All the
ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of
the nations shall worship before You. (Psalms 22:27 NKJV)
Remembering. This is a
key to entering into the Presence of the Lord.
Yom Teruah, or as it is better known today, Rosh Hashanah is the
beginning of something new. We love new
things, new beginnings, and new possibilities.
The 7th month is set apart as a Holy month in the calendar of
the bible, God’s calendar. Leviticus 23,
announces the Lord’s Feasts and in verse 23-25 we see this command:
Again the
LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'In the
seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by
blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. 'You shall not do any laborious work,
but you shall present an offering by fire to the LORD.'" (Leviticus
23:23-25 NASB)
This is a
rest, a reminder and a holy convocation.
It is a Shabbat but in this Shabbat there is a command to bring a fire
offering. Normally Shabbat is rest
without fire.
"You
shall not kindle a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day."
(Exodus 35:3 NASB)
This Day of
Blowing comes with Fire. We know that
some of this type of day occurred on Shavuot in the Book of Acts, which was the
last spring feast.
When the
day of Pentecost(Shavuot) had come, they
were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise
like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were
sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves,
and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them
utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every
nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and
were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own
language. (Acts 2:1-6 NASB)
Now, you can see the imagery of
Yom Teruah in the Shavuot outpouring.
The blowing, Teruah from heaven which fills the whole house. Then, we see the tongues of fire, the
consuming fire of heaven, and the filling of the earthen vessels with the Holy
Spirit of God. The result is a unity
throughout the whole house of Israel.
Now, you might think, “what does this have to do with Yom Teruah?”. We ask this question because we are embedded
in a Greek culture, with a Greek linear time reference. In fact. Most our end-time eschatology is Greek oriented.
BUT, Yeshua was a Hebrew Messiah.
He spoke into and out of a Hebrew context. Times and seasons in a Hebrew context are not
linear but circular or cyclical.
Meeting with God is NOT about calendars and calculations but about ebb
and flow of prophetic realities! If we
back up to Acts 1, we see:
To whom
also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being
seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom
of God: And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they
should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father,
which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but
ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. When they
therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at
this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not
for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own
power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you:
and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had spoken these
things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of
their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up,
behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of
Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up
from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into
heaven. (Acts 1:3-11)
40 days is a complete cycle or season of time. 40 days is a time of preparation and
instruction. Israel was in the widerness
40 years. Moses on the mountain, 40
days. Yeshua in the wilderness 40
days. It isn’t so important the calendar
counting of the number 40 but the season of preparation. Here Yeshua is preparing His disciples,
personally. Then, they must wait 10 days
in Jerusalem. This correlates with the
number of fullness of time. Ten
commandments, 10 days between Yom Teruah and Yom kippur. So, 10 days waiting is a picture of
completion of time. So, they being
Hebrews understand this and ask the fullness of time question, the Kingdom
restoration.
Yeshua answers what? It is not
for you to know… what? The times or the
seasons, based on what ?? The POWER of
the Father. You see times and seasons
are NOT about about chronological events but about the manifestation of the Father’s
power. Yeshua was born by that
power. He was raised from the dead by
that power. He ascended by that power.
AND He is returning BY THAT POWER!
The disciples need that power,
which they receive at Shavuot which releases them to be witnesses of the
returning King. Then Yeshua is taken up
to heven in a cloud and the angel declares prophetically that His return will
be in the same fashion. Now the the picture is complete, He returns on a cloud
with a shofar blowing, the same fashion with fire and glory which brings
unity. As He went out in the season of
the Father’s power of Shavuot, He returns in season the Father’s power of Yom
Teruah. Look at 1 Thess 4:15-5:3 For the Lord Himself will descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of
God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain
will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,
and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with
these words. Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of
anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day
of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying,
"Peace and safety!" then destruction will come upon them suddenly
like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-5:3)
The Apostle Paul expected his
disciples to understand times and seasons and their importance.
I don’t think he dreamed of the
greek and roman dominated church we have today.
Prophetic time has been replaced by event time, or
worldly time. The result of this is
insensitive Believers who do not sense Shabbat or the Feasts.
You can train the spiritual out of
people. This results in a spiritual
dullness. Math 13:14-16:
"In
their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, 'YOU WILL
KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT
PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY
SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH
THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN,
AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.' "But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and
your ears, because they hear. (Matthew 13:14-16)
If we look at Isaiah 6 where this prophecy comes from, we see that what
precipitated it was a turn from biblical worship to Samarian worship, a change
of times and seasons. When we meet the
Lord on our schedule, we corrupt the anointing which is sensitized in our being
by honoring the Feasts. Many corrupt
signs and wonders occur in the last days because of a disregard for God’s
calendar.
So, here we are, Yom Teruah.
This is the Day of the Lord. That
is a bible study in itself. For today
and this year, I want to focus on the concept of remembering. Yom Teruah is a “shabbaton zicharon”. This means it is a high Sabbath of
Remembering. To remember is zachar. This is also the word for male. God’s image is zachar and nekevah. Male and female is His image. To remember is the male aspect of God. This is connected to the seed which is the
male deposited in the female. It carries
the lineage. Yeshua was born of the seed
of the Father, so He is His Son. In this
place He is the carrier of the promise, the hope of Glory! When we become born again that same seed is
implanted in our spirit. Thus we become
children of God. We carry His testimony
in our recreated Spirit.
There is a special connection between remembering and identity. How we remember someone is who they are to
us. If we remember someone a particular
way, they are that way to us and we treat them that way. Yeshua could perform limited miracles in
Nazareth because they remembered Him as the child who grew up there. This is power of judgment rooted in past
experience usually of the flesh. This
corrupts the incorruptible.
Instead of the hope of Glory, Christ within us, we become known by the
flesh.
This is why Phillipians 4
admnoishes us:
Finally,
brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever
is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any
excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things
you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things,
and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:8-9).
The Apostle Paul taught His disciples to know one another out of the
promise, the deposit of the Holy Spirit.
You see the 7th month is about the return of the Lord. It is about entering into the Kingdom. We need a beginner’s mind, what Yeshua called
the qualities of a child. A child knows no one out of the past but is
in a state of discovery.
Remembering is a key! The is a
Feast of Remembering. We remember to
enter into freedom. We have a disease
called Alzheimers. It affects our
remembering. We lose our “knowing” of
those in our lives. Identity is shaped
by memory. Yeshua is instituting what we
commonly call communion said this:
And when
He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them,
saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of
Me." And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying,
"This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.
(Luke 22:19-20).
Communion is about remembering.
It establishes who He is in our lives, the giver of His body and His
blood for us, a covenant gift. When
giving the Holy Spirit, Yeshua spoke of it this way:
"But
the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will
teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
(John 14:26). The Holy
Spirit is an agent of remembrance!
So, these Feasts become places where we remember, where the identity of
God is given a witness and in the witness, power is released unto the
witnesses. Shavuot-Pentecost was about
empowering witnesses of the inner Torah, the writing of the finger of God on
the hearts of man.
Yom teruah is about witnessing to the arrival of the King. When we remember the Feast, we relase the
authority of the King, His ruling and reigning power into our lives. This is all affected by our remembering.
What blocks memory is pain, hurt, or betrayal. The enemy uses the pain to insert defective
programming, lies masquerading as memory.
When we think of the person, all we remember is the hurt, the pain
because of the lie. So it is with
God. Soon he becomes a distant memory
and we lose our knowing of Him, a spiritual alzheimers. This is the season of healing of memories in
preparation for the arrival of the King, that we may know Him as He truly
is.
To do this we need release from false memories that bind us.
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For additional study and revelation of Feast of the Lord and their relevance today, obtain and read the book "The Feasts of the Lord - Preparing the Bride of Messiah" by David Mitts.
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