What Do They Mean to You?

"These are the Lord's appointed feast, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times." (Leviticus 23:4) So Moses announced to the Israelites the appointed feast of the Lord. (Leviticus 23:44) In giving the laws for His people, God set several appointed "feast of the Lord" for Israel to observe at special times during the year. The following seven feast in Leviticus 23: were to be celebrated annually. Passover; Unleavened Bread; First Fruits; Pentecost or Feast of Weeks; Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah; The Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur; Sukkot-Feast of Tabernacles. Each feast commemorated a specific event. But that is not all, we discover these appointed feast were not only commemorative but were prophetic, pointing to a future fulfillment. The first four of the feasts--Passover, Unleavened Bread, Feast of First Fruits, and Feast of Weeks or Pentecost were fulfilled at the first advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, even to the very day. There is strong evidence that the last three feasts will be fulfilled at Christ Second Coming on their very day.

Paul spoke of the importance of these special days in his epistle to the church in Colosse. "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or drink, or respect of an holy day, or a new moon, or of the Sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is Christ." (Colossians 2:16-17) Note! A Shadow of things to come. Here he clearly reveals that a holy day feast, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day were intended by the Lord as a prophetic sign of future events. We have said that each of these feast have a historic commemorative role as well as a prophetic picture of the future. When God set these feast times, the very terms He used are suggestive: The Hebrew word "mowed" means to keep an appointment, and the Hebrew word "mikraw" means rehearsal. Thus we have the word from God that He will keep His appointment. Therefore these last three unfulfilled feasts will be kept right on time to the very day. Let us look at these last three feasts and see when they will be celebrated in 1998. The first three feast are always celebrated in the spring. Pentecost or Feast of Weeks falls fifty days after the Feast of First Fruits (Jesus Resurrection). The church celebrates this day as its birthday. The last three feasts always falls in the Fall, September and or October.