Keeping of Days
Keeping Of Days
This is a series of messages given by the author in meetings held in January and February 2006.
We want to acknowledge those senior spiritual elders whose ministry opened our eyes to this end-time kingdom message: Tom Campbell, Cecil duCille, Clayt Sonmore and George Warnock.
Special thanks to Dan Waddick for designing the cover page and to Gordon Gerber for the labor in formatting, editing and printing.
First printing 2006
This book is being distributed to the body of Christ on a freewill offering basis. Your love offerings to help offset printing and distribution costs would be greatly appreciated. Send any offerings to the address below.
For more copies or additional literature please call or write:
Mark Jantzi, 190 Fox St, Esperance, NY 12066
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Copyright 2006 by Mark R. Jantzi. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.
Permission will be given to copy and quote from this book as long as it is not to produce for commercial profit, but given away on a freewill offering basis and the monies used exclusively for expenses of publishing, printing and distribution. The purpose of copying and reproducing must be for the furtherance of the gospel of the kingdom, be consistent with this message and taken in context of the message.
Table of Contents
P art I – Sabbaths 7
Chapter 1 - The History of Sabbaths 10
A. The Creation Foundation 10
B. The Law of Moses 12
Penalty for Violation 16
C. The Later View from the Prophets 18
Chapter 2 – Jesus Christ’s Dealing with the Sabbath 23
A. Christ’s Doctrine on the Commandments of Law 23
B. Christ’s Actions on the Sabbath 26
Breakfast in the Grain Field 28
The Tabernacle of David 28
God’s Purpose for the Sabbath 29
Healing the Withered Hand 31
Release from Demonic Bondage 32
The Word is Spread 34
Healing in Peter’s Family 36
Jesus the Jubilee 37
Deliverance for all the City 39
Loosed from a Spirit of Infirmity 40
Edema Healed 44
The Impotent Man at the Pool 47
The Man Born Blind 52
The Murder of Jesus 53
Chapter 3 – The New Testament Church 55
A. The Apostles Practice 55
First Sabbath in Antioch of Pisidia 55
The Visit to Philippi 58
Meetings in Thessalonica 60
Noble Bereans 60
A Long Stay in Corinth 61
B. The Practice of Keeping the First Day of the Week 63
Farewell Meeting in Troas 63
Meetings at Corinth 64
C. Paul’s Doctrine on Keeping of Days 65
Chapter 4 – Fullness of Rest 69
A. Three Levels Seen in the Tabernacle 70
From Natural to Spiritual 72
Hindrance at the Veil? 73
Time to Leave the Outer Court 75
A Time to Flee the Holy Place 77
Holy Place Jubilee 78
B. Christ Our Rest 80
His Yoke or Man’s Works 82
C. The Seventh Millennium 86
D. Tabernacles – The Seventh Month 90
Feasts of the Lord in the Tabernacle 91
E. Trumpets 92
F Seventy Weeks to Fullness 97
G. The Millennial Sabbath 99
H. The Principle of Fullness 101
Tares and Wheat 101
The Fall of Babylon 105
Come out of Her 107
Part II – Holidays 111
Chapter 5 – The History of Babylon 111
Nimrod’s Empire and Fall 112
Mother of Harlots 117
Chapter 6 – Christmas 120
A. Jesus was Not Born in December 120
Some Notable Birthday Parties 124
B. Christmas is a Pagan Festival 124
How Paganism Invaded the Church 127
Some Resisted 128
Christmas Sanctioned by the Pope 130
Chapter 7 – Easter 133
Easter is not a Christian Celebration 133
What Really is Easter 134
Easter Symbolism 138
Forty Days of Lent 142
Church History 144
Keeping His Death and Resurrection 147
Chapter 8 – Halloween 149
Recognition by Rome 150
The Spirits of Druidism 151
What Does God Say 153
Doctrines of Demons 154
Keeping of Days
By Mark Jantzi
Part I: Sabbaths
Hebrews 4
1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.
6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
8 For if Jesus (Joshua) had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
9 There remaineth therefore a rest (keeping of a Sabbath) to the people of God.
10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief (disobedience):
Now I do not intend to start this teaching by an exposition of the fourth chapter of Hebrews, although I will eventually get into it. But I have emphasized here this portion of the chapter that makes reference to the “rest,” and as you can see, nearly every verse in this passage of Scripture makes some direct reference to “rest” or of the “entering into rest.” But we can also see in the Bible that this rest is used almost synonymously with the Sabbath. So if we are going to look at the keeping of the Sabbath, we need to understand the principle behind the Sabbath, not just the literal keeping of a day.
What quickened my interest in this subject was a phone conversation I recently had with some folks and what they have come to believe about the keeping of the Sabbath, as to which day of the week is the proper day for the body of Christ to meet. And of course, when we are talking about the Sabbath we are commonly talking about the day of the week that we call “Saturday,” or “Sunday”. “Saturday” is a name that I don’t particularly like, as it was named as such by the pagan Romans (and also by the pagan Saxons) in honor of their god of Saturn; and “Sunday” isn’t a much better name as it is named after the sun god. I only mention this so that we all know what day we are talking about. In our conversation, I was asked to defend our actions of when we gather, so I needed to go back into the Word of God for an answer.
The literal Hebrew word “Sabbath” means “to rest or cease from labor,” but it is often used synonymously in reference to “the seventh day of the week.” Now that is the word “Sabbath” on the natural level, and the natural level is the first dimension. Brethren, we are well aware, are we not, that the Word of God can always be seen in at least three dimensions (at least, three is about as far as the human mind can comprehend). From this passage in Hebrews, we can see that for the word Sabbath there is also a spiritual or second level dimension, which refers to a “coming into a place of rest.” I hope that as we come to understand the spiritual Sabbath, we will come to understand that Christ is the Sabbath rest, and therefore coming into Him is entering into a Sabbath rest (as in the Hebrews passage above). And before we finish with this, I hope that we can also see the Sabbath in its fullness, which is the coming of this whole earth into a seventh millennium of rest from the hold of Satan and into the fullness of the kingdom of God, which will be the third dimension. And so the Sabbath is on all three dimensions.
So let us begin in the Old Testament, and let us begin the study with the natural Sabbath, which is with the seventh day of a week that is seven days long. Let us go to Genesis, the book of beginnings, where so many of God’s principles are first laid out for our understanding.
Chapter 1
The History of Sabbath
A. The Creation Foundation
Genesis 1
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 2
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
This, of course, is the account of creation. The above scripture passage does not include all of creation, only the last of the sixth day, and the seventh day. Man was the last thing that God created on the sixth day (after fish, fowls, and beasts), and that day then ended with the setting of the sun. So Adam may have been in darkness most of the first twelve hours of his life. I am pointing this out because it says that these are natural days, beginning at sunset, going through a sunrise and continuing again until the next sunset.[1] This work of God’s creation was accomplished in six twenty-four hour days, not six eons or sixty million years, or any such thing that the Darwinian evolutionists would have you to believe. And on the seventh natural day, God rested.[2] That is, He did no more work. The creation was finished and it was done to perfection.
We could actually say that He had created a world and put it in a state of rest. And as long as man did not rebel against Him, the world would have remained in that state. But as we know, man fell into sin, and the earth and its creatures (including man) lost its place of peace, harmony, and rest. Man was driven from this garden and was given a sentence of work. Not only that but now the earth itself, the natural realm of the ground, was cursed[3] and now it was going to fight against man’s efforts by producing briars, thorns and weeds. So it seems that work and rest are opposites. Man was no longer in a state of rest.
Now in the garden before the fall, we know that man was given a job to do of keeping and dressing the garden,[4] but apparently this was not considered work and apparently was not done with the sweat of his brow. God was not going to have man to be idle; he had a task but it was not toil. So God gave man a seventh day of rest as a continual reminder of his need to come back into a place of rest. However no more is said about Sabbath again until it comes time for the giving of the Law.
B. The Law of Moses
Exodus 16
22 And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses.
23 And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.
24 And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein.
25 And Moses said, Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the LORD: to day ye shall not find it in the field.
26 Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.
27 And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.
28 And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?
29 See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.
30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
It does not appear that they had been keeping the Sabbath in Egypt. Not only had they been living and laboring with a cursed ground, but they had been under the whip of the Egyptian task masters. Now Pharaoh is a type of Satan and Egypt is a type of the world, and when Moses first approached Pharaoh to obtain release for the people of Israel so that they could go a three days journey to worship, he refused to let them go and said that Moses was trying “to make them rest from their burdens.”[5] And so Pharaoh made their burdens heavier for a little while. Satan has no mercy and he will never voluntarily allow any man to be free of his burdens of sin.
However, in the Exodus the people come to the place of being free of Egypt, at least insofar as their external circumstances are concerned. And now God wants to again restore to them the principle of rest. This was first introduced to them in the gathering of their manna. God had instructed the people through Moses that they were to freely gather the manna day by day in the morning, and just as much as was needed by the people per each day—excepting for the sixth and seventh days. They were specifically commanded not to gather any manna at all on the seventh day, but instead they were to gather twice as much on the sixth day and it would keep them through the seventh day.[6] Some of them didn’t believe what they were told by Moses and they went out on the seventh day anyway to gather, but they found none.
Genesis 16
27 And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.
28 And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?
29 See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.
30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
Incidentally, whereas the penalty for doing work on the Sabbath day was death by stoning,[7] they were not stoned for their disobedience in trying to find manna on the Seventh day, it just wasn’t available. I find another interesting principle here, of God giving a double portion on the sixth day.
Exodus 20
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
13 Thou shalt not kill.
14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15 Thou shalt not steal.
16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
So now by the 20th chapter of Exodus, God has formalized the principle of rest (Sabbath) by making it a law. These are what are commonly known as the Ten Commandments and are believed to be what Moses received and that which was written on the tables of stone,[8] but perhaps without the extra comments. The first three and to some extent the fourth of these commandments relate to man’s relationship to God. The last six speak of man’s dealings with his fellow man. It is interesting to read in the New Testament of Jesus’ meeting with a rich young ruler.[9] The man wanted to know how to inherit eternal life and he was told by Jesus to keep the commandments. When he asked which commandments, Jesus only mentioned the last six of these from Exodus 20. He did not ask the man to make sacrifices, or to keep feasts and Sabbaths, or to eat no unclean things, or to not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk, or any of these types of Mosaic laws—only those that relate to our dealings with other men. If I were to ask most Sabbath keeping Christians if they are keeping these other Mosaic commandments, they would undoubtedly say we are only expected to keep the ten. But Jesus only asked this man about the six.
Penalty for Violation
The fourth commandment is a very different kind of commandment. The bottom line and the summary of this commandment is really Verse 8.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
So how is a day kept holy? It will be by coming into God’s rest. And so the foundational standard is put into law. And the first time that this precept is broken, it is dealt with by a most severe penalty of death. In Exodus 15:32-36, we read of a man who was caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath. He was stoned to death. I can think of no other occasion where a man was stoned to death for working on the Sabbath.
I can think of other occasions where the first violation of a principle brought death. We can remember the death of Nadab and Abihu for bringing strange fire to the golden altar.[10] We can recount also how Achan and his whole family were stoned for stealing and hiding the things that were dedicated to God.[11] Or what about the time when they were moving the Ark of the Covenant in the improper manner and Uzzah was killed by God for putting his hand on the ark.[12] Also remember how, when Ananias and Sapphira his wife attempted to lie to and deceive the Holy Spirit, that they were confronted by Peter and that they were instantly struck dead.[13] Surely these principles have been violated many times since then and continue to this day. There are still preachers bringing strange fire (false anointing, even sorcery) into Christian worship and gatherings. Surely with all of the fleshly oriented programs and entertainment being brought into the house of God today, the hand of man has been put upon the holy things of God. And some are still lying and deceiving others regarding the things of the Spirit (the gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit). I am not hearing of any who are doing these kinds of things today that are instantly dropping dead in their natural flesh. God is apparently being merciful. But they may be dying spiritually and not even know it.
I suppose we could talk about the penalty that Miriam endured for criticizing and speaking against Moses.[14] She became instantly leprous. The seriousness of the situation is that talebearing and slander in the body of Christ is a spiritual disease that will spread and eventually bring death. Because Moses disobeyed the Lord in smiting the Rock the second time,[15] he was not permitted to enter the Promised Land (a type of rest). The principle was that Christ was to be smitten only once. There would be only one[16] sacrifice for our sins and that would be all sufficient. But the Roman Catholic wafer that is served to her communicants is said to be the literal body of Jesus Christ, thus making (in their eyes) an often-repeated sacrifice. This has to be delivering spiritual death to both the recipients and the dispensers. And what about the rebellion of Korah and company? The earth opened her mouth and swallowed all of them whole.[17] They were not the only rebels among God’s people, and today the churches must be full of rebellion. It is in the hearts of men. But maybe now it is that they are being swallowed up in carnality, the flesh, and the lust of this world’s things.
C. The Later View from the Prophets
How is this Sabbath issue dealt with when we get to the prophets? Look at the words of God through the prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah 1
13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
Now what is this all about? I thought God had commanded them to keep these Sabbaths. I thought He was pleased with the gathering of His people together. Using words like “abomination”, and “iniquity” and “hateth” are all pretty strong words expressing some very strong feelings. If we read on we will see what God was really after.
15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
He is after a change of heart. All of these commandments of the law of Moses were a type and shadow of the real kingdom of God and pointed to what He expected to find in a man’s heart (…for behold, the kingdom of God is within you)[18]. Without the deliverance ministry of Jesus Christ, which went to the heart of the matter, they were really unable to keep the law. Even the other nine commandments were broken, not always with the outward keeping, but by the inner thoughts and intents of the heart. A man is an adulterer if he just lusts in his heart after a woman.[19] A man is a murderer if he hates his brother.[20] The outward expression is pale compared to the inner condition. The condition of God’s people is that they were lying, cheating, committing adultery, dealing unjustly with the weak and helpless, and on and on. The prophet Jeremiah was saying the same thing; that was why judgment was coming.
Getting back to the passage in Isaiah, these things became rituals without any meaning. Then they added things that God never asked of them and made them into laws by tradition. An interesting example of this is found in the book of the prophet Zechariah. The men had taken on a thing of mourning and fasting the fifth and seventh month for the seventy years that they were in the Babylonian captivity. They came to the prophet and asked if they should continue with this observance.[21] God’s response was to ask them why they did it.
Zechariah 7
5 Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?
6 And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?
“When you fasted did you do it unto the Lord? And when you ate and drank, were you doing it unto yourselves?”
The practice had lost its meaning and was now only a religious exercise.
Hosea 2
11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
This prophet is saying the same thing as was written in Isaiah. Even though God had commanded that they keep these days forever, He is not satisfied with the mere keeping of ritual. So then how are we are to keep the feast of Passover? Is it not kept by the remembrance of the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins through our salvation? And how do we keep the feast of Pentecost? Is it not kept by our baptism and continuing life in the Holy Spirit? Likewise Tabernacles…. These were perpetual feasts to be carried on forever. And we celebrate them spiritually, and in their fulfillment.
Incidentally, how many Christian “Sabbath keepers” (those who are keeping because of a perceived legal constraint) are also keeping all the new moons and feasts according to Jewish tradition? Somehow we can understand the spiritual fulfillment of the new moons and feasts, but not the Sabbath. The fact that it was listed in the list if ten somehow means to some observers that the natural keeping must continue.
A preacher once came to my office when I was a nursing home administrator. He said that he was the pastor of a Sabbath keeping denomination. He was requesting that his parishioners (who were our nursing department employees) would be given every Saturday off. I told him that I could not grant his petition because we were in business twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Before he left I wanted to know how he came to this practice. He said that he had started out a Baptist. At some point he had desired a deeper walk with the Lord and so instead of seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit, he apparently sought to keep more law. I have met others who have gone this same direction for the same motive. When I asked him why they kept the Sabbath, he said that Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep the Ten Commandments”. I asked, “Didn’t you add the word “Ten” to that verse?”[22] He said, “Yes, but that is what it means.”
People come to Sabbath keeping for a variety of motives. Someone said they are keeping Sabbath because long ago the Roman Catholic Church decreed that Sunday will be the official holy day for the church. So therefore they say that meeting on Sunday is giving obedience to that church. May I ask, if you meet on Saturday then are you obeying Jewish tradition? Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself here. But keep this question in mind as we look further into the New Testament.
Chapter 2
Jesus Christ’s Dealing with Sabbath
I want to move now to the New Testament and let us ask the question, “How did Jesus deal with the Sabbath?” What were His actions and doctrine concerning the Sabbath? This fourth of the Ten Commandments seems to be the most unique of the lot. Jesus taught us that there is a higher spiritual principle behind all of these. The first commandment, to have no other Gods before Him, we can easily see as a spiritual application. We can easily violate this one by the other loves that we have for things of this earth and for our possessions: the new car, the motorcycle, our family ties and our children. Other gods are things that come between our Lord and us, things that are of higher priority. What were the things that kept the invitees from the wedding feast? Wasn’t it five yoke of oxen, a piece of property, and the marriage to a wife?[23] These excuses really amounted to other “gods.” So let us see how Jesus taught the spiritual application of the Sabbath.
A. Christ’s Doctrine on the Commandments of Law
Matthew 22
34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Here we see that a lawyer is asking Jesus what the greatest commandment is. (Which one of the ten is He going to name?) Can you see this? The answer Jesus gave is not in the list of ten from Exodus 20. It is a very important principle, but it was not in the list of ten. I believe it was a principle that was embodied in the first three (actually all of them). So the totality of our love for the Lord God is the first and greatest commandment. Also the second most important commandment is our love for our fellow man. Is that among the list of ten? No it isn’t! But that is embodied in the last six. These last six tell us how to deal with our neighbor; but I suppose you can keep them on the natural level without loving him. But if you have love for your fellow man, you will be keeping these last six. You will not be stealing from him, you won’t be cheating with his wife and you won’t be coveting his things. So is this why Paul said that “the greatest of these is love”[24]? To have agape love then is even greater than a manifestation of spiritual gifts. So these two laws summarize all of the Old Testament law.
Our love for God then is to be with all of our heart, our soul and our mind. We are not told to love anyone or any other thing in this manner. But we are not to love our neighbor this total way that we love God, but we are to love him as we love our self. The average person probably loves himself sufficiently. So let us go further into Jesus’ teachings concerning the commandments of the Law of Moses.
Matthew 19
16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
20 The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
From the man’s opening question, “What shall I do”… we see that he was seeking a way into eternal life by doing something; this is “works.” “What work can I do?” Jesus confronts the man to see if he will recognize His divine Lordship (that should cover the first three commandments).
17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God….
And here again He then takes him through the other commandments that have to do with the dealings with his neighbors and family. But He never mentioned anything about keeping the Sabbath. Why did He leave that out? Isn’t that interesting! After the man admits that he has kept them from his youth, the Lord informs him that it is not the keeping of these laws that will get you treasure in heaven.
“You have another problem. You have another god that is before Me; that god is your wealth. In order for you to get over your love and idolization of this god, you are going to have to get rid of it.”
The man went away sorrowful because he couldn’t give it all up.
B. Christ’s Actions on the Sabbath
Matthew 12
1 At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.
2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.
3 But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him;
4 How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?
5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
6 But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.
7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
Brethren, there are many healings done by Jesus recorded in the gospels. In many occasions, they are simply summarized with phrases like, “and many came and were healed.” But my observations of the gospels, where most of the details of the healings are recorded, are that they were done on the Sabbath. Many of them are apparently considered so important that they are mentioned in three or four of the gospels. It is not only important to record what He did, but to also make the point that they were done on the Sabbath. They raised much controversy among the religious leaders and they also point to a principle that the Lord is trying to teach about the Sabbath. Isn’t God trying to say to those that have been sick and bound by unclean spirits that the overall purpose of the Sabbath is to bring deliverance to the captives? Jesus is not proclaiming the legality of observing the Sabbath, but the celebration of “liberty.” Can we not see how He is trying to bring this from a natural level up to a spiritual understanding of “men coming into Christ”?
Breakfast in the Grain Field
The first act done by Jesus on the Sabbath as recorded above in these verses in Matthew is not the working of a healing or a miracle, but the gathering of corn for the hungry disciples to eat. Gathering manna, gathering sticks—at one time they might have stoned a man for doing this. There are still people today who feel this strongly about this law. I once worked for a liberal Jewish man whose sister was married to a very strict practicing orthodox Jew. They were riding together in my friend’s car in a very isolated part of the Adirondack Mountains on Friday evening. As the sun began to set, the man’s relatives became very agitated and were demanding he stop the car as soon as the sun set so they would not be violating the Sabbath by the work of driving the car. He refused to do so and did not win the favor of his brother-in-law. In the New Testament, the term “a sabbath day’s journey”[25] is used. This was determined by the scribes to be 2000 cubits. This means that a man was not permitted to travel to any point more than 2000 cubits from his home on the Sabbath day. Now, you will not find this definition anywhere in the books of Moses; so it was a law that man had added to men’s burdens. In order to comply with this, a man had to count his steps, 2250 (if he was a man with a 32” stride). What kind of work did it take to keep track of your steps for a day?
The Tabernacle of David
So in the above passage the Pharisees are coming against the disciples for harvesting a meal of grain. I wonder what the Pharisees were doing in the corn field. Were they counting their steps? Were they taking notes? Were they laboring under an illusion? Jesus immediately pointed out what David did (in 1 Samuel) when he and his men were hungry.[26] In eating the showbread, which was reserved only for priests in the holy place, David broke the law. And Jesus said he was justified. I believe that the reference to the Tabernacle of David really refers to David as having a relationship with God in the tabernacle, in a manner and place that legally under law was reserved only to the priests. It seems that David went into the holy place when he needed to talk with God. And the Word says that this Tabernacle of David is going to be restored again.[27] The fullness dimension of this prophetic word is the coming forth of an open door, an open heaven of communion between man and God. I can’t help then but think of how at Jesus’ crucifixion that the veil in the temple was rent from top to bottom. With this act, the tabernacle of David was partially restored, in that the way was now made open for intimate communion between any man and God. The veil had been a barrier that kept most people out. David was the only man (who was not a priest) that we know of who went into that place and lived. We are not sure that David’s tabernacle even had a veil.
God’s Purpose for the Sabbath
5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
And when the Lord speaks here (in Verse 5) of the priests in the temple profaning the Sabbath, He means that they carry out the routine of their daily business on the Sabbath as well as on any other day of the week, which is technically contrary to a law. But they chose to obey the greater law which supersedes the lesser. He went on to say that, “In this place is One (the Messiah) that is greater than the temple.” He, the Son of God, is therefore greater than their laws and greater than their Sabbaths or any other tradition. And they missed it (that He was the one sent by God) and they, furthermore, refused to recognize Him.
7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
This word about wanting mercy and not sacrifice is what the prophets were saying. He wants the right kind of living, not the careful keeping of religious ritual. That is the reason He gave the law; that is the reason He gave the tabernacle, so that we could see that these are the steps to come to God in fullness. Let us look at these verses in the Gospel of Mark and see a little thing that He added there.
Mark 2
27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Jesus Christ is saying that He is the boss and in charge of the Sabbath. He is the creator and He made the Sabbath as a benefit for man, for man’s profit. The Sabbath was not to become to man an enslavement of a day; it was not to become a burden to man. The Pharisees, as they had done for many others, had made this law into a burden and not for a joy.
So as we go back to Matthew 12, we see that the day did not just end with this plucking of grain confrontation. He went immediately from the grain field and into their synagogue.
Healing the Withered Hand
Matthew 12
9 And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue:
10 And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him.
11 And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?
12 How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.
13 Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.
14 Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.
I notice from the 10th verse that they are deliberately trying to challenge Him here that they might gain ammunition against Him. He as God was in no way fearful or intimidated by man over the cornfield confrontation. So He is giving them a teaching to try to open their eyes to the greater principle here. They apparently considered it lawful to rescue a sheep from a pit on the Sabbath. Now that would really take considerable effort, as adult sheep are quite heavy. This will involve several men with the use of ropes and a lot of sweat. Is this man not worth more than a sheep? This man was one of the Father’s sheep. All Jesus asked the man to do was move his hand; it was not really much physical effort. Were the Jews thinking of the anointing power and authority that it required to heal the man as a labor? They didn’t have the ability to perform this healing themselves; therefore it must be work. But by no amount of work could they have accomplished it. I do not understand how they missed the opportunity to fall down and worship their Creator after seeing this miracle. But instead, the religious leaders began to make plans to break the sixth commandment, because murder was in their hearts.
Release from Demonic Bondage
Mark 1
21 And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught.
22 And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.
23 And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,
24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
25 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.
26 And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.
27 And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.
28 And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.
Here again Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. I believe He took every opportunity on every Sabbath to teach and work the works of God. This was an especially good opportunity because people came together in the synagogue on the seventh day. But let us hasten to point out that He took the opportunities of every day of the week. How long had this man with an unclean spirit been coming to this synagogue? And until now no man had the answer to his problem. But when the real source of authority came into the place, the demons knew who He was. One might surmise that the demons had more spiritual perception than the religious leaders had. It also amazes me that today’s educated professors, evolutionists and atheists don’t believe in God, whereas demons believe in God.[28] The Bible says that it is the fool who says there is no God.[29] And these demons know that there is an appointed time for their destruction, perhaps not in Jesus’ time but in our time. Jesus did not debate with the demons; He did not ask their name or where they came from; He just sent them out. So here is a man who had been tormented by demons who has now entered into a place of rest on the Sabbath day because he encountered the Anointed One. What better appointed use of the Sabbath day could you expect than this? What a beautiful picture of coming into the Sabbath rest. Christ is the rest. He is the Sabbath rest, and He is Lord of the Sabbath.
The Word is Spread
Mark 1
26 And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.
27 And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.
28 And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.
This is still the same today. The fame of this thing spread about everywhere. I will tell you what I see. I believe this is what we would call a “visitation.” Isn’t it strange that there can be a visitation of God going on and some people are going to miss it? When we see this kind of power manifest here in this city, don’t you think that the word of the thing is going to spread? And this is going to happen. Jesus said to the church (not just to the seventy disciples that He has given us all power (authority) over all the power of the enemy.
Luke 10
19 Behold, I give unto you power[30] (“exousia”) to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power[31] (“dunamis”) of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
This has already been made available and demonstrated. And we know that this will again be manifested by the sons of God as the two witnesses company in the days of great tribulation.[32] There will be another great visitation. This will be available to all those believers who will allow themselves to be taken through the preparation process of the refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap.[33]
Malachi 3
1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in…
2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
The Lord is “the messenger of the covenant,” having come (and coming again, suddenly, to His temple, to purge, cleanse and purify). In Daniel[34] it says that He would come to confirm the covenant for one week, but that in the midst of the week He would cause the sacrifice to cease (because He became the last and the perfect sacrifice). That one-week covenant of power has only been half fulfilled (three and one half years) in Jesus’ walk in the flesh among man. The other half-week (three and one half years) is still waiting for another visitation and manifestation by the saints of the most high God. I can just see this thing happening again—in the shopping malls and in public places—the fame of the anointing of Christ going out again through His servants endued with power. And yes, it will again cause a stir. Some people are going to be troubled: religious leaders, politicians, police and security forces. Powerful rulers are going to see their New World Order threatened by this.
Healing in Peter’s Family
Mark 1
28 And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.
29 And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.
30 But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her.
31 And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.
So the 29th verse here shows that this particular Sabbath day is not yet finished for Jesus. Now He is in Peter’s house and his mother-in-law is ill. The 30th verse clearly states that Peter had a wife. Now this reminds me of certain church beliefs that have absolutely no basis in the Word of God. The Roman Catholic Church publishes their doctrine that Peter was their first pope. There is absolutely no credibility to this claim. First of all, Jesus would not appoint a man to be a “Vicar of Christ” (Vice Christ), one of the titles given by the Catholic Church to their popes. Secondly, the verse[35] in Matthew 16, by which the claim is made for Peter to be the first pope, has had to be taken way out of context for them to come up with such a belief. Thirdly, there is absolutely no evidence that Peter was ever in Rome; Paul is the only apostle proved to have been there. And fourthly, Peter clearly was married, as were other apostles, and Jesus’ natural brothers.[36] So this doctrine of a celibate clergy did not come from Scripture; it had to come from Babylon.[37]
The 31st verse tells us that Jesus went to her bed, took her by the hand and helped lift her out of bed. He wasn’t content to just lay hands on her,[38] rebuke the fever[39] and then to walk away. He stayed with her and helped her to act out her faith for the healing by standing to her feet. She had to have enough faith in Him to believe that He had the power to heal her. Not only had she that, but she immediately began to help prepare the lunch for the guests. Do we have this faith when we pray for healing? Do we believe we have this power? Did the Lord indeed give it to the church? Can we not act with the same confidence when we are dealing with demons? I believe that we can even overcome demons that come to us in our sleep, if we have the overcoming posture in us. We can now rebuke them and send them to the abyss. This incidentally was still the Sabbath (the day for a woman to be raised up from her sick bed).
Jesus, the Jubilee
Luke 4
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears
These verses from the fourth chapter of Luke are the account of when Jesus first stood up in the synagogue in His home town and proclaimed that He was the fulfillment of the prophecy that He had just read from Isaiah 61:1-2.
He finished the passage by proclaiming “the acceptable year of the Lord.” What that means is that He was proclaiming the year of jubilee.[40] This was a proclamation made every 50th year on the Day of Atonement (the 10th day of the 7th month), which set men at liberty from debts and personal bondage. By Jesus making this declaration, He was not only proclaiming Himself to be the spiritual fulfillment of the Sabbath but that He was the fulfillment in its fullness. The Jubilee was a Sabbath of Sabbaths. It was the fiftieth year which immediately followed seven periods of seven (7 X 7 = 49). That means fullness! He was saying that you do not have to count backwards or forwards to see if we have the exact year in the natural count. In Him we have Jubilee every day of every year. And again they apparently didn’t want that year to come because they tried to kill Him for saying that.
Do we really understand what the jubilee really did for the people? They received deliverance from all kinds of bondage. Sometimes they really made a mess of their lives; they got into all kinds of trouble. They made financial ruin of their lives, got into debts that they could not pay, and they ended up with themselves, their wife and their children being sold into slavery to satisfy the obligation. They lost their family inheritance from some of these bad decisions. Clever and powerful people might take advantage of weaker and less clever people, but it was not to be a permanent thing. On jubilee they received it back and were released from the bondage. Everybody got a second chance once in their lifetime, every 50th year. Jesus is our second chance. So when is our next jubilee? It is now! Jesus is now! But the full account associated with this particular Sabbath day in Luke 4 still isn’t finished. We will continue from where we left off in Chapter 1 of the Book of Mark.
Deliverance for All the City
Mark 1
32 And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils.
33 And all the city was gathered together at the door.
34 And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him.
By our way of reckoning time this would have been considered the same day. Our day ends at midnight. But their Sabbath day ended at sunset. So after sunset the common people came flooding in to Jesus. They could have come earlier. Why did they wait until then? It was because they were afraid of the religious leaders’ criticism. These poor folks came bound with demons and sickness. These were sheep needing the ministry of a shepherd. Again these demons knew who He was and wanted to scream out their recognition, but He silenced them and cast them out. We don’t need demons to advertise us. Paul cast out the demon from a girl who was proclaiming who they were;[41] he didn’t need that kind of attention or publicity.
Loosed from a Spirit of Infirmity
Luke 13
10 And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.
11 And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.
12 And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.
13 And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.
14 And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.
15 The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?
16 And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?
17 And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.
First of all brethren, this is a message for the church (which this woman represents), that this deliverance will be available in the fullness of Sabbath (this seventh millennium). This woman had a disease that was caused by a spirit. When you have such a problem, there is not much that medicine can do to cure it. People in mental institutions are given tranquilizers. I am convinced that most of their problems are caused by demons. The chemical treatments only restrain them and slow them down, it does not cure them. As soon as the medicine wears off they are as troubled as before. Most of us have at one time or another seen a person who is bowed like this woman was. And there was nothing this woman could do to help herself. When we look at Verses 12 and 13, we see what Jesus did for her. First of all He took the initiative of calling the woman to Him and announcing to her that she was loosed. She probably would have been afraid to ask for help for fear of the leaders. But her obedience in coming to Him showed her own step of faith. Then when He laid hands on her, the power was released into her body. This of course was done in the synagogue and on the Sabbath. She had been bound for eighteen years; now she was loosed. She had been spiritually tied, roped (chained). He cut her loose.
Now, it says that, “the ruler of the synagogue” was indignant. Would this be the equivalent of the “pastor”? It seems that synagogues have had rulers for a long time. This seems to be the one man who was in charge of things. He was angry, offended. This is the same scenario: He was blind! Couldn’t somebody rejoice at what was done for this woman? But somehow he viewed himself as the appointed guardian of their rigid laws. Jesus described it well in Matthew 23:
13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
So the man turns and scolds the people,
“Come to be healed on the other six days!”
First of all, I don’t believe the synagogue was open for activity on any other day but the seventh. And secondly, I really do not believe that people were being healed here, period! Any day, or any time! It just wasn’t happening (not if this woman had to wait eighteen years).
So okay—they didn’t have the power. But now, why come against the Anointed One who is manifesting the power? This ruler believes that healing is work. I don’t believe he saw Jesus sweating or exerting effort. If he was seeing creation power at work, then why did he not fall down and worship the Creator? I believe Jesus was totally at rest in His moving in this deliverance power, and it was bringing others into rest.
So the Lord answered the man. He wasn’t going to let this challenge go unanswered. This is really His church. He may have appeared to be just the guest speaker, but He called the ruler a “hypocrite.” Can you imagine being in somebody else’s church and calling the pastor a hypocrite? We as men wouldn’t do that. But He is God! When Jesus speaks, they are the words of the Father God that are speaking.
Why did the Lord openly rebuke this man? It is because the man had openly rebuked the Lord. Jesus asks if this daughter of Abraham is not better than an ox or ass, for which allowance was made for them to be led to water on the Sabbath. When Jesus said this, His adversaries (those who opposed and resisted Him; the religious gate keepers) were ashamed; but the “little” people rejoiced.
17 And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.
Jesus is claiming that this woman is “a daughter of Abraham” (a daughter of the kingdom), which is not a designation He made for the Greek Syrophenician woman over in the 17th chapter who wanted a devil cast out of her daughter.[42] I believe, brethren, that if we are walking in right standing with God, when we pray for our children and our grandchildren, then we have a greater right than the world has to a spiritual claim on their behalf—because ours are seed of the righteous.[43] I believe it is a legal claim that we can make against hell. So this woman was also seed of the righteous. The taskmaster of hell had held her bound for eighteen years! That is a long time to be bowed down! Now, see another example.
Edema Healed
Luke 14
1 And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.
2 And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.
3 And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?
4 And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;
5 And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?
6 And they could not answer him again to these things.
This meeting takes place in a private house on the Sabbath day. Jesus must have been invited to lunch by this Pharisee after the morning meeting at the synagogue. But it seems they are again trying to lay a snare for Him. Why are they so carefully watching Him?
“What is He going to do? Will He say anything? He has been known to do things on the Sabbath; surely we can catch Him breaking the law.”
They are looking for an opportunity. But the “poor” people can see the mighty and wonderful works of God. If you really want to catch a man breaking a law, it will not be hard to do so. This morning as we were coming to the meeting, we came down Broadway and came to the stoplight at the bottom of the ramp that goes up to I-890. The light was red so we stopped (in keeping with the law). Then I saw a sign on the post to my right that said, “No Stopping From Here To The Corner” and on the other side of the post it said “No Standing At Any Time.” There was another sign that said “No Turn On Red.” If these are all laws then we were breaking at least one of them, and we had to decide which one was the greater one to obey. I chose to stop at the stoplight.
And here in the house is a man with dropsy (which means “edema”). I am really amazed at the kind of open door culture that is apparent here; they must not have had such a fixation with privacy and property rights as we have today in our culture. It seems people could walk right in from the street. This man’s body was swollen; the tissue was retaining water. This is not the actual disease but a symptom of a very serious disease condition in the organs of his body. This man probably had a disease that had gone into his kidneys, or he may have had some kind of heart failure that was in process. So healing the edema would have to be healing the real cause of it, which Jesus did.
The third verse says that Jesus “answered” them. But I didn’t see that they asked a question. So He must have read their minds. They knew He had been healing on the Sabbath. But He still asked them if it was legal. If they had a law from Moses, “Show Me where it is, quote it to Me.” They might have said it was their “tradition.” Long ago, I remember talking with a Catholic priest. I asked him why they insist on certain things that are not supported by the Bible, such as praying to Mary and to dead saints (which began about 600 AD and is actually very contrary to the Bible[44]). He said that it was their “tradition.” I have since learned that it was at the Council of Trent in 1545 that the Roman Catholic Church declared that church tradition was of “equal” authority with Scripture. So this was not something confined just to the rulers of the Jews in Jesus’ time, but it is also the case with the present day fallen harlot church in her practices such as the keeping of pagan feasts and the practicing of Nicolaitanism[45] (which is found in today’s Protestant and Pentecostal clergy systems as well). So this is what these Jews had done with their “tradition” laws, especially this one dealing with the Sabbath. They had made it equal to what Moses had given. And they had gone contrary to the true spirit of the Law of Moses. This is brought out in other places in Scripture where Jesus addressed the scribes and Pharisees.
Mark 7
5 Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?
6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition….
13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
These same verses are repeated in Matthew 15. The true intent of the Sabbath was to give man rest. God was having compassion on man in his fallen state of sin and toil, and Jesus said (in Mark 2:27),
“The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath”
The Sabbath was made for man’s benefit not his bondage. Jesus healed the man, and used the same principle He had used in Matthew 12 when He healed the man with the withered hand: “Is not a man of more worth than an ox or a sheep?”
The Impotent Man at the Pool
John 5
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
10 The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.
The fifth verse introduces us to the man who will be healed (a type of the man child being birthed by the woman church in Revelation 12). We understand that there was a great multitude of impotent folks at this site. I suppose we will never really know why Jesus passed over the multitude and only asked one man if he would be healed. Surely everybody at the pool wanted to be healed or they would not have been there. It seems that these folks had no other hope than to wait for the stirring of the water, and only one of them was going to be the winner. In our carnal human wisdom, we would have tried to heal all of them. Did Jesus heal only one so that we would have difficulty just defining a doctrine of healing rather than looking only to the Healer as we should? The man had been there 38 years (a tribulation of nearly 40 years, shortened by 2) and I believe Jesus saw the man’s 38 years of suffering by the Spirit. Jesus took the initiative in asking if he wanted to be healed, but the man also had to respond. The man clearly did not know who Jesus was because his response indicated he was still looking for a chance to get into the pool. Verse 8 shows that Jesus’ simple answer was to speak to the man to pick up his bed and walk.
Now the man was given a choice, he could have argued (that he was handicapped), or he could have acted upon the anointed word. The word of Christ carries tremendous power doesn’t it? If He tells you that you have authority in a certain situation, you have it. And you can exercise it. If you try to take it just on the basis of something you have read or heard from another, you may end up embarrassed.
The Lord dealt with me this way in my healing one time. For over a year I had pain that I had prayed against and had taken authority over. I had done about everything I could remember from the Word and nothing was working. Then the Spirit said to me, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.[46] So after deciding to do so, and then telling the Lord that I would no longer seek my healing but from now on I would only seek His kingdom, within a week I was healed.
A couple of years later I had the same kind of pain again. So I thought, now I have really got to earnestly seek the kingdom again in order to be healed. A couple of days later the Spirit spoke very quietly to me “Take authority over it.” I thought in my self, “Well, I tried that the last time and it didn’t work.” But when bedtime came, I thought, “Well, what have I got to lose? If the Spirit said it, then I must have the authority.” So I took authority over the pain, and before noon the next day I was healed. No more pain! There is creative power from the mouth of the Lord.
Isaiah 55
11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
Let us go back to the verses in John 5 concerning the man by the pool of Bethesda.
John 5
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath
So here is another Sabbath healing, but this one points far beyond the natural or even the spiritual side of the entering into rest; it speaks of the coming into the fullness of rest. The number 40 speaks of trial, testing, judgment and tribulation in its “fullness,” and we know that this earth is going to see a great and full measure of tribulation before the great and coming day of the Lord’s return. We also know that Jesus said that:
Matthew 24
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
I believe we could say that this man’s full measure of tribulation was shortened by two years to 38. If you look in Deuteronomy, the fifth book of Moses, you will also see that Israel’s 40 year sentence to wander in the wilderness was shortened to 38 years after Kadesh Barnea.[47] The context again was their entering into the rest of the promised land. And this reminds us again of the word in Hebrews 3 that they could not enter because of their unbelief.[48] So the healing of this man also points to the fullness of our rest.
“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God,”[49]
There is still a rest for us to enter into, greater than we have yet seen.
John 5
16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
This is their response to this healing. He broke their Sabbath and now they want to kill Him. He is not in the small cities; now He is in Jerusalem. And the religious spirits here are more virulent.
“If you threaten our traditions (our power base in which we hold the people captive), we will murder you.”
They believed that killing Him would be justifiable, so they were deceived about the murder within their own hearts, but they would condemn Him for His breaking of their Sabbath.
John 5
17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Would I be wrong to translate it this way: “My father does this work on the Sabbath, and I do too”?
John 5
18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus will not bend and He will not try to placate them. By the way, this verse is accurate. Jesus had broken their Sabbath. And He was equal with God.
The Man Born Blind
John 9
13 They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind.
14 And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.
15 Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.
16 Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.
To save space I left off the printing of the first part of this chapter. This is the part where the disciples asked Jesus who had sinned to cause this man’s blindness. After He answered that sin was not the direct cause of this man’s condition, He spit on the ground and made clay, with which He anointed the man’s eyes and told him to wash in the pool of Siloam. So the people brought the man to the Pharisees and the above passage is where they are confronting the man. The whole rest of the chapter is about how they persecuted this man who was healed; they even went against his parents. They would have preferred to have the man go back to being blind again. But they admitted that this had never been heard of since the world began: a man born blind receiving sight. Even medical doctors that specialize in the eyes would say that this is impossible. If the eyes are not used by the time a child is about two years old, they will not function.
The Murder of Jesus
John 19
31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
This is the last mention of the Sabbath in the Gospels insofar as the Jewish leaders are concerned. They had finally carried out the murder of Jesus and now as a final topping on their Sabbath issue; His dead body could not hang on the cross on a Sabbath. Of course, they can’t break the fourth of their Ten Commandments. One last time they want to be sure that His dead body does not break their Sabbath. There is probably nothing more that I could say about such hypocrisy, such unmitigated wickedness. He had been an innocent man, a lamb without blemish. Even Pilate believed He was innocent. They even broke their own law in the way He was tried. And so they rejected again the chance to enter into the “rest.” The One who would fulfill the Sabbath, as a second or spiritual level of rest, was refused by a nation; but He would be found by a remnant.
Hebrews 4
3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
Chapter 3
The New Testament Church
What we want to look into next is to examine if the early church kept the Sabbath or not, and under what circumstances. Prior to the ministry of Paul and Barnabas there is no mention of any Sabbath activity in the book of Acts. Of course, we understand that the church was nearly 100% Jewish in the early years. Peter’s visit to Cornelius in the 10th chapter is the first real opening of a door to Gentiles who were not Jewish proselytes. So the early disciples kept Jewish laws and traditions and certainly must have had Sabbath meetings. They kept Passover in the traditional manner and they believed a man must be circumcised in order to be saved. In short, Christianity was considered then as a sect of Judaism.
A. The Apostles Practice
Antioch in Pisidia
Acts 13
14 But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.
15 And after the reading of the law and the prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.
16 Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience.
This 13th chapter is the beginning of Paul’s ministry as an apostolic missionary. If you go back up to the 5th verse you will see that Paul preached in other places in the Jewish synagogues. I don’t believe we can find any evidence that any synagogue was open for meetings any other day except the Sabbath day. I don’t believe that the synagogue held fund raising dinners on weekday evenings and I don’t believe that they had invited guest speakers for midweek meetings. They were probably open for special feasts, which were also considered a Sabbath. Paul was Jewish and he knew that the synagogue was a good place to preach the Gospel, which after all was to the Jew first.[50] The apostolic message for that generation was that Jesus was the fulfillment of all that the law and prophets had foretold, and that He was the expected Messiah, the Christ. So what better place would there be to begin than with the people who had been given the law and prophets, and who were familiar with that word. From that basis, he would tell how Christ Jesus had fulfilled this word. So the above 14th verse finds them in a synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia on the Sabbath day. The rulers here (they were not called rabbis or priests) gave Paul the opportunity to speak, and from what we see through Verse 41 of this chapter Paul gave them their history right up to the resurrection of Jesus. Then we read in the next verse,
42 And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.
43 Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.
44 And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.
This word was received by some of the Jews but it was also very attractive to many Gentiles. The 42nd verse indicated that they were asking for teaching on the days between the Sabbaths. I say this because the Greek word for “next” in Verse 42, (“the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next[51] sabbath”) is “metaxu,” which means, “the intervening time between” (the Sabbaths). So the correct translation for this part of Verse 42 would be,
“the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them in the days between the sabbaths.”
The Gentiles were apparently less rigid about what could be done for teaching the word on days other than the Sabbath. So they were taught the word. And by the time the next Sabbath came, this word had spread to the entire city. But that didn’t go over too well with the Jewish traditionalists and they came against Paul to the point of blasphemy.
45 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.
46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
47 For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.[52]
48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
49 And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region.
It didn’t take long to publish the announcement that this word was going to be for the Gentiles. Now again there was going to be a separation among the Jews as to who would believe and who would not.
The Visit to Philippi
Acts 16
11 Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis;
12 And from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony: and we were in that city abiding certain days.
13 And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
15 And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.
This account takes place in Philippi and this meeting is not being held in a synagogue. Paul had heard of a women’s prayer meeting that was being held by the banks of the nearby river. The year would be about 52 AD, nearly twenty years after the crucifixion. The chief respondent of this meeting was Lydia, a business woman who had come here from Thyatira for selling her purple dye for garments. Neither Philippi nor her home town were known to be communities of strong Jewish representation, as there is no mention of a synagogue here, neither is there any mention of Jews. It is more probable that the woman was a Gentile, and as it is written here, “which worshipped God.” And we can only speculate as to why they were gathering for prayer on the Sabbath. So from this gathering and this woman, the foundation of a local church was made there.
There is no further mention made of Sabbath meetings in this community. Reading on from Verse 16 of this Chapter, we find that Philippi is the city where Paul cast the spirit of divination out of a certain damsel.[53] Paul and Silas ended up in the local jail, the accusations against them being mainly that they were teaching the violation of (not Jewish) but Roman customs and laws. At midnight they were praising the Lord and an earthquake released them from this prison and we know how the jailer and his entire house were saved and baptized, adding to the church. Paul then left the place hastily from Lydia’s house.
Meetings in Thessalonica
Acts 17
1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
3 Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.
4 And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.
Thessalonica would be this next stop. There were Jews here and they had a synagogue, so that meant an opportunity for Paul to preach on the Sabbath, which he did for three weeks. Here it was that the unbelieving Jews again stirred up a great turmoil,[54] accusing the apostles of having “turned the world upside down.” Let us pick up their journey again in the next verses.
Noble Bereans
Acts 17
10 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.
11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
12 Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.
This stop is Berea and we are certainly familiar with the Berean’s reputation for searching the Scriptures. There were Jews here and a synagogue so we must assume that they met on the Sabbath. Many of those who believed the word here included a good number of Greeks (Gentiles). And we can notice that they did not limit their spiritual activity to just the Sabbath, but they “searched the scriptures daily.” I like that! I like seeing people go after the Word to discover truth like these people did! Would to God, that all folks who hear this end time word would take the interest of seeing what the Word of God has to say about it, instead of just measuring it against the traditions that we have held in the city of religion. And from Verses 13 and 14, we see that once again the apostles had to leave town quickly because of a stir caused by the Jews from Thessalonica. The next passage takes place in Corinth.
A Long Stay in Corinth
Acts 18
1 After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth;
2 And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them.
3 And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers.
4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.
5 And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.
6 And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.
This is the last mention of the Sabbath in the Book of Acts. There were Jews here in Corinth, so Paul and his party used the synagogue as an opportunity to declare the apostolic message that he was commissioned to preach. He spent a total of eighteen months in this city in a ministry to both Jews and Gentiles. But this place was also a turning point in Paul’s ministry. From this point on, his focus will be directed to the Gentiles. Apparently Paul believed that he had “harvested” about all of the Jews that were going to come into believing this word, and so he said, “From henceforth I will go to the Gentiles.” Is it coincidental that there is no more mention of Sabbath or synagogue after this point?
B. The Practice of Keeping the First Day of the Week
Farewell Meeting in Troas
Acts 20
6 And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days.
7 And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
If there was to be a change in the time and the way of gathering, this is where I would expect to find it (after Paul’s announcement that the focus would be now on the Gentiles). These brethren are no longer bound to keep Jewish laws or traditions. Paul, because of taking this gospel into the Gentile culture, has now himself become the enemy of the Jewish religious leaders back in Jerusalem. These Gentiles were not bound to rituals of “clean and unclean,” or to circumcision, or to Sabbaths and new moons. From the above passage we can see that at least Paul (being a Jew) and his party were keeping the Passover (days of unleavened bread). But from the seventh verse, we see that this church was gathering on the first day of the week (the day we call Sunday). Paul had laid a good solid foundation for the New Testament church. Now, is there any other evidence of how and when the early church gathered for meetings?
Meetings at Corinth
1 Corinthians 16
1 Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye.
2 Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.
3 And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem.
The purpose of this instruction is to take a collection of money to help the saints in Jerusalem who were going through a difficult time. Why did Paul ask them to bring the offering on the first day of the week? I believe it is because that is the day they were accustomed to meet for their fellowship gathering. If they had been meeting on the Sabbath (the seventh day of the week), would he not have asked them to bring in the offering on that day?
Incidentally, meeting on the first day of the week (Sunday) does not make this day a substitute Sabbath. If as a Christian we believe that Christ is the fulfillment of the seventh day Sabbath, then you cannot make the next day another Sabbath. And this is what many legalistic Christians have attempted to do, in getting laws passed that limit work and sales activity on Sunday (Sunday blue laws). If you believe that you must practice the Law of Moses to be in right standing with God, then you are one who must keep the seventh day. If you keep the first day (or any other day), then you must believe that the seventh day requirement is met in Christ. You cannot have both Moses (Law) and Christ (liberty) in this issue. From what I see in the preaching of Paul, I believe that he taught the liberty in Christ, not the constraint of law. We could also point out in the verses above that Paul is not even using the word “tithes” (law) but according as they have prospered (“liberality”). If we sow liberally into the kingdom of God, we will reap a liberal crop.[55] So if we need a guide to giving, the tithe is a good guide; but liberality is probably better. Giving is one area where we should be a liberal, not a conservative.
C. Paul’s Doctrine on Keeping Days
Colossians 2
16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday[56], or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
This passage is clearly declaring that the Christian is free from the constraints of these types of Jewish law. The first is in regard to food laws: unleavened bread, eating clean vs. unclean flesh, (and in our time: fish only on Fridays and refraining from foods during Lent, which is not Jewish law but the modern Catholic Church’s legalistic doctrine of works). We might consider whether some of these things are beneficial to our health; but we do not sin by eating pork if that is what you want. Let no man judge you in these things. Incidentally, if you want to keep these laws, you can still be a Christian and I won’t judge you. However from Paul’s teaching which we will come to soon, it will be seen that the keepers of the law are the weak Christians. But if you are strong in your faith and understand that these “are a shadow of things to come” you will have liberty to let these scruples go.
Included in this same word are the keeping of holydays, new moons and Sabbath days. Sabbath keeping is not just implied, it is specifically stated here. Now I haven’t ever been one to celebrate new moons, but they marked the beginning of months which then told the precise time that Passover (first month) and the Feast of Tabernacles (seventh month) were to be kept in the literal and traditional manner. Holydays were the actual feasts that were then celebrated, and were considered equal to a Sabbath. And of course, the Sabbaths are the actual keeping of the seventh day, which we can see that Jesus broke.[57] The bottom line here is that we are free of these Jewish laws. And folks will say, “But the Sabbath is listed among the Ten Commandments and you don’t believe that we can murder and commit adultery do you?” Yes, it may have been among the ten, but what are we going to make of this word above. If you want to keep it, I won’t judge you, but you don’t have to.
Colossians 2
20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
I would like to make just a brief quote of the 20th verse from the Amplified:
“If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things and have escaped from the world’s crude and elemental notions of and teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? – Why do you submit to rules and regulations?”
If this doesn’t make it clear, it is either because we do not want to understand what it means, or else that we are somehow incapable of doing so because of some hardness in the heart.
Romans 14
1 Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations
2 For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.
3 Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.
4 Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.
5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
6 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.
We are to receive a weak brother into fellowship, but we are not to pass judgment on or perplex him regarding his scruples. If he is concerned about the buying of meat, that it may have been offered to idols and he thus becomes a vegetarian, he can still be a brother, although weak in faith. Likewise if his scruples hold him to regard certain days as sacred and keep them as such, he has the right to do so. He has to live with his conscience and what he does he needs to do as unto the Lord. If we are constantly living in what we believe to be a violation of our conscience, we will not be able to walk in faith. If however we can see the principle of how Christ has set us free of some of this keeping of days, dietary regulations and even strict dress code, we can live in a realm of liberty.
I don’t keep the Sabbath because of it being in the Law of Moses. I don’t keep Sunday because I consider it a substitute, as a Christian Sabbath. I don’t keep Sunday because some ancient pope decreed that it is to be kept. I could just as easily meet with the fellowship on any other day of the week. It is the coming of Christ into our midst that makes it sacred. And there are many Sabbaths and Sundays in which believers meet but without the presence of Christ, which may well make it a profane (common or ordinary) day. But before we leave the Sabbath let us take a better look into the fullness (third dimension) of entering into the rest.
Chapter 4
Fullness of Rest
Hebrews 4
9 There remaineth therefore a rest[58] to the people of God.
10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
We started this subject with Hebrews and we come again to the same passage. This is New Testament writing. This passage was given after the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is then saying that after all that has come to us so far, there still remains a rest for the people of God to enter into. Let me quote this same passage from the Amplified.
9 So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath rest reserved for the [true] people of God;
10 For he who has once entered into [God’s] rest has also ceased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own.
11 Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter into that rest [of God] – to know and experience it for ourselves…”
The second part of the 11th verse goes on to say that we have a choice in this matter; we can believe this or we can fail in this by our unbelief and fail to enter into it. Will we enter in through belief or will we hold back in unbelief? Will we refuse God’s requirements for entering in? All the ancient Hebrew people had to do is believe God, but they wouldn’t. Because of that refusal at Kadesh Barnea,[59] God refused to allow an entire generation to enter into a type of the rest (the land of Canaan) and they died in the wilderness. Likewise let me say that for this present generation God has given us an apostolic end time word with an opportunity to enter into a place of rest. Will we believe it or not?
A. Three Levels Seen in the Tabernacle
Before we go further let me make a familiar drawing, the outline of the Tabernacle of Moses,[60] that we might better understand this principle of fullness.
So we have here the three courts which speak of the three levels of understanding the Word of God. Perhaps I could have also made a drawing of a three dimensional box. The human being can only see three dimensions with our eyes, even though in the reality of God there is a fourth or more. The outer court of the Tabernacle speaks of the natural realm. Insofar as the subject at hand is concerned, this is the natural seventh day of rest or Sabbath. The holy place shows a spiritual level of understanding and this is the place where we enter into Christ. The holiest (holy of holies) place then represents the realm of fullness. God has given all of this to us in that it points the way for man to come into all of the fullness of God. Even the furniture in the Tabernacle is pointing to fullness. But there are steps that we must take to come into Christ.
From Natural to Spiritual
1 Corinthians 15
46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
The brazen altar in the outer court is the place where we first encounter the blood of Christ (it was the blood of a bull as a type and shadow in the days before Christ) and we must accept and believe it for the forgiveness of our sins. The next step is the brazen laver, which speaks of baptism and the washing of the stain of sin. In the holy place we come first to the table of shewbread which speaks of our feasting on the life of Christ (“Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life…”).[61] This is clearly a spiritual picture; we are not eating His natural flesh. The holy place is not a natural but a spiritual place where we are now “in Christ”, not just “Christ in us.” Here at this table we can now partake of His divine nature.[62] When Christ tried to bring this teaching to His generation it baffled most of the people; they thought He was advocating cannibalistic practices that God had banned. They were natural thinking, outer court type of people. They, as many of God’s people today, were and are carnally minded and unable to comprehend spiritual things.[63] The lampstand (“candlestick” in the KJV) is also in the holy place and it speaks of the enlightenment and the revelation that comes through Christ. There is the flow of the oil, a type of the Holy Spirit, which also speaks of the unity of the body, being made one in Christ. There is only one source of the oil from which we all draw our spiritual life. Then we come to the golden altar of incense where we must lay down (sacrifice) our own soul as a sweet smelling sacrifice before the Lord. If that is accepted, then the way is open for us to go further through the veil into the most holy place.
Hebrews 10
19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
Hebrews 4
16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Hindrance at the Veil?
We will remember that the veil was rent from top to bottom in the Jewish temple at the time of Jesus’ death on the cross,[64] when His flesh was rent. As far as God is concerned, the way is now legally open for man to have access to the holy of holies. The problem is now with man. If the thinking of the carnal man is still in the natural place, there is still a veil on his mind.
2 Corinthians 3
13 And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
So you see that this veil is the hindrance upon our own mind (following the flesh instead of the Spirit) that prevents us from going on into the fullness. There is indeed a veil that prevents so many from even coming into a spiritual understanding, i.e. from coming out of the outer court of natural understanding even into the spiritual holy place. How much more then are we being hindered from entering into the fullness.
If you remember, we started this message by examining the keeping of the literal seventh day as a holy Sabbath. And by review it appears that Jesus deliberately violated their understanding of Sabbath keeping. We even found the word that said He had broken the Sabbath.[65] But He didn’t come to do away with Sabbath; He came to fulfill Sabbath. He didn’t come to do away with any of the law, including the “thou-shalt-nots”; He came to fulfill them. He came to put a heart of flesh in us instead of a stony rigid heart. God gave man nearly two thousand years, and in all that time he could not keep the law whose letter was written on stone. Even Moses, as great a man as he was, was kept out of the land that represented the fullness, because of the flaws of his own flesh.
Time to Leave the Outer Court
So we have the natural seventh day and we have the spiritual realm of Christ. However, as we think about typical church business today, it is so sad that people are being kept in the outer court. The ministry is keeping the sheep there for its own benefit rather than bringing them in to the deeper and higher place in Christ. This is precisely the word that the Lord revealed to Janet the time she visited a mega-church in Texas some years ago. The Spirit of the Lord asked her if she liked the atmosphere of worship in the gathering. When she said, “Yes, this is nice,” He said, “This is outer court.” That was the day that she got her understanding that it was really God’s purpose that we come in from there. He wants us to come in out of the place of old church order, out from the control of man. The purpose of ministry is to bring all people, “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”[66] That is why He gave the gifted ministries of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers.
We are also reminded of the Tabernacle of David. Let us see what James in Acts 15 had to say about this as he quoted from Amos 9:11-12.
Acts 15
16 After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:
17 That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.
If you go back to the story of David[67] we will see that they set the ark in the midst of the tabernacle that he had pitched, and that he then offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. There is not much that is known about this tabernacle from what was written. There is no description and there are no dimensions given. From what I can see, it seems that there were no divisions in this tabernacle, no veil. It would appear that David (who was not a Levitical priest) had direct access to the very presence of God, without veil. I believe this direct accessibility to God is what had fallen down, was in ruins, and was to be restored again through Jesus Christ. That would be the fullness of man’s coming into communion with God. The context in which James quoted this passage was in reference to the opening of the doors to the Gentiles. You will notice in the next few verses that Jewish law and ritual was not laid on the Gentiles.
A Time to Flee the Holy Place
Incidentally, I would say this to those of us who believe that we have come out of the outer court and into the holy place and we feel secure there, that we need to be prepared to flee even further into the holy of holies, because this holy place will be invaded by the devil. We know this because of what Jesus said about the end-time in which we live.
Matthew 24
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet,[68] stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
Our instructed response to this is to flee to the higher places in God and not to go down to the lower places from which we have come out. We are not to seek our old garments of self-righteousness, but to rely only upon our spiritual relationship with Christ. So the devil is not just going to trample the outer court,[69] but he is also going to invade the “holy place.” Now we must understand that this is not talking about the holy place of a natural temple in modern Israel. That is not what either Daniel or Jesus was talking about. They were referring to a holy place church that will and indeed is now being polluted by the corruption of satanic influences. Unclean things of abomination are coming into what once was the Spirit-led church and they are bringing with them a desolation. As we see these things coming we are going to have to flee higher into another hiding place.
Isaiah 26
20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain
So once again, we have a natural seventh day of rest, and we have a spiritual Sabbath by coming into Christ. And we also have a fullness of Sabbath, which is higher still. I believe this above passage is referring to God’s sons coming to a place of fullness, perhaps even being driven of necessity into this place. That veil of flesh with its hold on the natural earth realm is so strong in man, but it must be mortified and overcome.
Holy Place Jubilee
And God also gave a jubilee Sabbath as a spiritual picture toward the fullness. The Jubilee[70] was counted in years as 7 X 7 (seven representing the number of spiritual perfection,[71] completion or fullness) which equals 49. The following year (the 50th year), is then the Jubilee. Of course you will remember that Pentecost (the second major feast kept by the Jews) occurred on the 50th day after Passover, in which the fullness of the Holy Spirit was poured out into and upon the followers of Jesus Christ. In this sense, the Jubilee (50th) is represented in the holy place. As the feast of Pentecost represents the church in the holy place, so today’s Pentecostal church, even at her best with the gifts of the Spirit, is still not in the place of fullness that God has planned for her. But in another way the Jubilee points to the holiest place, as its commencement was announced on the Day of Atonement, the 10th day of the 7th month.
Leviticus 25
9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
So God has set this up to point to something that is coming in its fullness. And just to briefly comment on what the Jubilee was really about, it was a time of complete deliverance to the people from the circumstances of trouble that they had gotten themselves into. And remember that we have already mentioned that Jesus declared Himself to be the Jubilee, “the acceptable year of the Lord.”[72] So let us look a little more at Christ as our spiritual rest.
B. Christ, Our Rest
Matthew 11
25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
From the 25th verse it would seem that people with their doctorate degrees in theology are not understanding some of these spiritual principles. In discussing the problem of unbelief today in Christian circles, Brother Wilkerson recently said:
I see something similar happening in many Bible colleges and seminaries. Some of these institutions have actually become hotbeds of unbelief. Students enter convinced of the inerrancy of Scripture, of God’s ability to perform miracles, of a literal heaven and hell. But if they express their beliefs during class, a professor may ridicule them. He calls their beliefs “old school,” and mocks them as being uneducated and insecure. Many sincere young people graduate with no faith whatsoever, because they’ve been robbed of all confidence in God.[73]
These are the kind of people that are being sent into the churches to become pastors and church leaders today. You may be wise as far as man’s credentials are concerned, but you may not understand kingdom principles. So we have to become as little children in order to enter the kingdom of God.[74] So Christ is saying to those who can understand, that by coming into Him we can have rest. This is the Sabbath rest on the spiritual level. If you want to keep the true Sabbath, then you must do so by coming unto Him. This is the way to spiritually keep the Sabbath.
“For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works.”[75]
So back above in the 28th verse of Matthew 11, the offer is being made to those “that labor and are heavy laden.” I wonder how we got into this condition. Were Adam and Eve in this condition before they fell into sin? No, of course not! But what was the sentence or the punishment for their sin. In addition to being driven out of the garden, Adam was sentenced to hard labor:
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground…”[76]
So Adam and his seed must labor until they die. And what about the woman? For her it was,
“in sorrow[77] thou shalt bring forth children.”[78]
I believe the medical term for the natural process is that she goes into “labor” (which is actually included in the definition of this Hebrew word “sorrow”) to deliver the child. Can you imagine what life on this earth will be like without the labor and pain of the curse that we have been under?
His Yoke or Man’s Works
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
So does this taking on of the yoke sound like work? If you put a yoke on a team of oxen, it is for them to work. They will plow or they will pull a load. It would be the equivalent of saying we are to get into the harness with the Lord. “Take My harness upon you.” Jesus is not saying that in this rest you are going to be idle with nothing to do, but:
“In My rest you will have My activity, My assignment, and My job; but you will be working together with Me.”
And we will learn of Him.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart….
We will learn meekness and lowliness in the inner man. Meekness is gentle obedience. Lowliness says that I am not as great and important as I might have thought I was. I am an unprofitable servant in my own eyes; or better yet, I am a slave with no rights. Jesus in all of His power and authority manifested this very nature.
“and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
Through all of this process you shall find rest unto your souls. Your spirit is not what is in need of the rest; it is already in communion with the Holy Spirit (whether you are listening to it or not). It is your soul that needs rest. He didn’t even say you would get the rest in your flesh—that is what you would get in a natural Sabbath, a holiday or a good eight hours in bed at night. But our soul includes our mind, our emotions, our will and our desires. Do we not entertain worries, anxiety and fears in our soul? This is where we will find rest in Christ. So we will have His “yoke” and we will carry His “burden,” but it will be light; it will not be borne by sweat and effort of the flesh. It will not be our works but the Lord’s work.
Hebrews 4
10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
We will have ceased from the weariness and pain of human labors. But man’s natural thinking does not see this.
John 6
25 And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither?
26 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Did you ever notice that Jesus did not answer their direct question, “When did You come here?” That wasn’t their real problem. They had come out looking to see miracles done in order to please their natural desires, the “loaves and fishes” kind of thing. “No, you didn’t come out here looking for eternal life.”
27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
From this verse, we should ask, “Why do most of us work?” Is it not for meat that will perish? Didn’t the Lord already say this through the prophet long ago?
Isaiah 55
1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.
3 Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
So back in the 28th verse of John 6, their response to Jesus’ word was to ask Him how they could acquire through works this “meat which endureth unto everlasting life.” They were asking from a natural realm of understanding. Whenever there is a lack of the life in the Spirit, the church will either regress into a “works” doctrine or degenerate into a corruption of “licentious liberty.” The Roman Catholic Church, which had its roots in the true church nearly 2000 years ago, degenerated to a salvation by works in its official doctrines. When a man confesses his sins to a priest, he is told what works he can do to earn absolution (repeating of “Hail Mary’s” or praying “Our fathers”). Incidentally, there is little place for true repentance in this system of belief, but this is compatible to natural man’s thinking which says, “I can earn my way out of this trouble.” This is exactly what the Jews were doing at the time of Christ (and even now) with the keeping of over 630 rules and regulations) hoping that works would give a positive balance of God’s books. So Jesus gave them a simple answer to their question as to what they must do to do the works of God,
“Believe in Me.”
We are not talking about believing in a doctrine, but believing in a person. Let us look at one more example of man’s flawed understanding that needed correction.
Matthew 19
16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
We have already dealt with this passage when we were showing the teaching of Jesus. But this again represents man’s thinking. Adam was the first one to start the doctrine of works (probably with the help of Satan). When Adam and Eve discovered that they had sinned and that their nakedness was exposed, they made fig leaf aprons.[79] So we could call this “fig leaf” religion. It is a work that man can do. They didn’t realize that it was only the blood that could effectively cover their shame. This was also the conflict between Cain and Able. Cain wanted to offer the fruit of the works of his labor and it was not accepted by God; whereas Able simply offered the blood of a lamb and that was accepted.[80]
C. The Seventh Millennium
In spite of the rest that we have in Christ in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, we still have not come into the fullness of rest. There still remains a rest to the people of God. The earth and the kingdoms thereof are still under the dominion of Satan. So when is this rest coming and how will we recognize it when it comes?
2 Peter 3
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
First of all we need to understand that this passage is not talking about the natural earth getting “nuked” and becoming nothing more than a charred cinder. No, that is not going to happen. The devil would like to destroy everything that God has made, but His Word says that God established the earth to remain forever.
Psalm 78
69 And he built his sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which he hath established for ever.
Psalm 104
5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
Ecclesiastes 1
4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
There is spiritual language in the passage above in 2 Peter. For example the 10th verse says that the works are going to be burned up. Now how can you have a natural bonfire that can burn up our works? Wouldn’t that be easy? This passage is not natural. Where it says that “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise,” it is not referring to what the secular astronomers refer to as the “big bang” and where we would then have another universe created. The “heavens” refer to a spiritual realm, undoubtedly a lower place of Satan’s dominion which must pass away as the Kingdom of God comes in its fullness. I believe God is saying that He is going to remove the hold that these demonic spirits have in the carnal realm upon man. Let’s look at just a couple of key words here.
2 Peter
10b …the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
This Greek word which is translated as “elements” does not carry the same meaning as your chemistry teacher would have you to understand when he gives you a “Table of the elements.” He would want you to understand that these are the gases and minerals which make up our physical earth, and each one has a unique atomic weight. But this Greek word is “stoicheion,”[81] which comes from “stoicheo” (which means, “something orderly in arrangement,” and means, “to conform to a line, as to keep rank or step (military march) orderly in”). Isn’t this a description of the tight hold that Satan and his forces have of the political, religious, and economic systems of this world, i.e. “Babylon”? We might also add that the educational system is also under this hold. It is going Satan’s way and he has and keeps his men in the key positions. But in the coming of the fullness of the Kingdom of God, Satan’s hold is going to be broken up, loosed and dissolved.
10b …the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved…
12b …wherein the heavens (spiritual realm under the control of Satan) being on fire shall be dissolved.
The words highlighted in these three verses are all translations of the same Greek word “iuo.”[82] The word means, “to loosen, break up, destroy, dissolve, melt, or put off”. In 1 John 3:8 it is translated as “destroy.”
“He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”
So we see that the coming of the Lord and the establishing of His Kingdom in the fullness of righteousness on the earth is not to annihilate the natural earth but to destroy the hold that Satan has on it in unrighteousness. And might I add here that the sons of God are going to have a role in this process as a constituent of God’s mighty army.
So when God is saying that 1000 years are equivalent to one day, He is giving us another clue; not only about time, but also about another Sabbath. As God, in the days of Moses, asked for a literal seventh day to be kept holy onto the Lord, so now He is saying that a seventh millennium is to be kept in holiness unto the Lord. If we were to make from the record given in the Bible a time line from creation until now we would see that 6000 years have transpired from creation until now. Bible scholars say that creation took place in 4004 BC and that Jesus was born in 4 BC. Now they have also acknowledged that this calculation could be off by 3 or 4 years. But we can see there were 4000 years until the coming of Christ, and that there has been another 2000+ years since Christ. So we have finished the sixth millennium and have now crossed into the seventh millennium (by as much as 10 years) but we have not yet seen the restoration; we are still in the period of transition. Some might argue that if by the calendar we can determine that we are now in the millennial Sabbath, then we should see the manifestation of the world coming into its rest. But we must remember that God’s days have always started with the setting of the sun. So in the beginning of a “day,” the thing that man sees first is the darkness. The glory of the brightness of the rising of the “sun” (also Son) comes later. And so we must endure until we hear the midnight call. Remember again, that it was on the Sabbath day that Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, the people waited until sunset to come and be healed for fear of the Jews.[83] After sunset a new day had begun and it was no longer considered the Sabbath.
D. Tabernacles – Seventh Month
When we consider how God laid out the calendar for the children of Israel[84] when they left Egypt we must consider that He not only reestablished the keeping of days in a week, but He also set a keeping of months beginning with new moons. Each of the three major feasts was to be kept according to this calendar. Passover was kept the first month and Pentecost 50 days later. When we come to the seventh month (a type of Sabbath), the Feast of Tabernacles was to be kept. Again these feasts can be found in type in the Tabernacle of Moses.
Feasts of the Lord in the Tabernacle[85] (Leviticus 23)
FALL
Feast of Tabernacles
7th Month (Tishri)
1st Day – Feast of Trumpets*
10th Day – Day of Atonement**
15th – 22nd Day- Tabernacles
SUMMER
Pentecost
(7 X 7 + 1) = (50 days past
Passover)
Feast of Weeks (Harvest)
Leaven (Wheat Loaves)
SPRING
Passover
1st Month (Abib= (Nissan))
1st – 14th Day (14 Days Passover)
15 – 21st Day (Feast of
Unleavened Bread)
1st Day past weekly Sabbath is
First Fruits (Barley Loaves)
*Trumpets = Rosh Hashanah
**Day of Atonement = Yom Kippur
As you can see from this drawing, the Feast of Tabernacles, coming in the seventh month points to a fulfillment in the most holy place. This is the one feast that has not yet had its full expression in Christianity. We can understand how Christ became our Passover lamb. We can also understand the coming of the fullness of the Holy Spirit and how its coming fifty days later was in perfect timing with the Jewish feast of Pentecost. But most of us don’t know what to do with Tabernacles. I can’t possibly say in a few pages all that there is to say about Tabernacles, but in keeping with the theme of rest let me start with a brief quote from George Warnock’s book[86] which covers far more than this miniscule touch of the subject.
“All the feasts of the Lord were observed in connection with Sabbath days, for they were a time when Israel (in type) must cease from their own works, and rest in the work of Christ. However, the Feast of Tabernacles is the real Feast of Rest, of which the others were but the earnest and foretaste. In the first place it was in the seventh month, even as God “rested on the seventh day from all His work.”
E. Trumpets
Leviticus 23:24
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
It seems quite clear that this feast is the one that truly points to fullness and we are not celebrating it because it has not yet been fulfilled. But this is the one that truly brings us to the mercy seat and the Ark of the Covenant. It was the 1st day of this seventh month that began with Trumpets and we are looking forward to the sounding of God’s last trumpet, bringing flesh, death and corruption to an end for, “they that are Christ’s at His coming.”[87]
1 Corinthians 15
50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
The book of Revelation also speaks of this last (seventh) trumpet which announces the final outpouring of God’s judgment on the earth and the coming of the fullness of His kingdom.
Revelation 11
15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
If you go back to when we were talking about the Jubilee you will recall that it was announced by a trumpet in the 7th month on the 10th day, which also was the Day of Atonement.
Leviticus 25:9
Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
While Jubilee occurred only once every 50 years, the Day of Atonement came every year. On this day and only on this day was the high priest allowed to enter the holy of holies through the veil with the blood to make atonement for the sins of the people. And so the final place of rest is in the most holy place, and that was opened in the seventh month. After this was seven more days in which all Israel was to dwell in booths.[88] And this also points to the finality of God “tabernacling (dwelling) with man.” Now see the finality of rest in this passage where tears, death, sorrow and pain are finished.
Revelation 21
1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell[89] (tabernacle) with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
There is yet one more thing that needs to be said about Tabernacles. God set these feasts and said that they were to be celebrated perpetually.[90] While we may not celebrate the Passover and Pentecost in the natural way, we certainly celebrate them spiritually in Christ, by keeping the remembrance of his blood and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. But Tabernacles is also to be kept forever.[91] Let us look at one more witness to this perpetuity.
Zechariah 14
16 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
17 And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.
18 And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
The context of the above passage is definitely apocalyptic. This chapter speaks of what we would probably call “the Battle of Armageddon.” It also speaks of the literal return of Jesus Christ to the earth and His reigning as the King over all creation. And it finishes with this requirement for all the earth, including Egypt (the sinners) to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. Now you can look at this naturally or spiritually, or both, if you will. It may well be that the Lord will return at the time of Tabernacles; it would certainly be a fitting time. If so, the natural earth may well be celebrating this as an important holiday throughout the millennium, though not all may wish to do so voluntarily. But “spiritually” we can also see that this feast will now be fulfilled in its fullness and will be kept in the same spiritual manner that we now keep Passover and Pentecost. We will have entered into the finality of rest and ceased from our own works.
Before we leave the message of the “seventh” month, we should understand that this is for the most part the equivalent to what we now call September. The way our calendar is now fixed, we call July the seventh month and we think of September as the ninth month, but it was not always so. September is actually a Latin word that means seventh month.[92] The original Roman calendar started in March (as the Hebrew calendar started in spring), but it was changed to start in January as at the present time by Julius Caesar and later amended by Pope Gregory XIII.[93] So we now follow what is called the Gregorian calendar.
F. Seventy Weeks to Fullness
We have already seen how the number “seven” was used by God to mark out the division of time into weeks. And also the Jubilee was a week of weeks in which a week was equivalent to seven years; it became a sabbath of sabbath years, a shadow of fullness. God also gave a similar key to time in Daniel.
Daniel 9
24 Seventy weeks (literally, “seventy periods of seven”) are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven (7) weeks, and threescore and two (62) weeks… (Note: 7+62=69)
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off (crucified)….
27 And he (the Messiah) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate…
I have only written the first part of most of these verses in order that we might focus on what God is saying about the time involved and not be distracted by the other good aspects of this prophecy. I have also added interpretation in parentheses to make this difficult passage easier to understand. What we intend to show here is God’s use of seven again in bringing things to fulfillment. First we understand that these are not weeks of seven natural days; these weeks mean seven-year periods of time. So in the 24th verse, Seventy weeks = 70 X 7,[94] which equals 490 years. And also the seven purposes given in this 24th verse to be accomplished, speak of completion and finality.
In the 25th verse, the first 69 weeks are divided between the first 7 and the next 62, bringing us up to the 69th week. It is after this 69th week then that Messiah will come and then be cut off. The subject of the 27th verse is the Messiah (the word he is referring back to the 26th verse) and it is referring to His week (the 70th week). This verse says that Jesus Christ will confirm the covenant with those who will believe on Him for one week (seven years). (Incidentally we know that only God makes a covenant with His people; there is no record of the devil ever making a covenant.) But He was cut off (crucified) in the midst of the week (after a 3 ½ year ministry). His crucifixion (in God’s eyes) caused “the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.” Jesus became the perfect Lamb of God, the final sacrifice But because the Jews did not cease their sacrificing of animals, it also became an “abomination of desolation” (before God). In 70 AD, He sent Titus the Roman general in to destroy Jerusalem. It was Messiah’s being “cut off” in the midst of the 70th week that also caused the 490 year clock, that was until then ticking toward completion and finality, to come to a halt. The final half (the final 3 ½ years) of the 70th week of confirmed covenant is still waiting for fulfillment, and this will be done during the 3 ½ year period of great tribulation,[95] when the mature sons of God, a man-child army, shall come forth. This finality of the 70th week also comes (not coincidentally) as we come into the seventh millennium.
G. The Millennial Sabbath
Revelation 20
1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
4 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.
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
There should be no question that this passage is talking about what we commonly refer to as “The Millennium.” I am looking forward to seeing the devil bound for 1000 years. I am looking forward to seeing Satan starved of life. He has been denied the place in heaven before the throne of God from whence all life comes, so now he must get his life from man. There isn’t much spiritual life left within men of the world, for Satan has already devoured them for the most part. But he can get a good meal from Christians, who have the life of God in them, if he can get them to fall or to take on his character and nature. I believe the time is at hand when we must rise up and refuse to give any more life to the devil. Let us starve him out and hasten the time when he will be bound in the abyss. We are the only real source of life that he has anymore; why are we giving it to him? Every time we sin, blow an angry fit, or wallow about in unbelief and disobedience—Satan gets life. Think about it! Satan will not be loosed again until the end of the millennium. He will at that time be loosed again because during the millennium there will be people born who will have never been tried by Satan’s wiles and have never had an opportunity to overcome him. God actually uses Satan to test us and to try us. They will have to fight and overcome and come through victorious the same way that we did. All fallen sons of Adam will have to go through the same flaming sword to come back into Eden.
What is in the 4th and 6th verse is really the good news for us.
“they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”
This is the reward for the tribulation overcomers. This is the man-child company, the two witnesses company, the 144,000, the Gideon company of 300, the overcomers, the sons of God, the Elijah Company—there are many ways to express it. Incidentally, nowhere in the Bible does it say or suggest that every one who manages to get into heaven is going to share the throne with Christ. We get in by His grace and by His blood, but it is only (the “maturity” (completion, or perfection) of sonship, the overcoming[96] of all things, the laying down of their lives[97]) that makes us fit to rule and reign with Him. If we suffer with Him we shall reign with Him.[98]
H. The Principle of Fullness
Tares and Wheat
God has designed everything to come to fullness. He never allows anything to remain half done or half completed. The parable of the wheat and tares speaks not only about the Kingdom of God but also about the fullness of all things, good and evil.
Matthew 13
37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children (sons) of the kingdom; but the tares are the children (sons) of the wicked one;
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
First of all you will notice that I have corrected the 38th verse to say “sons.”[99] “Sons” are mature; “children” are not. So this parable is talking about mature sonship, those that have come to maturity and are ready for their harvest. We see the sons of God and the “sons” of the wicked one, both coming to maturity. This will help us understand what is happening in the world today. We see darkness covering the earth and gross darkness upon the people, as the prophet[100] long ago foretold. What we are seeing is the coming of the fullness of wickedness, and we wonder how much worse it can get. Twenty years ago I didn’t think it could get much worse. Look at what people are doing to their flesh: the tattoos, the piercing of metal in places unthinkable, the painted faces and nails, the wild styles and colors of the hair (and the removal of it). I suppose it can get worse, but I can’t imagine how.
But “the good seed” is God’s sons coming to maturity. There are people who get very offended at the message of sonship. They say it is a doctrine of cults. But brethren, this is clearly in the Word of God. It is everywhere in the Word of God. Maybe it can’t be seen by some because they haven’t paid heed to the last part of the 43rd verse,
“Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
Brethren, there is no excuse for staying in a place of immaturity. The outer court of the tabernacle is a place for the immature Christians. It has its place for children, but we are not intended to remain there. God demands sonship of us. It was God’s purpose for man from before the foundation of the world. The holy place is a place for sons. But the people of Jesus’ time were a lot like God’s people are today.
Matthew 11
16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
They want to play at their games, even in church. Today we will play happy music and everyone should dance. “Why are you not playing along with us? What is wrong with you?” This is the activity of the outer court. This is “the city of religion.” But there is a harvest coming at the end of this age.
40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world (age)[101].
41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Pay attention here as to who is going to be removed from this world first. It is the wicked—“them which work iniquity (wickedness, unrighteousness, lawlessness).” This is really contrary to the popular church “rapture” doctrine that says that the righteous will be removed first so that God can then judge the wickedness of this world. But he is able to do that while the good seed, the sons of maturity are still here. The “furnace of fire” will undoubtedly be the fires of judgment on this earth, where “the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” So the tares will be gathered first. The “wailing and gnashing of teeth,” is it not a picture of the tribulation? It is also a likeness of hell.
43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
When He says, “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear,” He is not talking on the natural level. He is not speaking on the level of outer court understanding. Let us give one more example of fullness, especially as it applies to judgment.
The Fall of Babylon
Revelation 18
1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.
7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
I have highlighted some of the key phrases in the above passage. This whole chapter is about the destruction of Babylon; her day is coming to a fullness when she will be ripe and ready for her harvest which will be the fires of her destruction. This passage that we have printed here speaks of the “religious” aspect of Babylon. If we look at the remainder of the chapter we see that the judgment comes also on the “political” and the “economic” aspects of Babylon, each of these three all coming to fullness. My purpose here is not to try to identify natural cities or empires as economic or political Babylon, but I want to focus just a bit on the “religious” Babylon.
The feminine gender pronoun is used here concerning religious Babylon, making this a woman. In Scripture, when we find a woman it is always a type of a church. In this case it is a harlot church committing (spiritual) fornication with the political leaders (kings of the earth) of the world. And she has also been in bed with the money holders and movers (merchants of the earth) of this world. So this is talking about a church system. Babylon means “confusion,”[102] and it has become a substitute or a counterfeit of the true church in genuine spirituality before God.
The Roman Catholic Church is clearly the mother of this harlot system. She has substituted ritual, liturgy and man’s tainted tradition for the life and manifestation of the Holy Spirit. She has substituted a Nicolaitan clergy system in place of God’s proper order (in which Christ is to be the true Head of the church and which is to have a human ministry of elders and fivefold ministry). Have you ever noticed in a movie where there is a religious ceremony such as a wedding or a funeral, that it is almost always a Roman Catholic setting and that it is usually presented in a favorable light? This is because she is in bed with the world system. But if you see a “Pentecostal” or an “Evangelical” church setting, the man of God is usually portrayed as a fool, a swindler or a charlatan. Hollywood is very hostile to this kind of truth. And tell me one other thing, why is it that when any protestant preacher begins to become big and famous that he is invited to visit the pope? And of course, in this setting he must bow and kiss the pope, doing obeisance to the man. So if there is a mother of harlots,[103] she must also have daughters who emulate her in so many ways. Brethren, don’t believe that the fullness of Babylon is limited to Roman Catholicism.
Come out of Her
But the word of the Lord for this hour is, “Come out of her, my people.” Sometimes people get very offended when you tell them to come out of their dead church systems; people have such a loyalty to her (or is it the hold that she has upon them?).
The twelfth and thirteenth verses of “Revelation 18 details the many items of merchandise she has been trafficking in with the merchants of the earth, including the merchandising in “slaves” and “the souls of men.” Why is God telling His people to come out of her? It is because if they stay with her they are going to get caught in her plagues and destruction when she goes down. If you remain a part of something that is sinking (under judgment), then you will be a partaker of her in all of her sentence.
The Lord spoke this principle to us one time concerning some of our young adult children. He said that He was going to deal with them in regards to their rebellion and that we were to leave our hands off of the matter and not try to rescue them from the situation. Otherwise we would become a partaker of His dealing with them, and the dealing was not meant for us because He had already dealt with us, but it is for them. He said He would be using their circumstances to bring them into salvation. Some of the dealing would seem harsh, but it would be meant for their good.
You know, don’t you, that the judgment of the world is different than the judgment of the saints and it has a different purpose? And this is the message that we must still preach to those of our acquaintances who are still in Babylon. Some of them will hate you and practically spit in your face when you tell them this. They would be sympathetic to Babylon, as the prophet said long ago.
Jeremiah 51
6 Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the LORD'S vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence.
7 Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD'S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.
8 Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.
9 We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.
People believe that they can heal her, but she will not be healed. They say that if they pull out and leave her, there will be no more life left in her, which may be true. But you can’t change her; she will still be what she is and it will only drag you down deeper in her death. The fact remains at this time, that some of God’s people are still found in that system of death and they are probably the only source of life that is sustaining her and delaying her demise.
Revelation 18
21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
22 And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;
23 And the light of a candle (lamp) shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
Some of the things we have highlighted in the last few verses of the chapter are evidence that there has been some spiritual life in Babylon. These are spiritual pictures. But that does not justify our staying with her. She is under judgment and we are to get out! Do not look at her popularity; do not look at her large numbers; do not look at her prosperity or her wide acceptance by man. The making of praise and the reading of the Word may still be found in her. There may still be some evidence of the light of the Spirit in her. The voice of the Lord Jesus Christ and the response of His beloved bride may still be evident in her. But she is still Babylon.
God’s people are still in her, but His instructions remain unchanged—“Come out of her!” Her cup is full of the blood of prophets, saints and the martyrs.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
She has drunk their blood for nearly 2000 years. Now her cup is full and it will be poured out in her judgment. It has come to a maturity; it has come to fullness. Both unrighteousness and righteousness come to a full maturity, and will reap the fruit of what they really are as we come into this seventh day millennial Sabbath.
Romans 8
For the earnest expectation of the creature (creation) waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Part II: Holidays
Chapter 5
The History of Babylon
We concluded the previous section showing reference to what the Word of God says about the fall of Babylon and the call to God’s people to come out of her, that we be not a partaker of her sins or her judgment. Before we get into the keeping of these days, let us go right to the origin of these things which is recorded in God’s Word in the Book Of Beginnings.
Genesis 11
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel (Babylon); because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
This is the record of the beginning of Babylon. The word Babel[104] that is used here is exactly the same word that is used for Babylon throughout the Bible and the meaning is “confusion” or “to confound.” The meaning of the root word from which it comes means “to mingle” or “to mix by pouring together.” So that which comes forth from Babylon we can expect to be a mixture, a lie mixed with just enough truth in a cup called religion to make it palatable to the masses of people. But before we go on let us look at the father of this city.
Nimrod’s Empire and Fall
Genesis 10
6 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.
8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.
10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel (Babylon), and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
The time and the setting of this event is very shortly after the flood in which Noah and his family had come safely through on the ark. God had destroyed the earth and all of the living things because the wickedness of men was so great upon the earth and they were thinking and imagining wickedness continually.[105] Nimrod would be the grandson of Ham, who with his father, Noah and two brothers built the ark. There was apparently a good bit of carnality in Ham and it didn’t take very long for it to begin manifesting as rebellion with his progeny. It is believed that for a season of time there was a certain fear of God in the hearts of the first generations that were born after the flood. It is also said[106] that Nimrod was the one who began to deliver the masses from this fear of God. When it says in Verse 8 that “he began to be a mighty one in the earth,” it does not mean that he was great in the Lord’s eyes, but that he began to be a tyrant who ruled over the people through fear and brute force. He seems to have had superhuman powers and was energized and empowered by none other than Satan. He was the one who trained leopards to hunt; he made an army; he may have invented the bow and arrow as a weapon; and he organized men into cities. He is also thought to be the one who first learned and taught the art of horsemanship. As such he is represented in Greek mythology as the “Centaur” (half man and half horse). This symbol is the Sagittarius sign in the Zodiac.[107] As it is in Verse 9, “Nimrod the mighty hunter before[108] the Lord,” this word “before” is not always a positive word. It also means “against” or “in opposition to.”
Genesis 11
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 ¶ And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
This first Babylon would be Satan’s first serious attempt at making a one world government, and he had his appointed antichrist in position there on the plain of Shinar. Now this one world government idea was absolutely contrary to what God had in mind for mankind, because it would be the thing of man and they would not be having the Lord as the king. Furthermore, it was about 4000 years ahead of its time in what God would permit. Before we move on with this idea, we should notice that men were in agreement on what their goals were and God recognized that this principle would permit them to accomplish anything that they set their minds to do. This is a spiritual principle that God intends for His people to use in overcoming the enemy and fulfilling His purposes.
Matthew 18
19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
But this principle also works with those of darkness, and the devil is busy trying to get unrighteous men into agreement with his plans for a New World Order in our generation as well. It wasn’t so much the building of the tower in itself that was an evil thing. I am sure man has built far greater and taller things since then, but it was the fact that they could now accomplish anything that they imagined to do. In only a few more years they could have come into the atomic and computer driven age way ahead of God’s schedule. And so God put a stop to the process by giving them different languages according to family groups, and scattering them over the earth. These groups would eventually form nations which would be in constant tension with each other and thus was prevented the formation of another one world government system which could be governed by Satan’s man. Men have established kingdoms and have attempted by force to unite the entire world under their dominion with only a limited amount of success, even into the World Wars of the twentieth century. But God has prevented the thing from happening. Can we not understand what is really behind all this push for globalization? Much is invested in the schools today to indoctrinate the minds of this younger generation to accept this mind set. The day may be at hand when God will finally give Satan his opportunity, but not until the sons of God are ready to come into the fullness of Christ, themselves united as one body under the headship of Jesus Christ alone, that this final threat may be crushed under the heel of the Seed of the woman.[109]
And so not only did God sovereignly put an end to the tower project, but He also empowered His faithful elders in the earth to put an end to Nimrod as well. From ancient stories,[110] it is interpreted that Shem called a council of the 72 judges of the postdiluvian time who condemned Nimrod to death and also ordered and carried out his execution. His body was dismembered and the pieces sent to the cities that he had founded. Such a fear now fell upon his followers, that one as mighty as Nimrod should be brought down, that his “religious following” had to go underground and take on the shroud of “mystery,” with its magic, sorcery, idolatry, and fertility rites. The new leader of this cult now becomes Semiramis, the mother of Nimrod, who also by then had taken her own son (Nimrod) and had become his wife. If there was ever a natural woman in later history who personified this woman it would be Jezebel who lived in the days of Elijah the prophet. Semiramis set up an order of priests who initiated the candidates for membership into the sect by sworn oaths, the confessional, and other frightful and terrifying apparitions. She also set up the worship of her dead son as a god whose name in other languages is expressed as Osiris (Egyptian), Horus (Egyptian), Tammuz[111] (for whom the Phoenician and Assyrian women wept), Adonis (the famous huntsman), Belus (also Bel or Baal), Bacchus (for whom the women of Greece and Rome wept), Orion (Persia), Balder (wept for in Iceland and Scandinavia), Zoroaster (Chaldean), Saturn[112] (father of the gods), Kronos (the first king of Babylon), and others.
Mother of Harlots
This woman (Semiramis) set herself up to be the Queen of Heaven, a type of Madonna, and spread the story that her dead son would be resurrected miraculously, even being reborn as a babe to her as a virgin (which she certainly was not); an “immaculate conception.” But the pagan celebration at the time of the winter solstice that came into being to commemorate this very belief was carried on long before the Roman Catholic Church later renamed it “Christmas,” which we will take up later. The “mother and child” worship was known in many pagan cultures long before the coming of Jesus Christ; it did not originate with Roman Catholicism. One example is that when the Jesuit missionaries first went to Tibet and China they were surprised to find carved idols of the “mother and child,” worshipped in character exactly corresponding to their own Madonna.[113] In Egypt they were worshipped as Osiris and his mother goddess Isis. This worship pattern was also known to exist in India, ancient Babylon, and Assyria. We find that even the ancient Israelites had joined themselves with the pagan practices of the surrounding nations in paying homage to “the Queen of Heaven.”[114] This feminine form of Babylon has surely caused “all nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”[115]
Jeremiah 44
15 Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying,
16 As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee.
17 But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
This daughter of Babylon also took on many titles or names which varied in their translation from one language to the next. Some of those are also associated with the fertility festivals about the time of the spring equinox: Ashtoreth[116] (Arabia, Philistia,[117] and Sidon[118] [now Lebanon]), Ashtarte (Phoenicians), Aphrodite, Ashtartu, Asherah and Easter (English), Oster (German), Ishtar (Babylon), Venus and Rhea[119] (mother of the gods), Athor (also in Egypt where she claimed to be the mother of the sun god), Hestia (Greece), Vesta (Rome), Diana (Ephesus) and many others. She made herself a goddess and made her dead son a god.
The “rebirth” of Nimrod took on many symbols, one of which was the evergreen branch which sprung up and became another tree from the stump of the original tree which had been cut down.[120] Thus our coniferous trees that we bring into our homes and decorate for Christmas are the symbol of the resurrected spirit of Nimrod, Satan’s false Christ.
This is only a brief thumbnail sketch of the history of Babylon and the religion that she spawned, which infected the entire earth. You may not be aware of some of the practices and festivals that came from her, but let us look more specifically at how this has come to us today.
This system of religion did not remain in practice only among the heathen. When Christianity came to be recognized by Constantine (312 AD) and was then finally legally free of official persecution, the church began to prosper and increase in numbers. Many pagans began to join their ranks, who brought with them their practices of the keeping of feasts and festivals dating back to ancient Babylon, even though some of the original meaning had probably been lost. One of the most noteworthy was the pagan celebrations carried on at the time of the winter solstice.
Chapter 6
Christmas
The celebration of what we call Christmas is probably the one that has the strongest hold on most people of Christian origin today. The churches preach that they are celebrating the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And the Bible is quite clear[121] that He was indeed born in Bethlehem, in a manger and to a virgin named Mary. He was visited by shepherds at His birth who were told of it by heavenly angels. When the child was older He was visited by men of the east, being guided by a star and who brought gifts. This is pretty much all that the Bible says about His birth, although it speaks volumes about His life and death. So where did all of this birth celebration come from and should we as Christians be keeping such a celebration? Let me come straight out and say why I believe we as true born again Christians should not be involved in this festivity.
A: Jesus Was Not Born in December
The birth of Jesus Christ did not happen on December 25 or anywhere near that date. The celebrations of the winter solstice are totally pagan and have nothing to do with a Christian celebration, which I will prove in detail a little later. God did not ask us to celebrate the birth of His Son. He hid the details and gave only a few clues as to the time so that it would not become a date of great festivity. I do not believe that Jesus wants us to focus on His infancy but rather on His maturity, His ministry and what He accomplished with His death—if anything, that is what we should celebrate. For at least 300 years after His death, there is no evidence that the early church ever celebrated His physical birthday, although Epiphany (the date of His supposed baptism) and Easter[122] were celebrated earlier.
First of all, as to the matter of the date or time of year that Jesus was born, the evidence is quite strong that He would not have been born in the winter. The land of Israel (or Palestine, if you wish) gets quite cold in the winter time. Rome and the taxing rulers knew that it was not a fitting time for families to travel. Joseph would not have taken Mary on such a long journey at this time of year.[123] These people were mostly agricultural and the tax would naturally be collected in the fall after the harvest and when people had the means to pay.
It is also very unlikely that shepherds would have been in the fields in the dead of winter. We understand that the shepherds always brought their sheep in from the fields and mountains about the 15th of October, which is when the cold winter rains began. Snow is also known in Palestine. Certain scripture[124] defines the winter as an uncomfortable time and not a time to travel. The passage in Ezra 10 specifically refers to the men in Jerusalem trembling because of the cold rains late in the 9th month which would be the equivalent of our November. Since the shepherds had not yet brought in their flocks, we could conclude that Jesus could not have been born much later than September.
There is given another clue in scripture from which we can conclude an approximate time of Jesus’ birth. The word tells us that Mary conceived six months after her cousin Elisabeth.[125] The same chapter also gives a clue from which we can approximate the time of the conception and birth of John the Baptist.
Luke 1
5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
Zacharias was of the course of Abia (Abijah). If you go to the 24th chapter of 1 Chronicles you will see that David set up 24 courses of priests by family to serve in the Tabernacle or Temple. The eighth course was Abijah, the ancestor of Zacharias. The first course would begin a week of service at the beginning of the first month (Abib, or Nisan) in the Spring (on our calendar between March 20 and April 20). All priests would serve during the actual feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. According to Michael Rood[126] (who has published what he believes to be a corrected Hebrew calendar), Zacharias’ course would have fallen immediately after the feast of Pentecost, ending on May 31, 4 BC. He then returned home and his wife Elisabeth would conceive sometime in June. Six months later (December) she would be visited by Mary, immediately after Mary’s visit by Gabriel the angel and her conception by the Holy Spirit.
Luke 1
34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
So with Mary’s conception taking place in December and according to Rood that would probably be about the time of the Festival of Lights, and that would bring about the birth of Jesus at September 23, 3 BC (Tishri 15), which would be on the Feast of Tabernacles at the time of Trumpets. Another Jewish scholar (preacher), Yafeti Banda,[127] has also concluded that Jesus was born on the Day of Trumpets, the same year, on September 11. He apparently calculated his calendar and Tabernacles twelve days differently than Rood—this being another example of how God hid the exact date. We know Jesus had a 3 ½ year ministry which ended at Passover in the spring, so He probably began His ministry at His 30th birthday in the fall. Whatever the exact date, I do believe He was born at Tabernacles (probably at Trumpets); He was crucified precisely at Passover; He sent the Holy Ghost exactly on the Day of Pentecost; and it would not surprise me if He were to return in total fulfillment of all things again at Tabernacles (possibly on the Day of Atonement). Whenever that will be, we will say that it was done to precise perfection in fulfillment of all things.
So getting back to Jesus’ birth, the early church (which was strongly Jewish) must have known something about the time of His birth and concluded two things: First, that it was not to be celebrated; and Secondly, that there was certainly nothing (especially nothing of heathen origin) to be celebrated on December 25th.
Some Notable Birthday Parties
Incidentally what does the Word say about celebrating birthdays? I am sure that Jesus knew when His birthday was and He knew how old He was. It is quite impossible for modern man to carry out much business without a birth certificate. The Word does not forbid us from remembering the date. But we are certainly not to carry on with the celebration as the heathen do. I find only three references to birthday celebration in the Word and none of them are very positive. The first was Pharaoh’s birthday,[128] which ended with one of his servants being hanged. The second example is what happened when Job’s children[129] were celebrating the eldest son’s birthday; they were all killed. The third tragic reference to a birthday[130] is when Herod hosted his drunken party that ended with the beheading of John the Baptist.
So what was happening on December 25th? How did this get to be called Christmas?
B. Christmas is a Pagan Festival
Let me say straight out that I believe the origin of these pagan activities concerning Christmas is that they are really a celebration of Nimrod’s actual birth, and perhaps to some extent, they point to the fable of his rebirth which his mother Semiramis promoted. From what is known of its origin, the evidence is overwhelming.[131] Early men who rebelled against the Lord God began to worship the sun as “god,” this being the title held by Nimrod and also by the ancient Pharaohs. At the time of the winter solstice, the sun is at its weakest point and feasts were held to encourage the sun god’s return from his wanderings. In Rome, the feast of Saturnalia reigned for a week. At this time of merry making and gift giving, they ornamented their temples and homes with evergreen boughs. The Saturnalia was followed by the Brumalia (December 25). The Bacchanalia (the Latin word for the wild and mystic festivals of Bacchus) was celebrated in Italy, especially the southern parts. It was associated with the grossest of debaucheries and crimes. I could give you pages and pages from many legitimate historians detailing the drunkenness, rioting, whoredom, gambling, gluttony, reveling, idleness and wantonness that was and still is directly associated with this season, but I will spare you. Today it is simply referred to as “the holidays.”
In northern lands great bonfires were built to bring back the sun. The English substituted the Yule log (really the sun log) for the bonfire, celebrating the death of the old sun and the birth of the new one. Druids gathered mistletoe, to which they ascribed magical power, and hung it in their homes; the Saxons used holly, ivy and bay. Christmas trees were used in Germany in the 8th century but we know that they originated much earlier.
Jeremiah 10
2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
If the prophet is not making an accurate description of our modern Christmas tree, I don’t know how much clearer it could be. This festival as celebrated in many places took twelve days (from December 25 until January 6). This date in January is the actual day that the Egyptians celebrated the Blessing of the Nile.
“Epiphanius also relates a curious celebration held at Alexandria of the Birth of the Aeon. On January 5 or 6 the votaries met in the holy compound or Temple of the Maiden (Kore) and sang hymns to the music of the flute till dawn, when they went down with torches into a shrine under ground and fetched up a wooden idol on a bier representing Kore, seated and naked, with crosses marked on her brow, her hands and her knees. Then with flute playing, hymns and dances they carried the image seven times round the central shrine before restoring it again to its dwelling place below. He adds: “And the votaries say that today at this hour Kore, that is, the Virgin gave birth to the Aeon.”[132]
How Paganism Invaded the Church
So what did the Roman Church do with these celebrations? They named December 25 as an observance of the Mass of Christ (“Christmas”), commemorating the birth of Christ, and they named the celebration 12 days later as “Epiphany,” commemorating the supposed day of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan. By the 7th or 8th century they were declaring the latter to be the date of Jesus’ “rebirth in baptism.” We can already see where their doctrine of Christ had gone bad, to even suggest that Jesus Christ would need a rebirth, just as the fallen sons of Adam did. How did all this pagan practice come to become a “Christian” holiday (holy day)? Let me take another direct quote from the 1958 Encyclopedia Britannica, which includes their own source (Bebe) of this information.
The transition from paganism to Christianity was gradual but became apparent after the fall of Rome (A.D. 476) when the church was the one organization which had the strength and wisdom to withstand the disorganized centuries of the dark ages. During this time great progress was made by the Christian leaders extending the new faith. When missionaries were sent from Rome to the outlaying provinces in 601, their instructions given by Pope Gregory I made clear the policy of the church: “let the shrines of idols by no means be destroyed but let the idols which are in them be destroyed. Let water be consecrated and sprinkled on these temples: let alters be erected…And because they were wont to sacrifice oxen to devils, some celebration should be given in exchange for this…they should celebrate a religious feast and worship God by their feasting, so that still keeping outward pleasures, they may more readily receive spiritual joys.” (Bebe, Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation).
Let us go on with this quote.
For several centuries Christmas was solely a church anniversary observed by religious services but as Christianity spread among the pagan lands, many of the practices of the winter solstice were blended with those of Christianity because of the liberal ruling of Gregory I, the Great, and the cooperation of the missionaries.[133]
So there you have it. Caught red handed! And the writer is extolling the virtues of the scheme! And this information didn’t come from some cheap newsstand tabloid. I am not sure that the newer encyclopedias are still this honest and open with this kind of information.
Some Resisted
Through all of this, how did the early church of the true remnant deal with these pagan festivities of the winter solstice? Let us start with the Apostle Paul.
Galatians 4
8 Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
Paul may have been somewhat tolerant of those who wanted to keep a natural Sabbath. But this does not sound tolerant of those who want to keep the holidays of the world. As I mentioned earlier, the church did not celebrate Christmas for 300 years. In 245 A.D., Origen repudiated the idea of keeping the birthday of Christ, “as if He were a king Pharaoh.”[134] Tertullian, in about 230 AD, also echoes the words of Paul in a rebuke to some of the believers who were joining with the pagan activities.
“By us who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity to the Christians.[135]
These festivities were not going over very well in the eyes of those who wanted a purity of separation from the world. In England, when the Puritans came to sufficient political power, they were able to pass a law in the English parliament in 1644 forbidding the observance of Christmas. The feast was revived by Charles II, but the Scots adhered to the Puritan view. Again because of the Puritan influence, the festive aspects of Christmas were not accepted in the New England states of America until about 1875. The law was passed on May 11, 1659 by the colonial legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony making the observing of Christmas Day illegal. Oh my! How far that state has regressed in 350 years!
Christmas Sanctioned by Rome
Around the year 400, the popes of Rome were recognizing and keeping a feast in celebration of a December 25 birth of Jesus. For a season of time it was closely mingled with the January 6 celebration, but the heathen tradition of solstice eventually won out. Other names and characters were added later in Europe. In the Netherlands and Belgium, “Saint Nicholas” was adopted as the patron of giving gifts, especially to children. The historical Nicholas for which this was named, was a bishop born in the 3rd century, and the name Santa Claus is a contraction of that name. Children left their wooden shoes filled with hay for his white horse. In England he is called “Father Christmas.” Is it not interesting that in America this Santa (Saint) Claus is given the attributes which should be given only to God (which is by definition blasphemy). On Christmas Eve, He can be everywhere at the same time (omnipresent); he is all-knowing (omniscient) as to who is good or bad; and he rewards the good and withholds from the evil, just like God. And little children are told this lie by their parents. But it is not just unbelievers who lie to their children—the believers are doing so too. Eby[136] says that if we tell our children that Jesus was born in a manger “on the first Christmas,” we are lying to them. This is because for the first 400 years of Christianity there was no such thing as Christmas.
Today there are some who refer to Christmas as “The Ecumenical Feast of the Beast.”[137]
“This is the season where all the different religions find a common ground whether you are atheist, Mormon, Catholic, “Christian”, pagan, etc. During this one time (of) year, all differences are put aside to join in an ecumenical feast, a time of ‘peace’… This ecumenical feast of Christmas is aiding the anti-Christ in deceiving millions to join with Rome (spiritually Babylon, the great whore).”
So what is the reality behind Christmas as it is practiced in the West today? First of all, it is really a commercial holiday. Retail businesses depend on this season to make their profit for the year. In America the term “Black Friday” refers to the day after Thanksgiving (the last Thursday in November) when the customers begin to go all out in their shopping for Christmas gifts. The season becomes a time when many people spend money that they don’t have, maximizing the credit cards and incurring a financial bondage that lasts for many months. It is a time when wives and mothers are stressed out with many guests and much feast preparation. It is a time of much depression and loneliness when folks feel they must be with loved ones; the suicide rates are said to increase during this season. There is an increase in theft, adultery, and fornication (mistletoe being used as an excuse for seduction), and idolatry (worship of the tree and worship of Mary).
Despite all the immorality and the pressure, few seem really ready to give it up and become free of this demonic burden. Try suggesting that you don’t really need a tree in your house; or that you really don’t need to put up lights; or that you really don’t need to be involved in gift exchanging. Suggest that the manger scene might be a form of idolatry. The response will be, “Aren’t you a Christian?” Or maybe you will be considered an “Ebenezer Scrooge” or “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” (a cartoon movie from the 1970s). And preachers in Protestant churches will be lamenting that “they have taken Christ out of Christmas,” when in truth, Christ never belonged in Christmas in the first place, and in fact Has never ever been in it.
Well, this then is the evidence on Christmas. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to challenge this as another fable? Will you say this information came from a cheap tabloid? Do you have the courage to step out? Can you face the wrath of your loved ones? What about your desire for purity? Do you have a desire to obey the Lord in all things? Once you do make the decision and follow through with it 100 per cent, you will find the utmost relief. Then you will discover what a powerful spirit of bondage “the spirit of Christmas” really is. It is not of God! It is of Satan! If knowing this and you still keep Christmas—are you not being a willing partaker of Babylon? The call is still heard clearly today, “Come out of her my people….”
Chapter 7
Easter
If by now you have not been so offended as to throw this book in the trash or to have burnt, you are probably really open to the truths that God is revealing to His church in this hour. We acknowledge that God wants to have a pure bride for the wedding day, but to what extent do we apply that to ourselves. How much purifying are you willing to endure, or isn’t that part of your doctrine? I believe that many Christians who are attending and actively participating in their church’s programs believe that their ticket to heaven is very well secure, and any suggestion that there needs to be a further stripping and purging will be regarded as just a lot of negativism. But let us take the challenge of examining one more major religious holiday and see what it is really all about.
Easter is Not a Christian Celebration
Easter is not even a Christian word; it is a pagan word, which we will examine shortly. But you may protest that in Easter we are really celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave and God really sees our heart in the matter. I believe there may be a certain measure of truth in that, as long as you are innocent in the matter. God may then overlook your ignorance. Incidentally, the “death and resurrection of Christ,” unlike His “birth,” is an affair that in the Scriptures we are expected to remember and keep. Or you may say that Easter is simply a Gentile expression of “Passover,” which I intend to show that it definitely is not. But if you read and understand what will be written here, you will no longer be ignorant of what you are doing and will therefore be held to the accountability of making changes, especially if you intend to be among the sons of God and no longer mere immature children.
Before we examine what I believe God intends for us to keep, let us examine how “the loaf has been corrupted,” so that the “old leaven” may be purged out. The term “old leaven” is an expression found in Scripture in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In Chapter 5, Paul was speaking of another situation of uncleanness that was corrupting the church when he spoke these words which apply just as directly to this situation of keeping a feast.
1 Corinthians 5
6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
What Really is Easter?
Easter, as we have already said, is not a Christian name; it comes straight from the Chaldeans. “Easter” is another translation of “Astarte,” one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, and was used in ancient Nineveh much as today. The name found on Assyrian monuments is “Ishtar.” The worship of Bel and Astarte came long ago to England along with the Druids (the priests of the groves). There is record in Almanacs from Edinburgh only 150 years ago that refers to May 1 as “Beltane,” showing the worship of Bel (or “Molech,”both are the same) is still lingering to this day.[138]
This ancient idolatry had found its way into the hearts and lives of the Hebrew people of old. Asherah or Ashtoreth was the goddess form of the idol and was represented as a pole, a pillar (a phallic symbol) or the denuded trunk of a tree (not actually a grove)[139] that was set next to the altar of Baal. In the example from Judges,[140] Gideon destroyed the twin symbols of idolatry as God had already commanded the people to do.
Exodus 34
13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
We know that later Solomon got involved with this same dual idolatry.
1 Kings 11
5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom (also called, Molech) the abomination of the Ammonites
It was some years later that Josiah came[141] and destroyed these “high places” for pagan worship that Solomon had erected. According to my bible dictionary,[142] Ashtoreth (Ishtar, Ashtarte, Easter, etc.) is also identified with Venus, the goddess of sexual love or arousal (Aphrodite), maternity, and fertility. Actual prostitution, as a fertility rite, was carried on as a religious practice in the service to this goddess under many other names.
Since the name of Molech has already been raised, let us define it. Molech[143] (or “Milcom”) was also an aspect of Baal worship. Molech was the god who demanded the sacrifice of infants, and in the days of the Old Testament an idol was fashioned to represent this god, and the sacrificed children were consumed in the roaring fires of its open mouth. Israel had been forbidden to permit their children to “pass through the fire to Molech.”[144] Nevertheless Solomon’s Ammonite wives influenced him to erect the altar to these devils.[145] Later it is recorded in Scripture that the children of Israel and a number of their reprobate, backslidden kings (Ahaz and Manasseh) sacrificed their children in the valley of Hinnom at the high place of Topheth.[146] This duet of Baal/Ashtoreth (this male/female combination) was also set up by Ahab.[147] He ran the Baal side of it and Jezebel was the high priestess of the female side. Now you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how this duo is being played out in our generation, not just here in America but worldwide. Here it began with the feminists and Planned Parenthood supporting the sexual revolution, i.e. passing out birth control pills and devices in the name of “family planning.” I one time naively asked a director of a local Planned Parenthood clinic (before the days of abortion) if they were really interested in helping people to conceive children. The answer was a startled but speechless response. After encouraging sexual promiscuity (“They are going to do it anyway, so we need to educate them as young as possible”), the next step is to help them destroy the resulting and unwanted “product of conception” (not even regarded as a human life) with the help of the legislators and judges of Baal. More children are “passing through the fire to Molech” today than ever happened in all the history of Israel. Why do I mention this? Our Easter goddess may be seen wearing a clean white dress on Sunday morning, but this is who she really is. As long as they get your worship and the blood of your children, the method doesn’t much matter to those devils.
So let me tell you what my conclusions are before we go further. This whole Easter celebration is carried on at the time of the spring equinox (about March 21). It is a time in the natural when life begins to return to the earth after a season of winter when things seemed dead. As such, it is associated with fertility. That this season comes exactly nine months before Christmas (the nine months corresponding to the human gestation period) shows that this was probably the time that Nimrod was conceived by his mother Semiramis.
If you follow the trail of Venus you will find the celebration of her birthday on February 14, Valentine’s Day. The ancient pictures of Cupid correspond exactly to the modern Valentine cards. From antiquity the boy Jupiter (or the son of Jupiter) was worshipped as Cupid in the arms of the goddess Fortuna (as Ninus in the arms of the Babylonian goddess, or Horus in the arms of Isis). From the name Venus comes the English word “venereal,” as used in “venereal” disease which is transmitted sexually.[148] From this same Venus we also get the Roman Catholic word “venial”, which refers to the less serious sins that can easily be indulged or pardoned by the priest.
This same trail will take you to Mother’s Day which we now celebrate here the second Sunday of May. The festival called “Lady Day” has been celebrated in Rome as the supposed date of the miraculous conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary.[149] The fourth Sunday of Lent (i.e. Mid Lent) has long been known in Roman Catholicism as “Mothering Sunday,” when girls in service were to take a holiday to visit their parents. They were expected to take a present to their mother, a small cake known as “simnel”; the cake and the custom were still known in parts of England in the 1950s.[150] The Encyclopedia[151] clearly states that this was derived from the custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. The act of the American congress in 1914 was not its true origin.
Easter Symbolism
There are a number of symbols that are used in the Easter celebration, which are clearly of pagan origin. First, let us speak of the egg. The eggs that we eat are simply the ova of a hen, and symbolically are a symbol of fertility. The eating of eggs was forbidden to those participating in Lent, and so as lent would come to an end the brightly colored eggs would be brought out to be consumed on Easter morning. But this goes back to the ancient Babylon, where the egg was a symbol of Astarte. The tale is told and preserved in the library at Rome of a mystic giant Babylonian egg that fell from the sky and landed in the Euphrates River. The fishes rolled it to the bank where the doves sat on it and hatched it and out came Venus (Astarte, or Easter).
Before we leave the egg we might as well throw in the rabbit. The rabbit or hare is properly associated with Easter in that it too is an ancient symbol of the moon[152] (they come out at night to feed), thus the periodic (lunar cycle) fertility of a woman. And so, in time the Roman church adopted the egg of Astarte and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection.[153]
Or let us take the Good Friday “hot cross buns,” which can be seen in the markets only at this season. They were known in Athens 1500 years before Christ. These sacred “bouns” were made of fine flour and honey as an offering to the queen of heaven. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of this practice. They were celebrating Easter long before Christ.
Jeremiah 7
17 Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
The fish is another Catholic and Easter symbol. Woodrow[154] points out that the fish is a symbol of fertility (a single cod spawning as many as nine million eggs annually). One origin of the word fish is “dag” which implies “fertility.” If you have ever seen the pictures of the Philistine god Dagon, you will see that the lower half of this idol is the tail of a fish. The mermaid and the “mammy water spirit” of Nigeria represent the same thing. Incidentally, the fish as Pisces is one of the symbols in the Zodiac. Since fish is permitted to Catholics during lent and on Fridays, we can link this back again to Venus, as Friday was considered her sacred day on the belief that the planet Venus ruled the first hour of Friday. Incidentally, I have a difficult time supporting “Good Friday” as being the day of Christ’s crucifixion, if He is to be in the grave three days and three nights[155] and be resurrected before (not at) sunrise on the first day of the week. The math for Friday simply doesn’t work out; it would have to be Wednesday.
The Easter sunrise service is another pagan tradition that was adopted by the harlot church.
John 20
1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
It seems that Mary was the first one to the tomb. She arrived, according to John, before sunrise and found an already empty tomb. Jesus did not have a sunrise resurrection, but He resurrected some time before that. So why do the churches (not just Catholic churches, but including Protestant and Pentecostal churches) celebrate Easter with sunrise services outdoors facing the east? I’m sure you have guessed the answer by now; it goes back to the ancient custom of recognizing the conception of the sun god. This is hundreds of years older than Christianity and was known among the backsliding Jews in Ezekiel’s time.
Ezekiel 8
15 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.
16 And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.
This sunrise worship service was not being carried on in the outer court; but this was going on in the holy place, the court of the priests (the ministry), corresponding today to the court of Pentecost. Yes, the abomination had come into the holy place where it did not belong.
Matthew 24
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
Brethren, it is high time to distance ourselves from such practices. Is our flesh so tied to this thing too that we cannot be delivered? The Word of God clearly tells us to remove ourselves from the house of the daughter (church) of Babylon.
Zechariah 2
7 Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.
Forty Days of Lent
I have already mentioned Lent several times above without giving it much of a definition. When I was growing up, I heard the word only rarely from my Catholic classmates. I had no idea what it meant and had no intention of ever finding out. Our English word “Lent” is of a German origin meaning “long days,” and referred to the lengthening of the days of spring.[156] It has come to refer mainly to the Roman Catholic forty day season (actually it is more than 40 days long) of fasting (or some other sort of deprivation of the desires of the flesh) in preparation for Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts until Easter.
Again, where did this idea ever come from? Hislop[157] stated unequivocally that the practice of 40 days abstinence of Lent was borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. He claims that in his day it was still being practiced by the Pagan Devil worshippers of Koordistan and by pagan Mexicans. It has been practiced also in Egypt. In ancient times, the period of mourning was carried on in June, but with a little clever manipulation of the calendar by the “church” it was brought in line with a pre-Easter event. Note that after the Babylonian captivity the Hebrew month corresponding to our June is called Tammuz. So among the pagans, this was a period of alternate weeping and then rejoicing, of an annual festival commemorating first the death and then the resurrection of Tammuz (Nimrod). It isn’t very difficult to see how this degenerate church saw the opportunity to take a pagan practice and try to apply it to the celebration of the death and resurrection of our Lord. We also know that the backslidden Hebrew women, whose men were worshipping the sun, were themselves involved in mourning the death of the god Tammuz, who had been slain by a boar (Shem).
Ezekiel 8
13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.
14 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.
They were having their season of Lent and the Lord called it an abomination. It was in the outer court and it is still there. I have just read an article[158] from the Internet that says that Ash Wednesday and the celebration of Lent is fast gaining ground with Evangelical Christians who had historically rejected the whole ordeal. It seems they are fast rushing to catch up with the Roman “MOTHER OF HARLOTS.”[159] I got a flyer from a local Methodist Church a few weeks ago and I was surprised to see from their three month schedule of events that they are keeping Lent and Ash Wednesday. It speaks of “The 40 days of purpose campaign for spiritual growth, based on The Purpose Driven Life by Pastor Rick Warren…” Isn’t that an interesting twist of Lent? I saw the same thing on an evangelical church sign today. What surprised me was to realize that John Wesley was one of the 18th Century clergymen who were observing and keeping the season of Lent.
On the day before Ash Wednesday of 2006, I was listening to Paul Harvey give the noontime news on the radio. He first described the last day of the Mardi Gras festival that had been going on in the decadent city of New Orleans, Louisiana—the licentiousness, the reveling, the drunkenness, feasting, music, etc. Remember that New Orleans was nearly destroyed by two hurricanes in September of 2005, and this celebration was supposedly a sign of their coming back to “normal”. Then he went on to describe another even wilder no restraints celebration in a city of Argentina, where a pregnant woman was gyrating on a float totally uncovered, and the unrestrained sexual activity that accompanied that parade. Both of these places are strongholds of Roman Catholicism. He finished his comment by saying that all of this behavior must come to an end tomorrow as that will be the beginning of Lent. I had never seen the connection before. And all this in the name of religion! Is this not pagan Babylon?
As I add this comment, today is the day that America is celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day. There will probably be the usual parade in New York City where the homosexual sodomites will be represented in what they call “gay pride.” In listening to the news this morning, one commentator said that drinking alcohol is normally not permitted during lent; however the “church” in Ireland is giving them a day of reprieve from that restriction. When the local news came on, it was announced that the police departments will be extra vigilant this entire weekend with road checks looking for drivers who have been drinking.
Church History
In continuing our examination of the keeping of Easter, first of all we must understand that the keeping of a feast at this time of year in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was not commanded by Christ nor was it instituted by the original Apostles. The keeping of this festival was very different in the 3rd and 4th centuries from what is now observed in the Roman church.[160] At the first, the name “Easter” was not used, but the early Christians kept what they called “Pascha” (or Passover). Incidentally, the word pascha occurs 29 times in the Greek text of the New Testament, and 28 times the KJV translates this word in English as “passover.” In Acts 12:4, however, it is translated as “Easter,” which is a mistranslation. If you look it up in the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary, the word is “passover.” It was also kept exactly at the same time as the Jewish Passover. At the time of Tertullian in the latter part of the 2nd Century AD, it was not idolatrous and it was not preceded by lent, but a very brief fast. About the year 519, Hirmisdis, the Bishop of Rome,[161] decreed that lent should be kept before Easter. Early in the 7th century it was made to last for 40 days.
Again, like the Christmas celebration, there were some who would not follow Rome. In England,[162] the Puritans who abhorred the Catholic rituals and the excesses associated with its observance, refused to celebrate Easter. In early America, where the Puritan influence was still strong, Easter was not observed except in a few states such as Virginia and the French Catholic dominated Louisiana. It was not until about the time of the Civil War (1860’s) that the non-liturgical Protestant churches began the practice.
Finally, let us comment a bit on the date of Easter. You have probably by now observed that it rarely coincides with Passover, and that is never at a set time of the year. The Nicaean Council (325 AD) decreed that it should be observed (as it is now) on the first Sunday after the full moon following “the vernal equinox,” now arbitrarily set at March 21. I believe we have already mentioned the changing of the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar that we have in use today. I would have believed that the calendar was changed mainly to correct certain flaws that would eventually put the wrong seasons with the wrong months. But what surprised me was the statement in the Encyclopedia Britannica that the principle use of the calendar was for the church to find and determine the date of Easter.[163] In determining the time of the full moons, they were specifically calculated to be,
“one or two days after the true full moons; but this was done to avoid the chance of concurring with the Jewish Passover, which the framers of the calendar seem to have considered a greater evil than that of celebrating Easter a week too late.”[164]
How did a church that started out originally celebrating Pasch (kept at exactly the same time as Passover)] come now to where they were keeping something very different and now deliberately avoiding the celebration on the same day as Passover? I have also learned that the custom of eating ham on Easter Sunday is following an old practice of the Roman Catholics of England who ate a gammon of bacon on Easter to show their contempt for the Jews, to whom pork is forbidden.[165] Again, how did a celebration of the resurrection of Christ come to be an expression of contempt?
Remembering His Death and Resurrection
I hope that with all this discussion of days, festivals and calendars, we have not lost track of the true meaning of remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the natural realm, of course, we have the communion wine and the bread,[166] which we can take any day of the year in remembrance of His broken body and shed blood. If you want to take it at Passover time, there is certainly nothing wrong with that. But there is more to remembering the death and resurrection of Christ than this, which could easily become just another ritual as it did with the Roman Church and most of her daughters.
In a spiritual sense, we are buried with Christ in baptism; we have allowed the old Adamic nature to be mortified and as Paul said, we are to die daily.[167] We cannot have a real resurrection life until we have died with Christ. In the resurrection life, our affection and desires will not be attached to the “earthly” realm, but to the higher “heavenly” or “spiritual” realm. The hold of flesh will become less and less significant.
Colossians 3
1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
This passage does not just reach to the spiritual level but it takes it on to the fullness. This doesn’t just carry it to our daily “crucified to the flesh” life, but it goes beyond to the point that Christ actually becomes our life. And there then comes the place where we appear with Him in glory. This in a nutshell is the remembering of the resurrection of Christ.
1 Corinthians 15
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
We are to become a part of the firstfruits company. You can see that there is more to this than just an easy escape rapture. This is not just the keeping of a day. This is not just a short season of celebration then going back to business as usual afterwards. This is letting God make some permanent changes in us so that we be fit for the wedding of the lamb, and that we will follow the lamb wherever He goes, even unto the laying down of our own lives, that we may also appear with Him in glory. Amen!
Chapter 8
Halloween
I would like to ignore this, to simply write Halloween off as the Devil’s day, and believe that no Christian would ever consider partaking of this or permitting their children to do so. But I know that that is not the case. Even churches who believe the day to be of Satan, insist on having some sort of “youth meeting” the evening of October 31 in order to offer the people a Christian substitute. Isn’t that the same logic that Roman Catholicism (back in time and under the leadership of Gregory I) used to bring in so much Babylonian mixture so that now one can hardly recognize any evidence of the original pure church?
Matthew 13
33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
I understand that the above parable can have both a positive and a negative interpretation. Let us consider here the negative interpretation of leaven being a detrimental influence. Can you see what the woman (church) did with the meal (true word) of the kingdom which was given to us by Christ as three (fullness, complete) measures? It seems today in some places to be mostly leaven (fermentation) and very little meal.
Christian parents are taking their children out for “trick-or-treat” and are thus conditioning them to be comfortable with these spirits. It accomplishes the same thing when we bring our children to a wedding reception that is held in a place where there is a bar or where alcohol is being served. They are made comfortable with the scene and it is not a shame to them.
I remember that as a child that my parents were very strict in not permitting us to have any agreement with the Halloween activity. They told us that it was strictly of the Devil and we believed them. Likewise my parents permitted no alcohol in the home and we never ever entered a bar. I remember when I was about twenty years old and in college that my roommate and I had walked for miles in the local city looking for a certain store. Miles from the college we were hopelessly lost and tired. We began looking for some place where we could get directions and the only thing we could find open was a bar. After much trepidation and looking carefully up and down the street to be sure we were not seen by anyone we knew, I overcame my fear and volunteered to go into the “Devil’s den” and get the information. As my parents had trained me, I was very uncomfortable there and got out as quickly as possible.
Recognition by Rome
Believe it or not, Halloween is another of those totally pagan celebrations that the Roman Church tried to Christianize.[168] There is very little evidence that this festival was kept by the ancient Romans except for the harvest festival of Pomona, and the Roman Church probably did not encounter the present day type of practices until they brought their religion further north into Europe. However, there is plenty of historical evidence that they also got a hold of this pagan custom and brought it into the church. It begins on the evening of October 31, which Rome called the vigil of “Hallowmas” (translated: “holy mass”). November 1 is then kept as “All Saints Day,” or “The Festival of All Saints.” The following day, November 2, is also kept by some as “All Souls Day.” Pope Gregory III (731-741) is the one who set the date for its keeping. Gregory IV (834) is the pope who extended the Halloween feast to the entire church. (Oh, what these Gregory’s have done!)
The Spirits of Druidism
From what I can see, we have mainly the Druids to implicate for the customs of Halloween. The root of these practices is traceable to the Celts of pre-Christian Ireland, Scotland, and Great Britain. The Celtic year ended on October 31, the eve of Samhain. The Druids considered Samhain not only the end of the summer but also “the festival of the dead.” Spirits of the departed (i.e. demons) were believed to visit their kinsmen in search of warmth and good cheer as winter approached. This belief in the visitation of the souls of the dead extends into a number of other European countries such as France and Germany, where the people visit the graves of departed loved ones annually with offerings and flowers. Some leave food and cakes on the table for the spirits. In Brittany, the people went to the gravesites at nightfall. They would kneel bareheaded at the grave of a departed one and pour out milk or other libations on the tombstones.
The trick-or-treat custom seems to have a specific Irish origin associated with “All-Hallows Eve.” Peasants went house to house demanding food and other gifts in preparation for the evening’s activities (possibly including gifts for the dead). The demands were made in the name of the Druid god “Muck Olla.” Those who gave generously were assured prosperity; threats were made against those who were stingy. And threats were indeed carried out and blamed on witches, fairies and goblins. Infants were stolen, farm animals killed and crops destroyed. Some of the less serious pranks would include the removal of gates, blocking doorways with carts, throwing vegetables at doors and plugging up chimneys so the smoke would not rise. Bonfires were lit on hills to either guide the spirits or to ward off witches.
Witchcraft did indeed flourish in these “dark ages”. These cults were dedicated to the worship of Satan and they held periodic “Sabbaths” which were given over to feasting and revelry. One of their most important Sabbaths was held on Halloween. Witches were alleged to have flown to these meetings on broomsticks accompanied by their black cats.
Much “divination” (foreseeing the future or hidden mysteries by omens) and “auguries” (fortune telling) were practiced on the eve of their “New Year” (Samhain) to determine who would die, identify future marriage partners, and what chances there were for one to find good fortune. This divination practice continued later with such games as pulling kale, throwing a shoe over the roof, and putting stones or nuts in the fire. The modern games of bobbing for apples, carving the death head’s shape into pumpkins, the wearing of masks and the dressing in costumes all go back to ancient Druid activity associated with sorcery, witchcraft, wizardry or divination. Isn’t this the very thing that God forbids His people to get involved with?
What Does God Say?
Deuteronomy 18
9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
13 Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.
14 For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.
Leviticus 20
6 And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.
After the Reformation, many of the churches that pulled away from the corrupt Church of Rome forsook the keeping of this feast as well. This custom was not practiced in the United States (also due to the early Puritan and protestant influence) until after the 1840s. That was about the time that large numbers of Irish immigrated to America and brought this celebration of Halloween with them in much the same manner as has been carried out here through the twentieth century to now.
Doctrines of Demons
1 Timothy 4
1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
The taking of this demonic feast and making it into a religious holy day (“All Saints Day,” or “All Souls Day”) by the Roman Catholic Church not only reflects their corrupt Gregorian doctrine of turning pagan celebrations into a religious one by renaming it and trying to give it a new focus, but it also shows their flawed doctrine of the afterlife. In their making a celebration for the souls of the departed, it reflects their belief that they need to devote certain days to intercession for certain groups of the dead, and indeed that such prayers can accomplish anything at all. Their belief is that souls at death are not sufficiently purified to be able to come directly into the presence of God, and are thus in a place like “purgatory.” These beliefs are based on a “doctrine of works” salvation and fly directly in the face of God’s Word.
Hebrews 9
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.
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:
These and many other passages make it clear that Jesus did the job for our salvation once and it was sufficient. We will both accept the plan of God and receive His blood for our deliverance from the penalty of hell while we are alive, or there will be no other opportunity after death, after which we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Jesus’ teaching on heaven and hell made it quite clear—there is no halfway place after death. Purgatory (or anything like it) is purely the invention of Satan and it smacks of the same spirit as “ultimate reconciliation,” and all similar “doctrines of devils.”
And speaking of demons, I certainly believe that they are real. The “departed spirits of the dead” that come back to haunt (and that are sometimes called, “ghosts”) are actually demons. These are disembodied spirits of those who were once human. If they were born again under the blood of Jesus Christ when they die, they go to be with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5
1 For we know that if our earthly house (body) of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house (body) not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house (body) which is from heaven:
3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked (a spirit not clothed with a body).
4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest (down payment) of the Spirit.
6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
9 Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
But those who die ungodly and unrighteous (even if religious) do not go to be with the Lord. They become unclothed (disembodied) or naked spirits and some wander about in dry places seeking a human host in which to express their vile nature, often seeking those who were their natural kin while living; these are “familial spirits.”
Matthew 12
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished (Not filled with the Holy Spirit).
45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
When Jesus cast the demons out of the man of the Gadara[169] they asked Him if he were come to torment them before their time. They were afraid He was going to send them to the abyss[170] (the “bottomless pit” of eternal punishment). They were already in a hell that they will never escape from, but the lake of fire is waiting for them as a final destination[171] and I believe that some are being sent there at this time as we war against them, because now is their time .
You see, there is a difference between “demons” and “devils” and the King James Version does not always translate the proper word, but the Strong’s Concordance will easily clarify which is the proper word; and many KJV bibles now put the proper translation in the margin. The Devil and his fallen angels who fell with him are a different class of unclean spirits. They are mostly principalities[172] and powers who are ruling over certain geographic regions and who answer to Satan, the Chief of devils. This class of spirits rarely inhabits human beings as that is too confining for them; it would limit them from going up and down and to and fro in the earth as Satan wanders.[173] But there are people who traffic in demons and dark spirits, carrying on communication with them; this activity being known as witchcraft, sorcery, black arts and other such names. This is the kind of spiritism that God hates and such involvement brings a curse upon those involved, even their children.[174]
So what kind of participation do you really want to have with Halloween? Is a bag of candy really worth it? Let me ask the same question I asked about Christmas: What is the thing that has the hold upon us that we can’t simply refuse any agreement at all with it?
1 Corinthians 10
20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.
22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?
The word “devils” in the above passage is properly translated as “demons” or “spirits of the dead.” And that is exactly what Halloween is all about, whether celebrated as a Roman Catholic thing of praying for and burning candles for the dead, or the secular version of witches and ghosts. I believe that if we take your children trick-or-treating, or allow them to go out for parties and pranks, we are partaking of the cup and the table of the devil. I too allowed it at one time in ignorance, but when I came to the understanding of what it is really about I had to repent, and I so informed my family. I had to do so regarding many of the holidays. But isn’t this what the restoration of the earth is all about. May God give you the strength to do what is right and may you have the resolve to do so. Amen
-----------------------
[1] Refs. Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31
[2] Ref. Genesis 2:2
[3] Ref. Genesis 3:17-19
[4] Ref. Genesis 2:15
[5] Ref. Exodus 5:5
[6] Ref. Exodus 16:15-26
[7] Ref. Exodus 15:32-36
[8] Ref. Exodus 31:18
[9] Refs. Matthew 19:16-19, Mark 10:19, Luke 18:20
[10] Ref. Leviticus 10:1-2
[11] Ref. Joshua 7
[12] Ref. 2 Samuel 6:6-7
[13] Ref. Acts 5:1-11
[14] Ref. Numbers 12:1-10
[15] Ref. Numbers 20:9-12
[16] Ref. Hebrews 9:12, 25-28
[17] Ref. Numbers 16:32
[18] Luke 17:21 b
[19] Ref. Matthew 5:27-28
[20] Ref. 1 John 3:14-15
[21] Ref. Zechariah 7:3-6
[22] John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments”. (Spoken in context of Jesus’ oneness with the Father and the coming of the Holy Spirit.)
[23] Ref. Luke 14:16-20
[24] Ref. 1 Corinthians 13:13
[25] Ref. Acts 1:12
[26] Ref. 1 Samuel 21
[27] Refs. Isaiah 16:5, Amos 9:11, Acts 15:16
[28] Ref. James 2:19
[29] Ref. Psalm 14:1
[30] #1849 in the Strong’s Greek Dictionary, “exousia,” meaning, “delegated authority.”
[31] # 1411 in the Strong’s Greek Dictionary, “dunamis,” meaning “violent force or strength.”
[32] Ref. Revelation 11:3-6
[33] Ref. Malachi 3:1-3
[34] Ref. Daniel 9:27
[35] Matthew 16:18, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
[36] Ref. 1 Corinthians 9:5
[37] Hislop, Alexander, The Two Babylons, pp. 219-220, 1959 edition, Loizeaux Bros, Neptune, NJ
[38] Ref. Matthew 8:15
[39] Ref. Luke 4:39
[40] Ref. Leviticus 25:9-55, 27:17-27, Numbers 36:4
[41] Ref. Acts 16:16-18
[42] Ref. Mark 7:26-30
[43] Refs. Psalm 37:25-29, Proverbs 11:21
[44] Ref. John 16:23-27
[45] For a full discussion on this subject see Seven Letters to Seven Churches by Mark Jantzi, pp. 29 & 90
[46] Ref. Matthew 6:33
[47] Ref. Deuteronomy 2:14
[48] Ref. Hebrews 3:19
[49] Ref. Hebrews 4:9
[50] Ref. Romans 1:16
[51] #3342 in Strong’s Greek Dictionary, “metaxu” in the Greek; it means: “the intervening time between (the Sabbaths).”
[52] From Isaiah 46:6, 49:6
[53] See Acts 16:16-34
[54] See Acts 17:5-9
[55] Ref. 2 Corinthians 9:6-7
[56] Ayto, John, Dictionary of Word Origins, pg 284, Arcade Publishing, New York 1990. This is the origin of the modern word “Holiday”, “a day in which no work is done.”
[57] Ref. John 5:18
[58] #4520 in the Strong’s Greek Dictionary, “sabbatismos;” from a derivative of 4521; a “sabbatism”, i.e. (fig) the response of Christianity (as a type of heaven): —rest
[59] Ref. Numbers 13 & 14
[60] For an excellent revelation on the meaning of the Tabernacle see the book, The Pattern By Cecil duCille, Sonlight Gospel Association, P.O. Box 8237, Port St. Lucie, FL 34985
[61] Ref. John 6:54 (See also Luke 22:19 & 1 Corinthians 11:24)
[62] Ref. 2 Peter 1:4
[63] Refs. Romans 8:5-8 & 1 Corinthians 2:14
[64] Refs. Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, Luke 23:45, Hebrews 10:20
[65] Ref. John 5:18
[66] Ephesians 4:13b
[67] Ref. 2 Samuel 6:17
[68] Refs. Daniel 11:31, 12:11
[69] Ref. Revelation 11:2
[70] Ref. Lev. 25:8+
[71] Bullinger, E.W., Number in Scripture, Pg 158, 1967 by Kregel Publications, P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501
[72] Ref. Luke 4:18-19
[73] Wilkerson, David, The Seriousness of Unbelief, February 6, 2006, World Challenge Pulpit Series, P.O. Box 260, Lindale, TX 75771
[74] Ref. Matthew 18:3
[75] Hebrews 4:10a
[76] Genesis 3:19a
[77] Wilson, William, Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, Pg 405-406, Hendrickson Publishers. The definition of this word is: “labour; trouble, sorrow and pain.”
[78] Genesis 3:17b
[79] Ref. Genesis 3:7
[80] Ref. Genesis 4:2-5
[81] #4747 in the Strong’s Greek Dictionary, from #4748, “stoicheo”
[82] #3089 in the Strong’s Greek Dictionary
[83] Refs. Luke 4:40, Matthew 8:16
[84] Refs. Exodus 12:2, Deuteronomy 16:1
[85] This drawing may not be to proper scale
[86] Warnock, George, The Feast of Tabernacles, Chapter 11, Page 64. P.O. Box 652. Cranbrook, B.C., V1C 4J2, Canada.
[87] Ref. 1 Corinthians 15:23
[88] Ref. Leviticus 23:42
[89] dwell, #4637 in the Strong’s Greek Dictionary, “skenoo,” which means “to tent” or “encamp,” “to occupy, as God did in the Tabernacle.” (from #4636 “skenos,” which means “a hut” or “temporary residence” – tabernacle).
[90] Ref. Exodus 12:14
[91] Ref. Leviticus 23:41
[92] Ayto, Op. Cit. , pg 468
[93] Encyclopedia Britannica, 1958 edition
[94] Interestingly, this number 70 X 7 is the same number that Jesus gave Peter in Matthew 18:21 as the number for forgiveness, meaning it was to be done in fullness.
[95] Ref. Matthew 24:21
[96] Ref. Revelation 3:21
[97] Refs. Revelation 20:4, 6
[98] Ref. 2 Timothy 2:12
[99] We are looking at the Greek word “huios” here. It is incorrectly translated in the KJV as “children.” #5207 in the Strong’s Greek Dictionary, meaning “sons.” There is another Greek word in the New Testament, “teknon,” #5043, which is properly translated “children” or “a child.”
[100] Ref. Isaiah 60:2
[101] #165 in the Strong’s Greek Dictionary, “aion” meaning the age or course of this world.
[102] “Babel,” #894 in the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary, meaning “confusion”; from #1101, “balal,” a primary root word which has an implied meaning of “mixture (by pouring together),” and which is most often translated in the KJV as “mingled.” The meaning of adultery also includes mixture.
[103] Ref. Revelation 17:5
[104] “Babel,” #894 in the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary, translated as “Babylon,” or “Babel.”
[105] Ref. Genesis 6:5
[106] Note: “Much what is written here and in the following text can be found from reading Hislop’s The Two Babylons. This marvelous and vital research by this man who lived 150 years ago and must have given his entire life to the pursuit of this information, is so vital to the church today. We are so grateful for the fruit of this man’s work.
[107] Hislop, Alexander, The Two Babylons, Pg 42, Loizeaux Bros., Neptume, NJ 1959 (first Pub. 1858)
[108] Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary, #6440
[109] Ref. Genesis 3:14-15
[110] Hislop, The Two Babylons, Pg 65
[111] Ref. Ezekiel 8:14
[112] Hislop, Op Cit, pg 42 & 153
[113] Ibid., pg 77
[114] Refs. Jeremiah 7:18, 44:14-25
[115] Revelation 18:3a
[116] Davis, John and Gehman, Henry, The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, Pg 167, Westminster Press, Phila. 1944
[117] Ref. 1 Samuel 31:10
[118] Refs. 1 Kings 11:5, 33
[119] Hislop, pg 5
[120] Ibid., pg 98
[121] See Matthew 2, Luke 2
[122] Encyclopedia Britannica 1958
[123] Ref. Luke 2:4-5
[124] Refs. Song of Solomon 2:11, Ezra 10:9,13, Matthew 24:20, Mark 13:18
[125] Ref. Luke 1:36
[126] Rood, Michael, The Feasts of the Lord, New Moon Publishing, P.O. Box 402, Two Harbors, MN 55616 ()
[127] Banda, Yafeti, his Newsletter dated December 1998.
[128] Ref. Genesis 40:20-22
[129] Ref. Job 1:4
[130] Refs. Matthew 14:6-12, Mark 6:21-29
[131] Information from Hislop, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1958
[132] Encyclopedia Britannica, “Epiphany,” 1958.
[133] Encyclopedia Britannica, “Christmas,” 1958
[134] Ibid.
[135] Hislop, Op. Cit., pg. 93
[136] Eby, J Preston, a booklet entitled “Five Reasons Why the Sons of God Should Not Celebrate Christmas
[137] Sexton, Rebecca A., “The Ecumenical Feast of the Beast,” an article taken from the internet, , written about 10/97.
[138] Hislop, pg 103
[139] Davis, Op. Cit. pg 45
[140] Ref. Judges 6:25-29
[141] Ref. 2 Kings 22:1-25
[142] Davis, pg 46
[143] Ibid., pg 404
[144] Refs. Leviticus 18:21, 20:1-5
[145] Ref. 1 Kings 11:7-8
[146] Ref. 2 Kings 23:10
[147] Ref. 1 Kings 16:32-33
[148] Ayto, Op Cit
[149] Hislop, pg 102
[150] Encyclopedia Britannica, “Lent”
[151] Ibid. “Mother’s Day”
[152] Encyclopedia Britannica, “Easter”
[153] Hislop, pp 109-110
[154] Woodrow, Ralph, Babylon Mystery Religion, pg 142, P.O. Box 124, Riverside, CA 92502, 1966
[155] Ref. Matthew 12:40
[156] Ayto, Op Cit, “Lent”
[157] Hislop, pg 104
[158] Santella, Andrew, “Get Lent,” posted 2/28/06
[159] Ref. Revelation 17:5
[160] Hislop, pg 104
[161] Encyclopedia Britannica, “Lent”
[162] Ibid., “Easter”
[163] Encyclopedia Britannica, 1958, “Lent”
[164] Ibid.
[165] Ibid., “Easter”
[166] Ref. Matthew 26:26-29
[167] Ref. 1 Corinthians 15:31
[168] Encyclopedia Britannica is the source of nearly all of the information in this segment, 1958.
[169] Ref. Matthew 8:29
[170] Ref. Revelation 9:1-11
[171] Ref. Revelation 19:20
[172] Ref. Ephesians 6:12
[173] Refs. Job 1:7, 2:2
[174] Refs. Exodus 20:5, 34:7
-----------------------
Tabernacle of Moses
Brazen Laver
Brazen Altar
Ark of the Covenant
and the Mercy Seat
Golden Altar
Table of Shewbread
Lampstand
Holy of
Holies
Holy
Place
Outer Court
Outer Court
Holy of
Holies
Holy Place
Tabernacle of Moses
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