In Leviticus 23:37,38 we find God’s annual Holy Days listed.  About them He says: “These are the feasts (festivals) of the Lord which you will proclaim to be holy convocations …. besides the (weekly) Sabbaths of the Lord.”  Here, and elsewhere in both the Old and New Testaments, we are commanded to keep both His weekly Sabbaths and His annual Holy Days, which are also Sabbaths (rest days).   He not only commands His saints to keep them, He tells them when to keep them and in the manner they are to be kept.

Relative to the weekly Sabbath, Sunday (the 1st day of the week) has become the rest day for modern Christianity.  However, Saturday (the 7th day of the week) is the day God chose for His saints to rest.  In Isaiah 58:13 He calls the 7th day “My holy day.”  In Nehemiah 9:14 the 7th day of the week is called “YOUR (God’s) holy Sabbath.”  Then in 10:31 it is called “THE holy day.”  In Genesis 2:3 we find God blessing and sanctifying His chosen Sabbath.  In the 4th commandment he commands us to “remember THE SABBATH DAY and keep IT holy.”  The word “keep” in Hebrew is a military term meaning to surround so as to protect–to keep holy.

The church’s holidays are celebrations that came directly from the pagan world. They are Satan’s weapons of mass distraction.  In Eden the Serpent promised Adam and Eve eternal life for sinning against God (Gen. 3:4), thereby rejecting His Word to the contrary.  The father of lies has been equally successful in turning their descendants away from the Biblical God by substituting his (Satan’s) ways for the ways of the Lord.  The existence of Catholicism/ Protestantism is proof of his effectiveness.   The fact that professing Christendom outnumbers God’s church 2.5 billion to 10,000 thousand globally is proof that Satan is the master substituter.  And he began with only two.

God’s plan of salvation in which every person who has ever lived will be offered salvation is symbolized by the seasons involved in the harvesting of crops in the Middle East.  The seasons are represented by one or more Holy Days.  Those seasons/days are, in chronological order: Passover, Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, Last Great Day.

I am writing this series during the Feast of Tabernacles period–September 21-28, 2021.  This and the following posting we will learn about God’s great plan for mankind.  In the future I will present all of the Lord’s Holy Days so that when the times of those celebrations arrive readers will understand why they exist and how they are to be observed.  Let us now note the Lord’s calendar and how His Holy Days fit into it.

The Lord’s year begins in what is known in the Western World as springtime–the time of the year when He brought the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery (sin).  The night before leaving Egypt the Israelites observed Passover.  Having been forgiven of their sins and “baptized” in the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:2), God told the Israelites, along with the (racially and nationally) “mixed multitude” of Gentiles (goiim–heathen) that had come out with them, that they all must observe Passover at that time every year FOREVER.  By leaving sin behind and being “baptized” with the Israelites, the Gentiles became spiritual Israelites and joined the various tribes as equals before the Lord.  Note that God did not create a separate tribe of Gentiles.  By obeying Him, the Gentiles became Israelites–His chosen people.  Nothing has changed–salvation seekers must allow God to remove their sins (Rom. 3:25), be baptized (Acts 2:38) and “sin no more” (Jn. 5:14; 8:11) in order to be saved at the return of Jesus Christ (Mat. 10:21,22).  Those who have done so will rise during the first resurrection and become God’s kings and priests–his “firstfruits.”  Those who refuse to obey Him will rise during the second resurrection and will be taught the ways of God by His “firstfruits” during the millennium.

Following the festival called Passover six more commemorations symbolize God’s harvest of souls that began on the Day of Pentecost in 31 A.D. and will end at the culmination of the millennium.  As stated earlier, we will be examining each of the other Holy Days (Feasts/Festivals) in the future.  But first we will find the “fine print” relative to the Feast of Tabernacles which symbolizes the millennium (1000 year period) which will take place following Christ’s return to earth.  This period is also known as the Kingdom of God.  The symbolic feast that God’s saints are observing now will play out in reality for the masses who will have arisen during the second resurrection.  Read The Three Resurrections.  Key word–Resurrections.

The Festival of Tabernacles pictures what will happen to the multiplied billions who have never heard the Lord’s Truth preached and have never read it in the Holy Scriptures.  They will be taught His Way of holiness that can be realized only through obedience to His Law.  The millennial multitude will include billions of former salvation seekers who had been deceived by Satan into joining his Catholic/Protestant Church System and following his doctrines as proclaimed by his false prophets.  Jesus warned about them in Matthew 24:4,5.  He symbolized Satan’s false Christianity in Matthew 7:13,14 as the wide gate and broad way that lead to destruction.  Today his wide gate is known as the Catholic/Protestant Church System and his broad way is called church doctrine–what the church wishes God had said.

The activities symbolized by the Feast of Tabernacles will take place after Christ has died for man’s sins, after He has returned to earth, after He has separated those who answered His call to holiness during their previous lives, after He has made them kings, priests and teachers of holiness.  Upon His return Jesus will establish the millennial Kingdom of God on earth which is now symbolized by the Feast of Tabernacles.  It is during the millennium that the largest number of souls will be offered eternal life after God’s Very Elect (firstfruits) has taught them the Lord’s Truth.  Those who embrace, believe and obey it will be saved.  Recall that it is God’s will that all be saved.  Those who had been lured into the Institutional Church will have never heard His true Gospel, but only Satan’s perverted version of it (Gal. 1:6-9).  Like some in the church at Corinth, they will have embraced “another Jesus” (2 Cor. 11:4), and therefore another Gospel and another salvation.  These will have entered Satan’s wide gate and walked his broad path.

I realize that this information is both foreign and confusing to many readers who have never heard God’s Truth regarding His harvest of souls, or anything else for that matter.  In order to understand His Word/Truth, one must reject what one has heard in church.  As 2 Corinthians 6:4-7:1 tells us, light and darkness cannot exist together.  Because Satan’s religious darkness has been accepted as God’s light by so many generations for so long, rejecting darkness and accepting light is difficult for church people.  The more religious one is, the harder it is to let go of Satan’s religious darkness and to embrace God’s Scriptural light.  Pride and fear of rejection cause the vast majority of church people who hear God’s Truth to reject it.  Ironically, some reject it even after admitting that it is indeed Biblical Truth.  This is an example of Satan’s power over those in his church.

It is vitally important that Truth seekers understand the Lord’s plan of salvation that spans thousands of years.  As noted, this plan is symbolized by seven Festivals/Holy Days that symbolize the process of crop harvesting among the Israelites of the Holy Land.  In the next posting we will explore more Truths concerning the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day–the Lord’s largest harvest of souls.  L.J.