The Feast of Tabernacles consists of seven days of celebration which picture the millennium.  Seven is the Lord’s number of completion.  Therefore, there must be seven festivals.  The Feast of Tabernacles/Ingathering was the sixth.  The seventh festival is written about in Leviticus 23:34,36: “The fifteenth day of the seventh month will be the (first day of the) Feast of Tabernacles (which will continue) for seven days unto the Lord.  The eighth day will be an holy convocation unto you.  It is a (day of ) solemn assembly; and you shall do no servile work on that day.”  As the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles was a Sabbath, so is the Last Great Day. All other Holy Days are Sabbaths on which no work is to be done.  The eighth day is technically a feast and is called by the Apostle John “the last day, that great day of the feast” (7:37).

The eighth day, which immediately follows the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, pictures the completion of God’s plan of salvation which are His written instructions for whosoever will believe and obey Him, thereby qualifying for eternal life.  But those resurrected on the eighth day will be of a different sort than those in the first resurrection (the firstfruits) and in the second resurrection (those converted during the millennium who died after being taught the way of God throughout their allotted lifespan).  The people who will be in the third resurrection will be those who have died in total ignorance of God and His will.  There have been millions of people who have died never having heard “that name by which we must be saved.”  Others will have heard of Him but will have dismissed Him as the figment of man’s imagination.  God wants all who have ever lived to have the opportunity to enter His kingdom.  It is on the eighth day that those who died in total ignorance of Him will be given the opportunity to be saved when they are resurrected after the millennium has passed.  This group will include modern (Americans, British and Jewish) Israelites who never knew about the Lord and His will.  The vast majority of these people will not know that they are Israelites.  Ezekiel 37 speaks of the resurrection of these people.  The prophet wrote that God would pour out His Spirit on them (vs 14) and they would stand on their feet as flesh and blood people.  Jesus speaks of the granting of salvation to them in statement made on the Last Great Day observance in 30 A.D.  We find this cryptic message quoted in John 7:37-39: “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink, for out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.  (But this He spoke about the Holy Spirit, which they that believe on Him would receive ….)”

Revelation 20:12 picks up on this theme, telling us that, at that time God will open the “book of life” in which are recorded the names of all the saved among mankind.  The Last Great Day presents the final view of the “Judgment Day” as the present earth and present heaven are perishing and the faithful are receiving their eternal reward at the throne of Christ.  The wicked who refused to obey Him are seen being burned to ash in the Lake of Fire.  Herein lies another lie Satan has told the church.  Contrary to what we have been told many times is “Bible truth,” the wicked will not burn forever while remaining alive.  The Bible clearly states that, though the fire will burn forever, wicked people will burn to ash and be walked upon by God’s saints (Mal. 4:3).  The Lake of Fire was created for the devil and his angels.  Being spirits, they cannot die.  Therefore they will burn forever in eternal fire (Rev. 20:10).  Wicked men, however, will burn to ash.

At this point we will revisit Leviticus 23:37,38.  After describing God’s annual Holy Days, Moses then continues, telling us: “These are the feasts of the Lord which ye shall proclaim to be HOLY CONVOCATIONS … BESIDE THE (WEEKLY) SABBATHS OF THE LORD.”  

Those claiming to be God’s people have substituted Satan’s holidays for God’s Holy Days which they have nailed to Christ’s cross.  This ministry has proven the heathen source of their holidays for those who want to know the truth about them.  Let us obey the Words of the Lord relative to the Holy Days, along with everything else concerning His plan of salvation.  Like King David, let our delight be in the Law of the Lord (Ps. 1:2).  Let us, like him, delight in God’s statutes, testimonies and commandments (Ps. 119:16,24,35).  Like Jesus, let us delight to do the will of the Lord, Whose will is expressed in His Holy Word, the same Word that Jesus called Truth (Jn. 17:17), the same Word by which we must live (Mat. 4:4), the same Word by which we will all be judged (Jn. 12:48).  May we make His Word our walk (1 Jn. 2:6).  Only in this way can we overcome Satan’s call to sin and thereby EARN the right to sit with Jesus on His throne in the Kingdom of God.

In the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel is found a story which takes the reader 2500 years into the future during which four Gentile kingdoms would rule the known world.  Beginning with the Babylonian kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, the following three kingdoms followed in succession, the final kingdom being the mighty Roman Empire which is epitomized as a “beast” having ten horns.  Horns represent governments/kingdoms.

Among these ten governments that have ruled the Western world since the fall of Rome to the present appeared a “little horn” whose “look was more stout (powerful) than his fellows.”  This “government” was smaller than the political governments around it, yet it dominated all of the other ten governments, which would be ten resurrections of the original Roman Empire.  Students of Scripture and secular history know that this “little horn” was a great religious hierarchy.  We are told that this “horn” would be so powerful that it would “change times and laws.”

This great, government-dominating power is pictured in the 17th chapter of Revelation as a woman (church) sitting astride (ruling) a beast (the final–10th–resurrection of the Roman Empire).  The woman is shown to be persecuting and killing God’s true saints (vss 1-5).  This “woman” is a powerful CHURCH who, during the 9th resurrection of the Roman Empire, slaughtered some 50 million people, most of them God’s saints, because they would not bow to her.  This “little horn” has indeed CHANGED TIMES AND LAWS.  Let us examine some of those changes.

God begins the day at sundown.  This church changed it to the middle of the night.

God begins His work week with the ending of His 7th day (Saturday) Sabbath at sundown.  The little horn changed the beginning of the work week to the second day of the week.

God begins His month with the new moon, but the woman changed the beginning of the months to a man-made calendar of heathen origin.

God begins the year in early spring when nature is bringing forth new life.  Ancient Rome, directed by the little horn/woman/church, caused the world to begin the year in the dead of winter.

God gave His children a true rest day designed to keep them continually in the knowledge and true worship of the true God–a memorial of His creation–on the seventh day of the week.  The great false (Catholic) church has deluded the world into observing the day the pagans worshiped their sun god.  The day is appropriately called Sun day–the Day of the Sun God–the first day of the week.

Ancient Rome’s pagan holidays have been foisted upon an unsuspecting and deceived world, which includes the church world which keeps them always in view by religiously observing them, thereby broadcasting their heathenism for all the world to see and even join in.  Ancient Rome’s heathen holidays are counterfeits of God’s true Holy Days, just as Sunday is a counterfeit of His true weekly Sabbath.  L.J.