The Feast Days of the Lord: In Light of the New Testament

Copyright © 2017 Michael A. Leslie.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 (866) 928-1240

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Interior Artwork Credit: KC Moore

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9336-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9338-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9337-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017909982

WestBow Press rev. date: 7/6/2017

To my wonderful, loving wife Nancy, who has stood by my side in encouragement and loyal support

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: God’s Reckoning of Tim

Chapter 2: Appointed Times

Chapter 3: Preparations

Chapter 4: Passover in the Old Testament

Chapter 5: What Does Passover Mean to the Church Today?

Chapter 6: The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Chapter 7: The Eighteenth of Nisan, The Wave Offering

Chapter 8: Pentecost, The Feast of Weeks

Chapter 9: The Feast of Trumpets

Chapter 10: The Day of Atonement

Chapter 11: The Feast of Tabernacles

Chapter 12: The Last Great Day

Conclusion

Appendix 1: Hebrews 10, Summary of the Feast Days

Appendix 2: The Trump of God

Appendix 3: Abide in Christ

Appendix 4: Rejoice Before the Lord

Appendix 5: Luke 9:51–53

Appendix 6: The Branch

Appendix 7: Chronological Timeline of the Feasts during the

Times of Jesus Christ

Appendix 8: The Feast of Dedication

Appendix 9: The Day of the Lord

Bibliography

Preface

This work on the feast days of the Lord had its roots many years ago as I became a Christian and began to search the scriptures. For many years, I have enjoyed gold mining, but long before I went gold mining, the preface of the book How to Enjoy the Bible by E. W. Bullinger inspired me. He describes a married couple who had a deep desire to study and know God’s Word. I also had this deep desire. I loved sifting through God’s Word, looking for His hidden gems and nuggets He had for me.

As I continued my journey, I wrote many essays and teachings that were never intended to be published. As my research continued, I found myself asking God questions as I read His Word, inquiries I wanted answered so His Word was more real to me. I would read a section in His Word and ask such questions as, What does this mean? When in time did this happen? What was going on in the culture at the setting of this scripture? I have been taught that God’s Word reveals itself in numerous ways. Some call it biblical research principles, but I would refer to it as recognizing His patterns and design.

The Hebrew word tabnit means to build, plan, or design a structure. I understood these words from being a general contractor for over thirty years. In understanding how God set things up (e.g., His reckoning of time or His meaning of words), the whole Bible began to open up for me. I learned from E. W. Bullinger a biblical term regarding scripture as having scope. Scope comes with time in studying the Bible, taking small pieces of the puzzle, putting them together, and then stepping back to see the larger picture. My heart’s desire is to understand God’s Word as a whole, and I continue to keep digging and searching His Word for the gems He has in store for me.

Acknowledgements

I owe my style of research and teaching to two men who influenced me early on in my Christian leadership development: Reverend David Bergey and Reverend Doug Seed. I spent a number of years working closely with them in service and teaching Bible fellowships, including participating in a yearlong project in 1982 searching the Bible and documenting alternative scriptures for the Power for Abundant Living Class taught by Dr. Victor Paul Wierwille in 1953.

I also owe much thanks to some more recent individuals such as Reverend Jan Magiera, who accomplished extensive work translating the New Testament from the Peshitta text of Aramaic. She has opened my eyes to realize more deeply that God wants His Word known to all men and that He can inspire anyone to do so.

I am grateful to have met a young man, whose father I knew. This young rising musician Aaron Schaffer, wrote a song that ranked number one in the Christian music chart. He explained to me how God inspired him to write the song. His story inspired me to continue in this endeavor.

Our special thanks to Don and Debra Hendrickson, who gave us their loving critique. I would also like to thank my loyal friends and companions, Reverend Tom Smith and Reverend Ken Petty, who have loved me up on this journey.

Lastly, words could not describe out thanks to KC Moore, an award winning California artist, for her heart, commitment, and inspiration in providing the artwork for this project.

Introduction

The writers of the New Testament used their backgrounds, languages, and the culture surrounding them in their writings. From the book of Acts through the book of Revelation, there are five primary writers: Luke, Paul, Peter, James, and John. All except Luke had a Hebrew upbringing, and he would have drawn off his Hebrew background and experiences in his writings of the Epistles. An understanding of the Old Testament culture, practices, and ways is crucial to more fully appreciate many sections of the New Testament.

In this book, the reader will gain a greater knowledge of God’s timetable and the understanding of the Hebrew culture specifically in light of God’s feasts, their calendars and reckoning of time, prophecies that have been fulfilled, as well as other prophecies still hanging in the balance. Whole sections of the Gospels and church epistles will come to light with an understanding of what these feasts were all about and their parallels to what Christ accomplished for us.

Hebrews 10:1 says, For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

These good things were the good news of Jesus Christ. The law, which included the feast days, was a shadow of things to come in the future. The feast days were a foreshadowing of the coming Messiah.

Romans 15:4 reads, For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

The Old Testament was for our learning and so we might have hope. The feast days were to be a celebration. Most included an aspect of rejoicing and partaking with food. It was a time of communion with God and one another in recognition that God was their provider, I am the Lord your God.

May God grant you a greater understanding of His feasts through this book and the unveiling of His Word.

Chapter 1

God’s Reckoning of Time

What is the date today? When did today begin? When did this week begin? When does next month begin? When does next year begin? Here in Western civilization, we have accepted definitions for these questions that have stood for many centuries. It is hard for us to think in any other way about how time was reckoned. However, if we are to understand timekeeping from a biblical perspective, we need to understand God’s way of reckoning time.

A DAY

To begin with, what is a day? In recent times, we determine a day to be that period of time between one midnight and the next. On the other hand, according to the Bible, a day begins at sundown, extends through the darkness of night and the sunlit period that follows, and ends with the next sundown.

In Genesis, God defines what a day is. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day (Gen. 1:3–5).

Notice evening and morning. Note that evening comes first. For many cultures, evening marks the start of a new day. Western culture starts a new day at midnight. Evening and morning is a figure of speech called synecdoche, meaning the parts are representative of the whole. God defines day two ways in these verses. Day or daylight refers to the time between sunrise and sunset. Evening and morning refers to a day as a twenty-four hour period.

HOURS OF THE DAY

Daylight period was divided into twelve hours; evening period was divided into twelve hours. Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him (John 11:9–10).

In the gospel times, a period of the day was divided into four watches. "Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even [evening], or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning" (Mark 13:35; emphasis added).

Here four watches are referenced. Each comprised a three-hour period. In Hebrew culture, a reckoning of the hour may refer to what hour it was after sunset or after sunrise. For example, the third hour of the day would be 9:00 a.m., if sunrise were 6:00 a.m.

A WEEK

What is a week? The week begins when Sunday begins, and it ends when the next Saturday ends. In other words, a week is simply a seven-day cycle. Every seven days, a new week begins. Bearing in mind that days have a different beginning and ending time of reckoning time, weeks are otherwise the same in Bible times. 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 (Gen. 2:2)

To ensure that this practice would not be lost, it was legislated for the children of Israel by God through Moses. Consider again the commandment,

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work … For in six days the Lord God 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 (Ex. 20:8–11).

In the Bible, the word week is the Hebrew word shavua, which is from the word sheva and means seven. Since everyone in the world has been keeping time in this way from the beginning, there is extremely little chance that the seven-day cycle has ever been disrupted or lost. The Hebrews named their days of the week by counting toward the Sabbath. For example, Sunday was the first day before the Sabbath. The sixth day of the week was also called the day of preparation. (See Josephus, Ant.16.163.)

A MONTH

How are months reckoned? Our Gregorian calendar divides the 365 days of the year into twelve months of varying lengths. Because a solar year actually has roughly 365.25 days, we need to add an extra day every four years to the month of February. Otherwise, after many years, those quarter days would add up to a significant