What do we mean when we say a thing is sacred? Look at your Bible, and it says, “Holy Bible.” What makes it holy? The land of Israel is called “The Holy Land,” and the city of Jerusalem is called “The Holy City.” Why? There is a quality of all three that they share in common. They all belong to God. The Bible is God’s book; Israel is God’s land; Jerusalem is God’s city. They are all God’s property! That is why they are holy; they belong to God.1 Only that which originates in God and stays in the hands of God and has God’s blessing on it is ever considered sacred.
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The Sacred Feasts of God and What Happened to Them
- The Old Testament list seven sacred feasts which Israel was to observe in designated months.
- These feasts appear in Leviticus twenty-three.
Leviticus 23:4 (ESV) — 4 “These are the appointed feasts of the LORD, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them.
- Here are the seven sacred feasts ordained by God for the people of Israel.
1. The Sacred Feast of Passover
Leviticus 23:5 (ESV) — 5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the LORD’s Passover.
2. The Sacred Feast of Unleavened Bread
Leviticus 23:6 (ESV) 6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.
3. The Sacred Feast of First Fruits
Leviticus 23:9–11 (ESV) — 9 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, 11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.
4. The Sacred Feast of Pentecost
Leviticus 23:15–16 (ESV) — 15 “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. 16 You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the LORD.
5. The Sacred Feast of Trumpets
Leviticus 23:23–24 (ESV) — 23 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 24 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation.
6. The Sacred Feast of Atonement
Leviticus 23:26–28 (ESV) — 26 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the LORD. 28 And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God.
7. The Sacred Feast of Booths
Leviticus 23:33–34 (ESV) — 33 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 34 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the Feast of Booths to the LORD.
- So, there you have it, seven feasts.
- Notice that all of these feasts were designated as “to the Lord” or “unto the Lord.”
- But, something happened in Israel concerning these feasts between the glory of Sinai and the revelation of the Savior.
Feasts in the Least: The Unholy Perversion of God’s Intent
John 7:1–2 (ESV) — 1 After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand.
The Sacred Feasts of the Lord vs. the Unsacred Feasts of the Jews
- Notice the descriptive handle placed on the Feast of Booths in John’s gospel.
- John calls it the ‘Jews Feast of Booths.’
- That should raise a question in your mind.
- A question like, why is it labeled that way?
- Why isn’t it called the Feast of the Lord or just plain Feast of Booths?
- Wasn’t God the originator of these Feasts?
- Weren’t these feasts His idea, from the start?
- Did they not come into existence by God’s commandment at Sinai in the Old Testament?
- Yes, all of the above is true.
- So, something took place, once the divine got handed off to the human.
- An exchange happened, a glory exchange, but it wasn’t glory to glory.
- It wasn’t an elevation into God’s Presence or a building up of God’s Kingdom.
- In fact, it was a glory reduction from sacred to unsacred.
Man’s Pollution of the Pure
Isaiah 1:13–14 (ESV) — 13 Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
- God’s glory was diluted with man’s addition.
- The original intent of the Feasts experienced a degradation God never designed in the first place.
- Israel’s version of offerings turned into vainity.
- Man took God’s holy design for ‘real spirituality’ and turned into an occasion for religion.
- They added some stuff, dropped some stuff, and tried to help God with their version of stuff.
- It’s like taking an ‘Iron Chef’ recipe and adding boric acid to it.
- The Jews turned relationship into rules.
- They created ritual in place of righteousness.
- Now when man humanized the Feasts of the Lord, God’s commentary was this: “Your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.”
- Did you notice the word ‘YOUR’ in God’s remarks?
- ‘Your feasts,’ the Lord said, not ‘my feasts.’
- After all, God the Father wouldn’t know what real truth and spirituality were, right?
- But, feeble man would, really now?
True Spirituality
- There’s no higher spirituality than to do things the way God said to do them.
- His way, his style, leads to His life.
Romans 1:23 (ESV) — 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
- Have you made an unfavorable glory exchange?
- Are you transforming God’s design for a pure and holy life with a mortal man image?’
- You know your version of God rather than the Bible version of God.
- It’s time to uncover our faces before Him and destroy the religion that has robbed us of God’s glory and power.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV) — 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Mixing Sacred and Unsacred: The Great Gulf
- Here’s another way of looking at the fusion of man’s thinking with the sacred.
- God’s ways are not our ways; that’s a Bible fact.
- There is a Milky Way Galaxy of difference between His intelligence and ours
- Isaiah clues us in.
Isaiah 55:7–9 (ESV) — 7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
How High Are the Heavens Compared to the Earth?
- One website tries to answer the question of how large is the difference between God’s thinking and man.
How high ARE the heavens above the earth? Well, if you go by today’s understanding of “the heavens” — meaning the totality of the universe outside Earth — they are approximately 46 billion light years higher. In fact, the heavens are so high above the Earth that human beings cannot possibly see everything in them.2
- So, humankind tries to combine his ‘Flick a Bic’ thinking with God’s 46 billion light-years of higher learning.
- Think of all the great intellects who have roamed the halls of planet earth, men like Aristotle, Socrates, Plato.
- And, what about Galileo, Da, Vinci, Newton, Tesla, Curie, Einstein, and Hawking?
- These are all great minds from a human perspective, but from God’s vantage, they are bumbling idiots.
- Yes, Einstein trying to discuss the Theory of Relativity with a two-year-old is folly.
- But, the same Einstein trying to discuss the ‘foundations of the universe’ with the Most High God is folly on steroids.
- Why Einstein, in comparison, is dumb as a crater.
- Always remember, the smartest, the most intellectual soul planet earth has ever seen was Adam, and he made the most foolish mistake ever choosing to listen to Satan over God.
- Listening to Satan is plain brainless, and that’s a Bible fact.
How You Can Grasp The Fear of the Lord in Proverbs [Encore Post]
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