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  • Feasts: Thanksgiving to God

    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.

    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.

    Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement

    Yom Kippur (in Hebrew)

    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

     

  • Blessed be God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

    Blessed be God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

    PRAISE & WORSHIP GOD! (as faithful worshipers have blessed God and been blessed by God for generations…)

    • Genesis 1:21 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
    • Genesis 5:2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.
    • Genesis 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
    • Genesis 14:19-20 And he [Melchizedek] blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
    • Exodus 18:10  Jethro said, “Blessed be the LORD, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.
    • Exodus 39:43 (after the building of the Tabernacle for worship of the LORD) And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the LORD had commanded, so had they done it. Then Moses blessed them.
    • Leviticus 9:22 Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings.
    • Deuteronomy 12:7-9 And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the LORD your God has blessed you. “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you.
    • 2 Samuel 6:18 And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts.
    • 2 Chronicles 2:12 Hiram also said, “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who has given King David a wise son, who has discretion and understanding, who will build a temple for the LORD and a royal palace for himself.
    • 2 Chronicles 30:25-27  The whole assembly of Judah, and the priests and the Levites, and the whole assembly that came out of Israel, and the sojourners who came out of the land of Israel, and the sojourners who lived in Judah, rejoiced. So there was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. Then the priests and the Levites arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, and their prayer came to his holy habitation in heaven.
    • Nehemiah 8:6 And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.

    Psalm 34:8

    Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
    Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

    Matthew 21:9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

    Worship the Lord your God!

    2 Corinthians 1

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Greeting

    1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

    To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:

    2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

    God of All Comfort

    3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

    1 Peter 1

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Greeting

    1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

    To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

    May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

    Born Again to a Living Hope

    3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

    Ephesians 1

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Greeting

    1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

    To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

    2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Spiritual Blessings in Christ

    3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known[c] to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

    11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

    Thanksgiving and Prayer

    15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

     A doxology (from the Greek δόξα [doxa] “glory” + -λογία [-logia], “saying”) is a short hymn of praises to God in various Christian worship services.

    Doxology – worship video & music of David Crowder

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