiment which was beautiful to behold, with jewels, representing the 12 tribes of Israel. For many, this was the only opportunity to glimpse this special garment, and to see the high priest himself who was the mediator between them and God, the one who would offer the Lamb on behalf of all the Jews. And as the high priest approached the North gate, the people would throw down their garments in the path and shout with a loud voice, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” This lauding was both for the Paschal Lamb and the high priest. It was a festive time with all the excitement of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and people couldn’t wait to see it.

Meanwhile, Jesus was at the base of the Mount of Olives where his numerous disciples all gathered — word had been passed, and a great multitude met Him there, for many believed and had seen the miracles that He did. These supporters of Jesus formed a path of their own from the east to the North gate, and laid their garments in the way. They also carried cedar branches and palm branches and began to shout, “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

This multitude shouted this song before Him and behind Him and made the way for his entry through the North Gate. Surely the other crowd saw the commotion and ran to join them, thinking it was the High Priest and the Lamb. And it was! For this was the real thing, not the picture portrayed by the high priest and Lamb coming up the west side of the hill. Jesus was the true High Priest and the true Lamb, born in Bethlehem — the finest Lamb of the flock of God; for He was God in the flesh. He was the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. He was the salvation plan known even before man was formed from the dust of the ground. This plan was embedded in every molecule of earth; by Him, the stars in their orbits with a purpose—to frame the appointed times of God, the Feasts of the Lord, which would provide an ongoing picture of good things to come.  It was all for the coming of this Lamb that every Passover Feast had been established aforetime.

The crowd surely went crazy. There was great confusion, as people heard the hosannas and forsook the priests with their palm-lined path and pressed into the noisier crowd as Jesus came through the gate. It must have been alarming for these blind followers when they finally caught a glimpse of a man on a donkey, surrounded by genuinely jubilant people!

And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? --Matthew 21:10

It was at this point that the chief priests and scribes saw what was going on and frantically tried to regain some order and reserve some fanfare for Caiphas, who was surely coming up the hill with the Paschal lamb in tow. Jesus had messed up their processional, had confused the people, upstaged the high priest, and surely by this signed his own death warrant. The chief priests told Jesus to command his disciples to cease and desist. But Jesus said to them, “If these were to keep quiet, the rocks would cry out!” And truly, they would have! All creation was cooperating with the Season, from the stars and moon to the clouds, thunder and earthquakes to come. The True High Priest and Paschal Lamb had entered the temple, and if men would not praise Him, the rocks surely would!

And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.   -- Mark 11:11

Jesus took a long hard look at what was going on in the Temple courts, and he didn’t like what he saw.

He would be back.

II ~ Chapter Three

~ Leaven

While in Bethany late that afternoon, Jesus probably observed Martha and Mary fastidiously cleansing their house of leaven, as such was the custom of the week, before the Feast of Unleavened Bread. All homes had to be scrubbed clean of every trace of yeast. Many contaminated earthenware pots were broken, meal was burned, stores of grain were put out. Yeast represented sin and this was highlighted during the feast. Yeast distorts the grain. It puffs it up and expands dough, and it does so by feeding on the gluten in the grain. It spreads in warm, comfortable darkness. Likewise, sin distorts truth and makes the loaf look bigger than it is. But it’s all about air. Empty air and wonderful taste! Such is the nature of sin.

Jesus remembered the sight in Temple—the contamination of commercial enterprise that had come to attach itself to holy things. People no longer came to the Lord with their best lambs and pigeons, but with bags of money. Coins were more convenient for travel—and sacrificial beasts could be purchased in the Temple. The leaven of the first mistake, the failure to provide from one’s own nurtured flocks, continued to breed error. To allow money to be the substitute for the sacrificial substitute, and to make it all seem right, they decided that the money should be Jewish—as if Jewish mammon was more holy. The currency exchanges provided opportunity for arbitrary values, and unjust weights for profit. Jesus saw this burgeoning error, this leaven in the Temple, this sin in the hearts of men, even regarding atonement procedures.  It had become meaningless and trashy commercial nonsense. And this was his Father’s house, which was to be a house of prayer—a place of meeting with God; a place of humble relationship and yieldedness to His love and favor. Instead, it had become a den of thieves. It had to be cleansed.

Jesus went back to that yeast-infested Temple the next day — Monday — with the disciples. At some time while He was in Bethany, he had taken time to fashion a whip, a scourge of cords. With that home-made flogging tool, he began to destroy the tables with the money, scattering the vendors and their customers. He drove out the cattle, and ordered the sellers to take out the doves. Coins rolled everywhere as tables were turned. One can imagine greedy hands groping the floor, grasping, snatching them up, holding them tightly to their breasts as Jesus finished cleansing the Temple—His Father’s House. The Temple was a place for God and man to meet; hence, it represented His own Incarnation, His body; and the body of every man, woman and child who would make themselves His dwelling place once His death and resurrection made it possible. His anger was kindled to see it so defiled.

The chief priests and scribes did not know what to do. They had no control over Jesus, because significantly large crowds loved him and followed Him and listen to Him, and the Feast added an element of difficulty, as they did not want to incite riot during a holy time. So of course the Sanhedrin met to decide what might be done quickly. Jesus seemed to them, a rebel; a troublemaker; the dissident. They were too busy calculating how to refute Him to even listen to the content of his messages. They were so bound by their religious ideas that they could not even entertain a notion that he might have something important to say. They were too proud, and too comfortable in their positions of authority to question anything they stood for. Their religion was working for them. By it, they had respect, they had power, and they had comfortable living conditions. They were puppets of the Roman Empire which fed them and kept them from execution, as long as they kept things orderly.

Jesus was scrutinized by the Sanhedrin, that they might find some fault, or legal loophole whereby they might silence Him once and for all. Like the Paschal Lamb that was separated, scanned and probed for defects, in the spiritual realm, the Lamb of God was being inspected by men in the four days before the Passover. The Sanhedrin went over records and reports of everything Jesus had done over the last 70 weeks since his ministry began. He has done many good things, many miraculous things, things that the priests could not do. And they considered that if a priest — being closest to God — could not perform miracles, the miracles Jesus did must certainly have come from the devil. Besides that, he had defiled the Sabbath by healing and plucking an ear of corn on a day of rest — the day wherein one could not even so much as tie his shoes, according to the dictates and interpretations of the law of the Pharisees. For this reason, they decided to arrest Him. If they could find Him.

II ~ Chapter Four

~ Preparation

The next day was Tuesday, Gentile time. Aviv 13. It was almost sunset, which would begin Aviv 14, the Day of Preparation—the day the sacrificial lambs would all be slain and roasted before the sunset Passover meal, and the onset of the eight-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was on Aviv 14 that Jews finished cleansing their homes of leaven. It was also the last day to go shopping before the Feast, for at sundown, it would become  a high Sabbath day, the Passover, the day every family would bring their sacrifices and offerings to the priests in the Temple to be offered to God for their atonement for sin. The last sacrifice of the day would be the Paschal Lamb, which would be sacrificed for all Jews as a nation.

Jesus planned a meal for that Tuesday evening with his disciples. This was to be the Last Supper. This Last Supper was not the Passover meal, as Mark’s account would appear to imply. The disciples, like all Jews, were required to eat the Passover with their own families, according to the Law, according to the very design of the Feast. During a Passover meal, they would eat the roasted lambs that had been sacrificed for their own—“a lamb for a house” (Exodus 12:3).

But this Tuesday evening meal was a special Passover observance called for by Jesus. He told his disciples of his desire to eat a Passover meal with them because he wouldn’t be eating it the next day—He would be the Passover lamb, Himself. But this Last Supper, this symbolic Passover meal, was designed to teach the disciples something about the coming Feast—that he Himself was the wine and the unleavened bread. They had no Passover lamb that evening to teach the symbolism of His atoning, substitutionary death—but they would understand it soon enough. And he exhorted them, concerning the Feast, that as often as they partook of the unleavened bread and the wine of Passover, they were to do it, in remembrance of Him, allowing it to remind them that from the very first Passover, it always represented His body, His blood. They did not understand it then, for they did not know that Passover was a picture of what He was about to do quite literally.  They would not understand it fully, perhaps for days. But after the resurrection on the Day of Firstfruits, after his ascension 40 days after Passover, after the Holy Spirit filled them on the Feast of Pentecost, it would all come clear. The Feasts were a picture of Jesus all along. The Messiah is the reality; the Feasts were dress rehearsals.

Jesus and his disciples dined together at the setting of the sun, as the custom was. Thus was introduced, the day of preparation. It was Tuesday night, Gentile time, but Wednesday morning to the Jews. This day, starting with evening, would be the most important 24 hours in the history of mankind.

This time began with Jesus sending Judas Iscariot out of the house, saying, “What you have to do, do quickly.” The disciples figured he was being sent on an errand, which, incidentally, would not have happened on an actual Passover evening, for that would be a high Sabbath day. No errands would be run on a Sabbath day. But Jesus sent Judas out, knowing that was set to betray Him. In a figure, He was ridding the house of the last bit of leaven.

While Judas was gone, Jesus did something else that would not have been done on a real Passover night, a high Sabbath. He girded Himself with a work towel, and proceeded to wash the disciples’ feet in a ceremony of servanthood. Afterward, his heart was heavy with love, and with the burden of so much sin in God’s people, so much blindness and hardness of heart. Even the Last Supper was a hard thing for his disciples to even grasp, and the foot washing had been a bit bewildering to them as well. Even the disciples struggled to see with spiritual eyes.  Spiritual sight was all but lost in the world, and Jesus knew that the time had come that the bonds of sin must be broken; the very personal battle with Satan was about to begin. So he took the 11 with Him to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. While He was there, Judas completed his work and arrived with “a great multitude” of officers of the chief priests and soldiers armed with swords to arrest the Prince of Peace in his place of prayer.

It was in the middle of the night—almost morning—and Jesus was taken into the city, even up to the Temple. The disciples all scattered, of course, but Peter followed as far as He could, then lingered outside the Temple gate as Jesus was led to the palace of the high priest for questioning. There was a certain disciple who went in with Him, for He knew Caiaphas the High Priest well. It was probably Joseph of Arimathaea, the uncle of Jesus’ mother. He was a disciple, although not one of the 12, and a member of the Sanhedrin. This Joseph was a wealthy businessman, a dealer in tin and antimony. His wealth and position likely provided support and assistance for the work of Jesus and the Twelve, including places to meet, and inside knowledge of the local government. Perhaps it was by design that Joseph’s discipleship remained a secret until after the Crucifixion, when He begged Pilate for the body of Jesus.

After a time, Joseph, or whomever the mystery disciple might have been, came back to the gate and spoke to the young lady who kept the gate, then went out to get Peter and brought him into the outer court area. There were servants and officers warming themselves by the fire, and Peter stood near them, warming his hands as he probably listened nervously for sounds and glanced for people coming from the palace area.  It was obvious he was not an officer or a servant in the Temple, so he was questioned by three different people standing around, “Aren’t you one of that guy’s followers?” But he denied any connection to Jesus of Nazareth, and even cursed in his frustration.

Meanwhile, Jesus was brought before Caiaphas, the high priest and the Sanhedrin. During his interrogation, Caiaphas, the high priest asked Him, “Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed?”

And Jesus said, “I am: and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

Mark 14: 63 says that at that point, the high priest ripped his clothes, and said, “What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy right out of his mouth! What do you think now?”

And they overwhelmingly condemned Jesus to be worthy of death.

How hypocritical it is that the high priest tore his clothing in direct disobedience to the Law of Moses, which forbade him from tearing his ecclesiastical clothing!

And he that is the high priest among his brethren, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head, nor rend his clothes; -- Leviticus 21:10

His priestly garments symbolized the perfection of God’s character. To tear his robes was an act of utmost profanity. By doing so, Caiaphas actually disqualified himself from being high priest, and all the sacrifices he performed later that day were completely nullified before God! Jesus was the official High Priest! And He was the Paschal Lamb!

Nevertheless, the actions of Caiaphas were apparently glossed over by members of the Sanhedrin, due to their blind hypocrisy and arbitrary use of the law—and the extreme hatred they had for the accused man standing before them.

About that time, the morning rooster crowed; and of course, Peter realized he had denied Jesus three times, just as Jesus said He would. He ran away in sorrow and shame.

It was early morning, and Jesus was led away from Caiaphas and into the judgment hall to be beaten and handed over to Pilate; for the Jews did not want to risk being defiled by blood, lest they be declared unclean and disqualified from eating the Passover.

Besides sacrificing thousands of lambs, goats, oxen and turtledoves, the priests had many things to do.  In fact, one of the first things Caiaphas had to do was declare the Paschal Lamb clean. It is almost an unbelievable parallel, but according to Jewish tradition in that day, Caiaphas would have spoken certain traditional words in the sixth hour concerning that lamb—the same words, at the same hour, that Pilate spoke concerning Jesus, the Lamb of God :

“I find no fault in Him!”

But of course, the majority of people did. It was not the multitude of followers who had initiated Jesus’s triumphal entry with hosannas and garments spread in the way, but the rest of the crowd—blind followers who joined in the spreading euphoria, not actually knowing who they were shouting for. Having felt they had been victims of a blasphemous practical joke, they were ready for revenge. Still operating as blind followers, this time they followed another movement, one set upon crucifying the Messiah.

II ~ Chapter Five

~ The Lamb

By the third hour, 9 a.m., Jesus was nailed to a cross. He agonized there, physically and emotionally, as people taunted Him and gawked and stared and challenged Him with spiteful words, knowing He was helpless as He hung there. Yet, He asked the Father to forgive them.

Darkness fell upon the earth from noon that day and lasted for three hours. And at 3:00, Jesus cried out, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

This was an important moment. It was the unexplainable moment when all of the sins of mankind were transferred to Him. As Paul said, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21).  At that moment, there was a separation that cannot be expressed.

After crying out the first time, He cried out again. It was the ninth hour of the day—3:00 p.m. This was the very hour during which the High Priest had to make his final sacrifice—the Paschal Lamb. The Lamb of Bethlehem; the Lamb that had been scrutinized for four days and then declared faultless at the first hour of the day.  Now the Paschal Lamb was being slain. The final blood was shed on the altar.

And what do you think were the words of the High Priest every year at that hour, shouted loudly for all to hear?

“IT IS FINISHED!”

Having echoed those words with a loud voice at precisely the right time, Jesus hung his head and fought no more. He gave up the ghost.

The earth quaked, the rocks were cracked.

And something very important happened that was not known for nearly 2000 years—until 1982, to be exact. Among the rocks that were rent, the square, man-hewn stone that held the base of the cross was cracked wide open on Jesus’ lefthand side.  This stone, and the stone supports for the other crosses were discovered by archaeologist Ron Wyatt more than three decades ago. And it has unbelievable significance for every Christian as you will soon see.

The Roman soldiers had to get the three crucified men down from their crosses before sunset, since the Jew’s holy day was about to commence in three hours or less. The Jewish law required that no man be hanged on a holy day, and that dead bodies must also be buried before then. So the soldiers took hammers and smashed the lower legs of the men hanging on Jesus’s left and right, to hasten their deaths. For without legs to raise their bodies to fill their lungs with air, they would suffocate helplessly and die quickly, and they did.  But Jesus was dead already, his body hanging lifeless on the altar of the Cross. His own Blood had dripped from his priestly fingers and sprinkled the ground that surrounded Him, afforded by the beam that stretched out his arms on either side. The nails in his wrists were faithful to hold them there, like Aaron and Hur, holding up the arms of Moses that Amalek might be defeated by the miracle of his outstretched hands.

What a greater victory was wrought by Jesus’s outstretched arms!

Surely the soldier wondered whether He was really dead already.  He pierced Jesus’s side with his spear, releasing a gush of blood and water from the body of the Lamb of God.

The Blood and water flowed in what would have been a great volume in a downward course and made its way directly to the stone crevice at the base of the cross. The earth itself had opened to receive the Blood of the Incarnate God Who created it; indeed, the Blood was poured out at the bottom of the altar for a sin offering, according to pattern (Leviticus 5:9). It traveled down through the crack of earth that measured a distance of more than 20 feet before dropping through the ceiling of a cave prepared hundreds of years before—and  onto the Mercy Seat of the ancient Ark of the Covenant!

The ark had been taken there by Jeremiah before the attack of the Babylonians. Prior to that, King Solomon, in his God-given wisdom, had prepared an escape elevator system in the building of the elaborate Temple of God, using sand-hydraulic technology acquired from Egypt—a networking benefit of marrying an Egyptian. The elevator lowered the floor beneath the Ark of the Covenant, taking the ark into an underground room. From there, an underground tunnel (one of many passages and ancient aqueducts under the city, called “Hezekiah’s tunnels,” led to a cave under Mt. Moriah--directly under the place where Jesus was crucified.

John saw the blood and water flow.

But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.

--John 19:34, 35

And according to John concerning the Spirit, the water, and the blood--“these three bear witness in earth” (1 John 5:8). In verse 7, John already wrote concerning the realm of spirit: “For there are three that, he writes of the three that bear witness in earth. Surely mortal flesh can be called earth (and this is perhaps one of those instances where the layers of prophetic application are multiplied), but consider that John was speaking of ground.

“If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this [the witness in earth] is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.”

-- I John 5:9

Why didn’t John just come out and say it if it were so? Probably for the same reason Ron Wyatt’s discovery has remained hidden:

At the time these things were discovered in 1982, the Lord told Ron Wyatt that the discovery could not be made public “until the antichrist is revealed.” Israeli teams have tried to go in, but have failed, even having run into dangerous situations requiring Ron’s assistance to get them out.  Some of the passages have been very tight, some seem to have collapsed, and others just can’t be found.  Ron has since died, and his family has adopted a low profile concerning the findings.  Some have scoffed at the idea that it was ever true; even the family shut down part of their website, saying, in effect, “only Ron knows what he saw.”

Just consider the possibility, however, that the witness is true, as we continue the Gospel story. And consider the effect such a discovery could have upon a nation—Israel—in a single day, say, a Day of Atonement. The entire nation could declare in one day that the Messiah indeed has come! And the Feast of Atonement could indeed be fulfilled as Israel receives the atoning Blood of the Lamb, in Spirit and in Truth!

After the death of Jesus, there were only a few hours left in the day to get his body from the cross and prepare it for burial.  His great uncle Joseph of Arimathea—the one who was a secret disciple, and a member of the Sanhedrin—had a tomb nearby, which would make timely interment more feasible. It was a new tomb, and being Joseph’s, it was surely well hewn and secure.

Joseph, being who he was, went to Pilate privately and petitioned him for the body of his nephew.  Pilate consented, and there was likely some help from local soldiers to get Him down and transported with minimal Jewish contact—for it was the Preparation Day, a day of cleansing and purity, and contact with the dead, or even with blood, would have disqualified a Jew from partaking of the Feast.  Pilate commanded the body to be delivered to Joseph (Matthew 27:58). And Joseph took the body and buried it—he, being a man of wealth, certainly had servants to carry most of this out, if not all. And the two Marys sat apart from the body, yet watching over the process.

All this was done before sunset, but Jesus’ body was not fully anointed according to custom (yet, the woman with the alabaster box of ointment had accomplished it the week before, as Jesus said, “She has done it for my burial,” in Matthew 26:12). So the Jews all went to their respective families, to observe the Passover Feast, as it was commanded that they should do.

The Lamb of God was slain, providing the Feast of the Passover in the most real sense. This was not the symbol. This was the reality!

And what of the High Priest?

Few realize—unless they have studied Judaism—that the High Priest had to rush from the Temple to the foot of the Mount of Olives (from a high place, to a low place) and harvest those ten shocks of barley that had been marked on the first day of Aviv.  They were carried to the Temple and laid out to dry. This had to be done before sunset. And the High Priest had to remain cloistered with those barley shocks until the day after the next Sabbath—which in this case meant three days and three nights! At the end of that time, when dawn appeared, the High Priest would offer those dried barley shocks to the Lord on the Day of Firstfruits.

So while the High Priest remained in the Temple, the Sanhedrin met and discussed Jesus’ burial, remembering that Jesus said He would be raised on the third day. Pilate ordered the tomb to be made “as sure as you can,” which included the great stone that was already fashioned for Joseph’s burial, with a groove wherein it rolled to cover the door.

It should be mentioned here that archaeologist Wyatt found a tomb near the crucifixion site, which is widely thought to be the one where Jesus’ was actually laid. It had a broken iron peg driven to the side of the door, which apparently held a chain lock. But there was no stone.

After some excavations around the area, there was found a great stone, 13 ft. in diameter, lying near the tomb. It was just large enough to cover the door—and it fit perfectly in the hewn groove outside the tomb!  More interesting was the chain loop driven into the center—one which would have held the chain or bolt that would attach to the place where now just a broken iron is peg. They had found the stone, and the iron peg was broken during the earthquake, when the stone was rolled from its place!

Jesus was laid in the grave Wednesday evening just before sunset (and remember, Wednesday night after sunset is Thursday morning, Jewish time). This day was a high Sabbath day, for it was the first day of Unleavened Bread, which convened with the Passover supper. During a High Sabbath, no work is done. The Sanhedrin, therefore, might have met the following day (Friday) before sundown to discuss his burial. His grave would have been secured on Friday—and was certainly checked first to see that it was still occupied. Jesus lay in that grave for three full days, and three full nights—from Wednesday night to Saturday night, in Gentile terms. The three FULL days and three FULL nights were essential in order to fulfill the words of Jesus:

But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. --Matthew 12:39-40

Wednesday night to Thursday night had been a High Sabbath. Friday in the day, work resumed, and was resumed hurriedly, for the regular Sabbath was to begin at sunset, as usual.

On Saturday night, when the sun went down, the Sabbath ended; the Jews would say that another day had begun. And this was the most victorious of all days from the foundations of the world! It was the day when Jesus rose from the grave! He arose sometime in the night, for when the women came before daylight, he had already risen. There had been yet another earthquake, and the sentry who had been set to watch apparently fainted when the angel of the Lord appeared! Interestingly, the Jewish leaders paid them to lie to Pilate about what they had seen, and to tell him that men overcame them and stole the body of Jesus.

The two Mary’s arrived at the scene just before dawn, accompanied by others. The Gospels seem inconsistent regarding who actually saw and heard what—and when--but not enough to be truly contradictory. Some possibly singular words, such as “woman”, have been translated into plural forms—“women.” This could account for some of the confusion regarding Mary Magdalene and when it was that she actually saw Jesus for the first time. So it seems to have happened is something like this:

The women came and saw the stone was rolled away, and saw that the body was missing. They were “perplexed thereabouts.” The word for “thereabouts” refers to a circuit, or a surrounding area. Perhaps they searched the area, and even started back for home. Meanwhile, Mary Magdalene lagged behind, weeping.

It had been the most horrible week. Jesus—the one who had cast seven devils out of her and set her free had been quickly crucified as a common criminal. She must have been confused, as all of the disciples were. He had healed the sick, and raised the dead. How could His life be over? He was her hope. Now He was dead—and worse, His body was missing.

She stooped down to look into the tomb again, and there sat two men in shining white—angels, sitting at the head and the foot of the stone bed where had lain the body of Jesus.  “Why are you crying?” they asked.

“Because they have taken away my Master, and I don’t know where they have laid Him!”

Then, she turned around, and there was a man whom she thought was the groundskeeper. She did not know that it was Jesus!

“Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?” He asked.

“They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve laid Him,” she replied.

Then He called her by name.

“Mary.”

She instantly recognized Him, and called Him Master. But He cautioned her not to touch Him, for He had not yet “ascended to the Father.”  It was the Day of Firstfruits—and that Jesus was the firstfruits of the resurrection! He had not yet ascended to the Father on that day to present Himself and the other “sheaves” with Him. The High Priest was about to perform the waving of the sheaves before the altar—and Jesus was about to fulfill that symbolic rite by bringing the first resurrected ones to the Father! The Bible says that many resurrected saints had been seen alive in Jerusalem. Jesus made a way for them to live forever! And somehow, He was going to do something in the heavenlies—just what, we don’t know.

They ran, telling no one on the way—they were afraid.  And when these women told the disciples, the men didn’t believe them. But Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb.  John also ran, and got there first. Sure enough, the stone was moved away from the sepulchre, and Jesus’ body was gone.

The Gospel of John says that they did not know (understand) the Scriptures regarding Jesus’ resurrection. This was the Day of Firstfruits—a Feast day that had been celebrated since the days Moses. This Feast day had been established to point to this very day, the day when the Messiah would take the keys from hell and death and make eternal life possible! The meaning had been shrouded in ritual for so long, and their hearts had been so earth bent with disappointment that they did not recognize what was happening, even though Jesus had said He would rise again. They had not understood what He meant when He said He would be raised again on the third day.

Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.  For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again. And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken. --Luke 18:31-34

For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him. --Mark 9:31, 32

They were “afraid to ask Him.” Why? Because they would seem unlearned before the rest of the disciples? Whatever the reason, they did not ask—and so they could not understand.

But later, they would understand, and would teach these things to Paul, who wrote,

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.  --1Corinthians 15:20

Later that day—after the high priest would have offered the Firstfruits offering with a sheaf of new, ripened barley, and the offering of a lamb, in accordance with Leviticus 23:12:

“And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf, an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD.”

At the same time, Jesus would have presented Himself before the Father as the burnt offering--having descended to hell to preach to the captives?—and as the Firstfruits of the Resurrection. And having grieved and wept for the lost, even sweating drops of blood in His angst, would come with great joy before the Father, bring his sheaves with Him!

“He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”      – Psalm 126:6

Jesus appeared to his other disciples and made plain his identity, after showing them again the Scriptures, from the Law of Moses (which included the Feasts) and the words of the Prophets. The week’s events were the payoff—it was all made clear at last!

Interestingly, that day was Ishtar Sunday, as was mentioned before.  And the subsequent reference to Easter in the Book of Acts was so translated because the Jewish Paschal season had coincided with Ishtar Sunday, which was a very major celebration in the Roman Empire. And while only vestiges probably remained in Jerusalem, perhaps remnants of the days in Babylon, the Gentile Christians, led by Constantine, allowed a blending of Pascha and Ishtar.  Easter—the feast of Ishtar and her son Tammuz—had tainted the most important Season in history with the name of a pagan goddess. And the associated fertile rabbits and eggs attached themselves, creating a colorful, carnal distraction from the Spring Feasts.

Why would Satan care to distract Christ-followers from understanding how Jesus fulfilled the Spring Feasts of the Lord? I submit to you that it is because it would alert us to find the codes in the Fall Feasts and be more aware and prepared for the details of His Second Coming!

This is why these things have not been known until now. The Fall Feasts are soon to come.  Will we be able to recognize the details that will help us hold on to our faith in the coming days? Will we be ready in every respect that we ought?

Surely if we believe and repent and make Jesus our Lord our sins are forgiven; but is there more to our preparation for his coming? What does it mean to “occupy till he come?” (cf., Luke 19:13)

I do not know the answer in full. But I WANT TO KNOW.

Do you?

There is a reason to know the Feasts. There is a reason that Jesus said, “What I say unto you, I say unto all. Watch.” (Mark 13:37)

Thus the title of this book. His Word is our living Bread—not just the New Testament, which we have thought to be the full Gospel, but the Old Testament from which it springs. The Old Testament is like the recipe! You need it in order to rightly divide the Word of Truth the way the disciples did. Once you see the correlation, you will never go back to shallow topical biblical interpretations pulled out of context. You will be hooked on manna! His Bread is alive, and it satisfies the longing soul! The Word is all about Yehoshua, Jesus, our Savior and Lord of all!

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. --John 6:51

Table of Contents

Introduction יְהוֹשֻׁעַ Yehoshua

BOOK One The Courses

Book I ~ Chapter One ~ The Postulate

Chapter Two ~ Misconceptions

Chapter Three ~ The Torah, the Tanakh and the Talmud

Chapter Four ~ The Genealogies of Mary and Joseph

Chapter Five ~ The Names of the LORD

Chapter Six ~ God’s Calendar

Chapter Seven ~ The Feasts of the LORD

Chapter Eight ~ Babylon

BOOK TWO Come and Dine

Book II ~ Chapter One ~ Bethabara

II ~ Chapter Two ~ Timing

II ~ Chapter Three ~ Leaven

II ~ Chapter Four ~ Preparation

II ~ Chapter Five ~ The Lamb