The Feasts of the Lord

I have been doing a major study on the Feasts of the Lord the past couple of weeks and I've got to say that a new portal of understanding has been opened up to me. I've never really thought about the Feasts of the Lord very much before. I remember going through a small study of them about six or seven years ago, but all that I really remember from it was that they are a representative of our spiritual lives and that Christ was our Passover Lamb and that he fulfilled them all. What that really meant though, I had no idea. Well, I was led to do this study quite clearly by the Lord and it has become one of the largest blessings of my life in terms of understanding some of the things of Scripture and I hope that this post can be to you as well, and might even lead you into more study of the Feasts of the Lord.

In my mind I've always thought of the feasts as something that were simply a Jewish thing that God commanded them to do and to be completely honest, I didn't even know what all of them were. I had heard of Passover and Hanukkah and that is about where my understanding of them ended. It turns out that Hanukkah isn't even a feast or celebration instituted by God, though it is still one that ought to be celebrated and can be traced back to Biblical roots. The goal here isn't to explain every feast in detail, but to simply give an overview of what the feasts are and how understanding them is a blessing to us.

There are actually 7 feasts that were instituted by God, and the order of their calendar dates and how they are to be celebrated is found in Leviticus 23. Now, to begin with, the word feast is not all that accurate of a translation for this Hebrew word. The word in Hebrew is "moed" and it literally means an appointed time, such as a time or season, or a signal. Thus the word feast is an appointed time by God for the people to come together to meet with Him. The Scriptures call this time a "holy assembly" or "convocation" and those words taken from the Hebrew word "migrate," which means something called out, such as a public meeting. It could also be thought of or translated as a dress rehearsal. All the meanings put together really sum up what a Feast of the Lord is. They were, and are, set apart times throughout the Hebrew religious year that God calls the people together to worship Him, hear from Him, and to practice or prepare for something that is, or was, yet to come. They are in all reality not the feasts of the Jews, though they were given specifically to them, but the feasts of the Lord and they are not meant to be put to an end but they will continue on for ever and ever throughout their (the Hebrews') generations. (Leviticus 23:2,4; Exodus 12:14)

The feasts can be divided up into two categories, the Spring Feasts and the Fall Feasts. The Spring Feasts begin with Passover on the 14 day of the Hebrew month of Nisan/Abib (March/April) and end with the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost fifty days after the Feast of Firstfruits which is the day after the first day of the Feast of Unleavened bread, which is a Sabbath. So, on the calendar they would look like this. Passover: Nisan 14, the Feast of Unleavened Bread: Nisan 15-21, the Feast of Firstfruits: Nisan 16, The Feast of Weeks: Sivan (May/June) 6. The Fall Feasts begin with the Feast of Trumpets on Tishri (September/October) 1, followed by the Day of Atonement on Tishri 10, and end with the Feast of Tabernacles/Booths on Tishri 15, which lasts for 7 days and is then followed by a Sabbath day.

Now, the fascinating thing about all of these feasts is that they are appointed by God for His people to meet with Him, and more than that, they were and are, a dress rehearsal or a shadow of things that were and are yet to come, meaning Christ, the Messiah. All of the feasts point toward the reality of spiritual truths and were quite literally fulfilled, at least the first four as of yet, by Jesus. They were/are prophetic times (signal) what God wanted and wants to do in our lives spiritually and ultimately physically in this world through the Messiah.

You may be wondering why I keep using phrases such as "were/are" in some of my sentences, and it is because only the first four, the Spring Feasts, have been fulfilled by Christ. Every detail was fulfilled down to the very hour and day upon which certain things were to happen during the feasts was fulfilled by Christ during his three year ministry and ultimately every detail will be fulfilled in the final three, the Fall Feasts in the days yet to come. The book of Revelation makes no sense until we come to better understand the final three Feasts of the Lord that Jesus has yet to fulfill.

I have just touched the tip of the iceberg with my studies, but I would encourage any of you out there that are led to get involved in some study of this. There are many books out there and one website that I have found extremely helpful is, http://www.elshaddaiministries.us/fotl_n.html By clicking on the dvd's you can listen to each of them for free and each one has a number of pages of notes along with it. It's super awesome.

You may wonder, "Well, what's the purpose of this?" Well, I've wondered the same thing, and though there are maybe many answers and they may be different is some ways for us all, there are at least two that come to my mind that are common to us all. One, it shows God's great love for us in that He gives us these times to come to Him, concentrated on Him and better understand His times and ways. Two, we live in dangerous times and as the end of the age comes closer and closer, looming like a a dark shadow, it need not be that for us, for we are children of the day, and we need not to walk as children of the night. God has given us understanding that has been lost to some degree because we have lost touch with some of the truths of His Word and He is and has been drawing many back to them and their is blessing for us in our learning of them.

Be blessed!