Tag: John

Feasts: Thanksgiving to God

“These are the appointed feasts of the LORD, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. – Leviticus 23:4

Feasts, Fasts & Festivals

Americans view Thanksgiving as a defining national holiday, complete with feasts focused on our Utopian culture of American families. Yet a stark reality lingers as a less than an alternative truth of family feasts of the American family. In fact, as I pointed out in the preface to this Thanksgiving message for 2017, we focus almost entirely on ourselves rather than God.

Festivals, feasts and celebrations have digressed to a holiday from work. Who do we thank, anyway? Certainly not the Lord. Though these feasts may have originated with God and governments, the LORD loses honor in all lands in our contemporary celebrations of self-accomplishment.

Never-the-less, let’s take a brief Biblical look at the origin of feasts and fasts appointed by the LORD.

Note: Most information shared from other sources. Check out the several links for additional study.

Calendar of Hebraic Feast and Holy Days 2017–2021*
Feast and Holy Days and Dates	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Purim Adar 14	Mar. 12	Mar. 1	Mar. 21	Mar. 10	Feb. 26
Pesach (Passover) Aviv 14	Apr. 11	Mar. 31	Apr. 20	Apr. 9	Mar. 28
Feast of Firstfruits Aviv ___ (varies)	Apr. 16	Apr. 1	Apr. 21	Apr. 12	Apr. 11
Shavuot (Feast of Weeks) Sivan ___ (varies)	June 4 §May 31	May 20 §May 20	June 9 §June 9	May 31 §May 29	May 23 §May 17
Rosh haShanah (Feast of Trumpets) Tishri 1	Sep. 21	Sep. 10	Sep. 30	Sep. 19	Sep. 7
Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) Tishri 10	Sep. 30	Sep. 19	Oct. 9	Sep. 28	Sep. 16
Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) Tishri 15-22	Oct. 5	Sep. 24	Oct. 14	Oct. 3	Sep. 21
Hanukkah (Feast of Dedication) Kislev 25	Dec. 13	Dec. 3	Dec. 23	Dec. 11	Nov. 29

Feasts of the Lord

חָגַג – to hold a feast, hold a festival, make pilgrimage, keep a pilgrim-feast, celebrate, dance, stagger

Contemporary Jewish Calendars include a mixture of Hebrew Festivals, some which are considered minor festivals, with others of more importance.

Names of Hebrew festivals in other languages vary widely, without a singular reference such as ‘Thanksgiving’ for each.

All preexilic festivals were “holy convocations”

PRE-EXILIC Annual (Hebrew) Festivals
1. Passover, 15th-22d Nican
2. Pentecost, 6th Ciwan) Pilgrimage
3. Tabernacles, 15th-22d Tishri) Festivals
4. Shemini ‘Atsereth, 23d Tishri
5. New Year, Feast of Trumpets, 1st Tishri
6. Atonement, 10th Tishri

Five festivals, in addition to the all-important weekly Sabbath [שַׁבָּת], monthly (28 days) New Moon, Sabbath Year (every 7) and Jubilee Year ( every 50) ALL honor the LORD! The Day of Atonement was the only ‘pre-exilic’ fast.

Faithful worshipers of God included fasting, prayer and preparation for these feasts honoring the LORD. A feast was much more important than a mere family gathering, a feast followed a prescribed honoring of Almighty God.

Leviticus 23:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.

Passover, known as The Feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD
The Feast of First-fruits
Shavuot or The Feast of Weeks
Rosh ha Shanah or The Feast of Trumpets
Sukkot, known as The Feast of Booths ESV, also known as:
- Feast of Tabernacles KJV
- Festival of Shelters NLT
- Festival of Tabernacles NIV
- חָג [Hebrew – feast] סֻכָּה [of tabernacles]
- always occurs after the most important day of atonement (which of course is not a feast but a fasting with prayer.

Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement

More Feasts, Fasts & Festivals

The Hebrew calendar begins with two thanksgivings (holy convocations, rather than festivals) to the LORD.

Both commemorate events when the Lord saved Israel: Passover or Pesach the Lord saves the Hebrew people through Moses from slavery in Egypt. And Purim celebrates the Lord using Queen Esther during the exile to save the Hebrews from holocaust at the hands of Haman the Persian.

Post-exilic Festivals

After the fall of Jerusalem more than a dozen new celebrations and fasts were added to the Hebrew calendar. The period of the Babylonian captivity marks a complete change, not only in the kinds of festivals instituted from time to time, but also in the manner of celebrating the old.

God, America & Thankfulness

What do Hebrew holidays and a uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving have to do with you?

(After all, most of the world is neither Hebrew or American.)

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations. – Psalm 57:9

Yes, giving thanks is our most appropriate witness to the Lord.

O, give thanks! you sons and daughters of Jacob. Yadah, yadah יָדָה the unrighteous will hear nothing of your blessings; yet we give thanks, laud and praise to your glorious Name, O Lord of Hosts!

1 Chronicles 16:8 הֹודוּ לַֽיהוָה קִרְאוּ בִשְׁמֹו הֹודִיעוּ בָעַמִּים עֲלִילֹתָֽיו׃

As the Lord has chosen but a remnant of Jacob for eternal redemption. God chooses no nation, but only a faithful remnant of those who believe.

Israel fell. Rome fell. The U.S. spirals down toward destruction as has every earthly nation before us. The Lord will judge each man and woman for our own sin. He has prepared a remnant for His witness, praise and thanksgiving.

εὐχαριστία – thankfulness, the giving of thanks

Our witness is that the Messiah Jesus was, is and is to come – He is God in the flesh, the Spirit and Creator of all things.

He will judge and condemn the evil which surrounds us.

He will redeem those who call upon His Name; therefore give Him thanks for the covering of our sins.

Praise to our Lord Jesus Christ

John 1:

16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

John 3:

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

See how evil unmasks evil. It cannot remain covered and neither will our sin, unless we are in Christ by his love and mercy and grace.

20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy
health and salvation!
All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Sing now in glad adoration!

Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that
is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come
now with praises before Him!

Let the Amen
Sound from His people again;
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Psalm 103

November 22, 2017

Banquet of the King in the House of Wisdom – 7
A casual quest for wisdom’s banquet

We have explored wisdom in this series for the most part from the Bible’s book of Proverbs. Solomon’s fame, fortune and riches brought leaders to his court seeking ‘words of wisdom.’

I suppose they would ask: What can I learn about the success of this wise King? Perhaps if I could be wise like Solomon I could replicate his riches.

Powerful leaders point uninformed others to places which will keep them in their place. The masses of humanity for the most part have remained uneducated and therefore cared little about wisdom. Even the faithful have not been told God’s truth. So few have have read the truth recorded in scripture.

A thousand years after David and Solomon the Messiah Jesus came into this world and proclaimed:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’ – John 14:6

Just like those who had come to Solomon for wisdom, people often asked Jesus about the Kingdom of Heaven, His Kingdom.

An uncomfortable truth

One day I saw a friend preparing for a great banquet for a wedding of important guests. As guests began to arrive in their tuxedos and gowns I asked a well-dressed guard at the door if I could enter briefly to greet my friend. The attendant guard of the door graciously agreed.

I became increasingly uncomfortable as guests arrived, knowing that I had not dressed in the formal attire of arriving guests. We didn’t belong at this celebration for the bride and groom, which was about to begin.

At the time I couldn’t help recalling the uncomfortable ending of Jesus’ parable about the wedding feast.

Just as the truth of wisdom makes us a little uncomfortable, so do the truths of death, judgment and eternal life.

Until the days of Luther (and Gutenberg) most men could not read the Bible. Women rarely could read at all. Yet even now men and women who claim to seek wisdom fail to read the wisdom of the Bible.

Perhaps a few will make brief inquiry about God in an uncomfortable place, a church. Doesn’t it make us feel like the uninvited wedding guest?

Matthew 22

2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3 and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast…

As pointed out previously in this series:
- “they would not come.”
- Other servants invited them again, but the invited guests refused.
  - Some ignored the invitation and went back to work.
  - Others of the chosen killed the messengers!
7 The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
- He sent messengers to invite as many as they could find.
- Other guests filled the wedding hall.
  
  Now the King enters the festivities. As he looks about the room with joy the King notices a man like me (not appropriately prepared for the great feast).
11 “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. 12 And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants,

‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness.

The outer darkness of the fool

Are you fearful? Here is the wise and all-powerful King and He judges you unfit for the feast. The King’s servants cast you into eternal darkness.

Solomon and the Bible have had much to say about darkness, which is always contrasted with light and good.

The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know over what they stumble. – Proverbs 4:19

Surely the deep darkness of which Jesus speaks is Hell!

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Are you invited?

Such a staggering thought that the King of Kings would judge your sin! (And mine, as well.) Therefore we fear Hell, the place of eternal punishment so much deserved by all.

In fact no reprieve can be bought, which was a catalyst of the Reformation.

Are you an ‘outsider’ who is invited, OR do you just tiptoe in the door of the King to hear His wisdom?

Because no family ties, riches or religious displays will get you into the banquet of the Lord, an invitation is required.

Other wisdom of the Son

Jesus IS the Son of Man and Son of God! Christ came to sinners as a sacrifice for our innumerable sins. Jesus frequently speaks wisdom to the crowds and Apostles, even explaining the meaning of parables.

Have you read the Gospel? Find your invitation to the banquet of the King and embrace His righteous wisdom in this Good News for all.
October 31, 2017
Banquet of the King in the House of Wisdom – 3

Words of a Wise King or Prudent Messenger

Pride leads to disgrace,
but with humility comes wisdom. – Proverbs 11:2 NLT

Listen, you broadcasters of contention and messengers of alternative truth. Integrity and importance no longer occupy the seat of honor in your palaces!

Righteous kings and true messengers choose their words well, while evil broadcasts a false balance. Your impudent proclamations and contentious questions weary the ears of the righteous.

When will wisdom return to the feasts of the leaders of nations and conversation of those subjected to your entertainment news? You stoke the fires of hatred and fuel the frenzies of division.

Proverbs 11:

A false balance is an abomination to the Lord,
    but a just weight is his delight.

⁴Riches do not profit in the day of wrath,
    but righteousness delivers from death.
⁵The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight,
    but the wicked falls by his own wickedness.
⁶The righteousness of the upright delivers them,
    but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust.

Remember Solomon who wrote these words nearly three thousand years ago? He began as a righteous king with good intentions, yet the king fell into sin. A great kingdom fell after having been chosen by God to represent righteousness.

Great kingdoms of the millennia diminished into discontent and dishonor; for wisdom no longer occupied a seat in their palaces or consideration in the thoughts of their subjects.

NEWS of the Day

⁹With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor,
    but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

¹²Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense,
    but a man of understanding remains silent.
¹³Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets,
    but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.
¹⁴Where there is no guidance, a people falls,
    but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

Hasn’t our focus been drawn to scandal, personalities and unrighteousness? Accusers point to what is evil in their opinion (calling it news) yet never point to righteousness in the eyes of the Lord.

Media has become the message. Truth, importance and wisdom no longer invade media’s monetary message.

²³The desire of the righteous ends only in good,
    the expectation of the wicked in wrath.

28 Whoever trusts in his riches will fall,
but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.
29 Whoever troubles his own household will inherit the wind,
and the fool will be servant to the wise of heart.

Hear this, you evil messengers and rich rulers. It is the LORD who will judge both message and messenger. He will weigh injustice and offset lies.

A wicked messenger falls into trouble,
but a faithful envoy brings healing. – Proverbs 13:7

An evil man seeks only rebellion,
and a cruel messenger will be sent against him. – Proverbs 17:11

Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. – John 13:16

I tell you haughty messengers and arrogant rulers:

The Lord sits at the gate and sends the true message. He will weigh the words or your mouth and silence the shouts of your rebellion.

To be continued…

October 12, 2017