Bible Believers' Newsletter 481
"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; we are pleased you could join us in fellowship around God's unchanging Word.
In this issue we will begin a study on Israel's Feast of Trumpets whose antitype will manifest following the soon-coming earthquakes that will sink Los Angeles, trigger the Pacific ring of fire and split the Mount of Olives, demolishing the Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa Mosque to ignite the "hot" stage of World War III. These climactic events will signal the close of the Gentile dispensation and the commencement of Daniel's Seventieth Week in which the Lord will gather an elect remnant of the twelve tribes of Israel back to their Homeland for redemption. In this first installment of our study we will consider the groundwork set forth by Moses in Israel's great annual harvest festivals of Leviticus 23, which compelled all adult male Israelites to assemble under the covering blood of an innocent substitute. These natural festivals act out in pantomime the substance and reality of Spiritual antitypes in symbols to guide the believer back into Divine Presence and fellowship by expounding God's plan of redemption in the fulfillment of His promise to make Abraham the father of the Gentiles, and finally of an election of 144,000 blood Israelites.
The Feast of Trumpets concerns Israel's redemption. Israel is a nation of the blood of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God only deals with Israel in the land of the Covenant, which is of no effect to those outside the land. The only place Israel will find God is where they left Him. They are compelled to return to Jerusalem and confront the Blood of the Lamb they crucified. Joel 2:32, "It shall come to pass, that all who call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be delivered: for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, and in the remnant whom the Lord has called . . . for whoever does not humble his soul in that day shall be cut off from His people" (Leviticus 29:3; Acts 3:22-23).
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ,
Anthony Grigor-Scott
Oil Industry scales back Refinery Plans
A push from Congress and the White House for huge increases in biofuels, such as ethanol, is prompting the oil industry to scale back its plans for refinery expansions. That could keep gasoline prices high, possibly for years to come. With President Bush calling for a 20 percent drop in gasoline use and the Senate now debating legislation for huge increases in ethanol production, oil companies see growing uncertainty about future gasoline demand and little need to expand refineries or build new ones. Full story: truthout.org
Comment: In conjunction with the cutback of production at the wellhead in Iraq, a diminution of refinery capacity will reduce fuel supplies, increasing price and oil company profitability. This planned divestment as per the "Global 2000 Report to the President," and "Global Future, a Time to Act" which are correctly understood as political statements of intent on the part of such policy centers as the CFR, Trilateral Commission and the IMF, follow the neo-Malthusian "Limits to Growth" policies set forth by the Club of Rome. These policies will result in massive depopulation by restricting scientific and technological development, restricting technology transfer to the developing countries, restricting food production and preventing nuclear energy development.
World population levels can be determined by people themselves by financial, economic and scientific-technological policies adopted by peoples and their governments. Diversion of land use to the production of biofuels will increase food prices and induce population decrease; droughts will cause shortages, inflating fuel and food prices that will lead to impoverishment, famine, depopulation and the return to serfdom. Truly a diabolical plan.
9th Circuit Hate Speech
Sadly, by co-mingling international law into the US Code, the US federal court system has succeeded in converting the unconditional rights and liberty possessed by Americans under the Bill of Rights into the conditional rights found in the UN Declaration on Human Rights. Under the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances." All of the restrictions are placed on government; none on the people.
However, in Articles 13 and 14 of the UN Covenant on Human Rights, we see the restrictions are shifted to the people with government serving as the grantor of conditional rights—and possessing the right to arbitrarily alter those rights whenever it deems necessary. Article 13 says: "Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations that are prescribed by law." Article 14 says: "The right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas carries with it special duties and responsibilities, and restrictions, but these shall be only as such as are provided by law". . . the courts no longer interpret our rights under the First Amendment as unconditional. Our "rights" are construed to be those provided under Articles 13 and 14 of the UN Covenant on Human Rights. . . The 9th Circuit understood something the US District Court hadn't grasped—the Bill of Rights has been replaced with a universal doctrine—the UN Covenant on Human Rights. And with that doctrine come the "greater freedoms" of the communist-slanted totalitarian Orwellian New World Order. . . Full story: newswithviews.com
Comment: "As it was in the days of Lot" (Luke 17:28-30). Presidential edicts are pressing US citizens into the totalitarian one world government Jesus refused (Matthew 4:8-9).
Pakistani Man can Personally sue FBI Director & Former US AG Ashcroft
Javaid Iqbal, a Muslim, was held for more than a year at a Brooklyn detention center after the September 11 attacks. . . abused and held for no legitimate reason. Full story: truthout.org
Agent Orange, Mutagenic Weapons, and Big Pharma
June 14, 2007 – No less than 35 diseases and disorders are clearly connected to dioxin from generational birth deformities, chloracne, blindness, diabetes, mental retardation, and a number of cancers. Binding with protein molecules and not being water soluble, dioxin now sits deep in the soil, continually wreaking havoc on the environment and the populace, settling into the gene pool. . . Full story: truthout.org
Under the false pretense of improved food and drug safety the FDA is re-inventing itself as a kingpin drug company. This charade has so far hoodwinked virtually all members of Congress. The Senate has already approved this FDA transformation. The House will bring similar legislation out of committee next week, with a vote in the full House likely in July. The measure will then go to a conference committee to work out the differences. The final chapter in this transformation occurs when the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA becomes law, which is scheduled to happen sometime before September 30, 2007. . .
The Bush administration figured out that the fastest way to get the FDA out of the way of Big Pharma’s profits was to appoint FDA critics to key positions, thereby changing the FDA from within. . . Full story: newswithviews.com
Comment: "For without new Jerusalem are dogs, and sorcerers. . . and whosoever loves and makes a lie" (Malachi 3:5; Revelation 9:21; 18:23; 21:8; 22:15). Sorcery: (Gk.'pharmakeia') or the use or the administering of drugs, poisoning, sorcery, magical arts and remedies, often in connection with idolatry. Now you can see the objective of Codex Alimentarius, restrictions on natural vitamin sales, growth and sale of natural herbs, etc.,
Things Your Media Momma didn't tell You
June 15, 2007 – The fact that most Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and want the president impeached, is testimony to the native intelligence and common sense of the citizens of this nation.
It sure isn't thanks to the quality of the news we're getting here in America! . . . Full story: freemarketnews.com
Comment: Now you know why Americans are so insular. So who runs the Media in America and throughout the world? Who is responsible for the lies, subterfuge, equivocation and mental reservation that is the wolf dressed-up as news and education? That's what Moses and Jesus thought (Deuteronomy 33:29; Joshua 9:3-23; Matthew 23:33-35; John 8:44; Revelation 2:9; 3:9). This is supported by the Babylonian Talmud (Iore Dea 157:2; Babha Kama 113a, b; Kallah 1b, p. 18; Schabbouth Hag. 6d; Zohar 1, 160a; Peshachim 113b).
The Feast of Trumpets – Part I
Genesis 1:14, "God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for appointed seasons of meeting, and for days, and years".
Leviticus 23 establishes the chronological sequence and duration of the seasons of man's mortal journey through time to redemption and glorification in eternity, or loss. This is typed by the three feasts that fall at certain points in the harvest season and form part of an elaborate system of sacred times based on the sacred number seven, which signifies sabbath, completion, rest and redemption. (Eight signifies eternal rest, new creation, and the last Adam's Kingdom in New Jerusalem on a renewed heaven and earth).
Every adult male Israelite was bound to attend three feasts beginning with Passover and the feast of Unleavened bread at the opening of the barley harvest, then the day of Pentecost at the completion of the wheat harvest, and finally by the Feast of Tabernacles, which ended the harvest with the ripening of the fruit of the trees.
Leviticus 23:2-3, "Tell the children of Israel: These are the appointed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as holy convocations, My fixed, appointed times. Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation when you shall do no work at all: it is a sabbath to the Lord in all your dwellings".
A "holy convocation" is a sacred assembly in which no servile work is to be done. Whereas the Church Age saints labored throughout seven sabbaths wherein the Book was shut (Leviticus 23:6-14; Revelation 1-3) trying to 'work out' the meaning of Scriptures, the revelation of the Seven Seals finished the mystery of God giving us the perfect interpretation of His Word (I Corinthians 13:10). When the Seven Church Ages and Christ's Mediation were fulfilled, those who constitute Christ's end-time Bride began to be born into the "holy convocation" of the fiftieth day of the Pentecostal Feast (Leviticus 23:15-19). We do no servile work but rest, like Ruth after her gleaning, waiting for the fulfillment of the promise when our Boaz, having received His claim (Revelation 5), returns to take us Home after the last member of the Bride has come in (Leviticus 23:20-21).
The sabbath is found in the history of creation (Genesis 2:3), which is the groundwork of Moses' inspiration. From time immemorial the week has been divided into seven days (Genesis 8:10-12; 29:27-28; Exodus 16:5, 23). An Assyrian calendar discovered by George Smith divided every month into four weeks, and marked out the seventh days as days in which no work should be done. This follows the pattern in which God divided His work into six portions and sanctified the seventh on which He rested and watched His spoken Word manifest what he had spoken. The Divine rest was not one of twenty-four hours, but an eternal sabbath signifying the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is our earnest of eternal rest, not the observation of a sabbath day (Isaiah 66:23; Ephesians 1:13-14; Hebrews 4:10).
All mankind is included in the seventh day rest for the body and mortal spirit, "for the rhythm of life is a powerful beat. . ." but only Israel is commanded to observe it, and on a Saturday (Exodus 20:10-11). Needless and avoidable work was forbidden, but like other feasts it was to be a day of enjoyment. The fact that God, speaking through His prophet David 500 years after Joshua had led the people of Israel into their rest in the Promised Land, speaks of another day in which His voice will call them to enter into His rest (Psalm 95:7-11; Hebrews 4:1-11) proves that the rest of God, which has existed since the creation, is not identical with the rest secured by Joshua (Exodus 38:14; Deuteronomy 3:20; Joshua 1:13-15).
God deals with Israel as a nation: their covenant is of no effect outside the Promised Land, and their sabbath day can only be observed in that place. Jesus came not to destroy but to fulfill and magnify the Law that was given to train a perverse nation devoid of faith (Deuteronomy 32:20; Isaiah 42:21; Matthew 5:17). Jesus said, "Come unto Me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you sabbath for your souls" (Matthew 11:28-30). We enter the rest of God when the Holy Ghost baptizes us into our place in His Body, making us written epistles of the present Truth of His Word. When Jesus overcame the works of the Devil, He ceased from His works as God did from His. So when we are baptized into Him, we too have overcome and entered the rest of God—that eternal sabbath of which new birth is the Token (II Corinthians 5:13-21; Ephesians 1:13-14; I John 3:5-10).
Those who claim to be Christians yet observe Israel's sabbath day deny Christ's resurrection and the baptism with the Holy Ghost. One day is as a thousand years with the Lord but because of the Fall man has not lived one day (Genesis 2:17), and expelled from rest, he is compelled to labour against sin through six days of a thousand years until the sabbath of the millennium for overcomers, followed by the eighth day, which is eternity. Christians are "seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," or recognized in our place in the Logos, and potentially in the eighth day (Ephesians 2:6).
God can only redeem or "buy back" those who are a part of His creation: attributes of the Logos—a penitent people of faith who having lost their way have been found by grace. God can only redeem His own Word—the lineage of Adam. He cannot redeem the descendants of Seth's half-brother Cain who are not in Adam's race and have no kinsman Redeemer. The Book of Genesis traces the history of two lines of humanity from Eden, through the Flood, to the era of the Exodus when Israel became a nation separated to God from all other peoples of Adam's race because of Jehovah's respect to the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Miscegenation between Eve and the Satan-incarnate man-like animal called the Serpent produced a hybrid species in Cain and his offspring, who are not a part of God's creation. Here we see the groundwork of the reward for obedience promised in the second commandment, "You shall make for yourself no idol in the likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love Me and keep My Commandments".
God is faithful. The first Israelites were several generations removed from the third and fourth generation of the patriarchs whose faith God honoured to their unmerited benefit. A similar promise is granted to the Spiritual descendants of the New Testament fathers. I Corinthians 7:14, "The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy." Brother Branham commanded us to keep the Token or evidence of the Life of Christ on display to sanctify our house and help maintain the names of our loved ones in the Book of Life thereby securing their salvation.
On the first Passover the faithful head of every Israelite household sacrificed a lamb and painted its blood on the lintel and door posts of his house, not on the threshold where it would be trodden underfoot. And the angel of death, seeing he had met God's requirement would pass over his house and spare the lives of the firstborn because all who entered that door were secure by his faith in God's promise and under the blood of the substitute. This was the evidence an innocent life had died in their stead as it had for Adam and Eve; a perfect type of Christ's sacrifice. Hold the Token over your house.
The life of the animal could not come back upon human beings as an evidence of salvation because animals do not possess a soul, but Christ had a soul and the baptism with the Holy Ghost is our Token that His Life has come back upon us. Jesus was no mere human being; He was God manifest in flesh. The Token is His Life on display in us and the evidence that we, like Him, are the Sons of God. The Token is our identification with God's Passover and His acceptance of our faith in His plan of redemption. Israel displayed the chemistry of animal blood as their evidence, the Church Age saints claimed the symbol of Christ's Blood; and since the opening of the Seven Seals has released the fullness of the Spirit to quicken the fullness of the Word, the Life of Christ on display is our Token. He met Jehovah's requirements at Calvary; you meet them on your knees by faith. There God gives you the Token that the Spirit that was upon Christ has returned into you. This is the guarantee of your resurrection and eternal Life. "These signs shall follow you who believe," and "the works that I do shall you do also." Your identification is to manifest the promised Word of this day by the same Spirit that manifested and quickened the Word then, showing that the Token, which is the resurrected Life of Jesus Christ, is living in you.
As Paul illustrates in Hebrews 11, God is powerless to redeem or heal anyone who does not possess faith. His Word can only work by faith. God reveals Himself in nature and symbols, communicating His will to His prophets through visions, dreams and inspired utterance. Thereafter it is recorded and propagated by men and women of faith: "faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the preaching of God's revealed Word" (Romans 10:17). Thus faith flourishes in families and communities of believing ears so when God is able to get one man completely under preeminence, say an Abraham who is sincere and can get people to believe him, His Word will bring forth fruit (Mark 4:20). The works will be reported, attracting men and women of faith to follow and watch as faith continues to unfold, then God will raise up other prophets through whom He can shine further Light on the prophecy. Abraham is called the father of faith, and is the father of faith to us Gentiles as his new name implies (Genesis 17:5).
Abraham's faith spread through his immediate family. His grandson Jacob went down to Egypt with seventy souls, and two hundred and ten years later at midnight on Nisan 15, Moses departed with a nation numbering about 1.8 million. In one night Israel was born as a natural nation, chosen to spread God's revelation to Adam's entire race.
Exodus 12:2-3, "Hereafter this month shall be for you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man shall take a lamb for his family, one lamb for each house".
The lamb was roasted whole so that not a bone of its body is broken (verse 46), and eaten by everyone under the blood within the house. They were to eat as a community, as the community of faith share the Lord's Supper, "for we being many are one bread and one Body; for we are all partakers of that one bread" (I Corinthians 10:17), and in readiness to start their journey as are we, having judged ourselves and tarried one for another. The seven days of unleavened bread was contemporaneous with the Passover and its real symbolism was the removal of Egyptian leaven, symbolizing an entire separation from everything Egyptian. God's Word calls for a total separation from unbelief. I Corinthians 5:6-8, "Your boasting in your own righteousness and sanctification is deplorable when you tolerate fornication in your midst. Don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be another lump, pure and unleavened. For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us: let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven, and not with the leaven of iniquity and wickedness that is not ashamed to break laws; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth". Leaven symbolizes transmission and fellowship; we are to eliminate the leaven of our old Egyptian character, corrupt doctrine, gossip, legalism or anything likely to diffuse its influence from our personal life throughout the congregation. Sin must not be tolerated, it must be excised.
The Passover was the greatest of all the annual festivals of Israel, and was the only one resting upon a distinct historical and miraculous event, and the only one, the neglect of which was accompanied with the penalty of excision (Numbers 9:18). The obligation to observe it was so emphatic that a second Passover was observed in the following month for those who were prevented from keeping it by reason of absence or defilement with a dead body, and all Israel is defiled by contact with the body of Jesus Messiah (Matthew 27:25; John 11:49-52).
The Passover commemorated the dreadful night of judgment and deliverance in which the nation of Israel was born, the Feast of Unleavened Bread signified Israel's separation from the fleshly lusts of Egypt (Numbers 11:15). In the antitype, Christ died as kinsman Redeemer taking our sins upon Himself and bearing them away. The unleavened bread was "bread of affliction" as it had been Israel's "affliction," and a mark of their bondage and subjection to the Egyptians, to be driven forth in such "haste" as not even to have time for leavening their bread (Deuteronomy 16:3; Exodus 12:33, 39). In the antitype the first day represents the pure Word of God Christ preached as a witness of judgment to souls imprisoned in chains of darkness, and vindication of deliverance to the Old Testament saints over the chasm in Paradise. The remaining six days represent the Alpha Age of Pentecost which held the pure faith once delivered to the apostolic saints unleavened by creed and tradition. As bread is the staff of natural life, Christ the Word is the Bread from heaven and staff of Spiritual Life, which if a man eat he shall never die.
After Christ the firstfruits of the new creation was "reaped" on Calvary's cross, His body was buried but His theophany descended into the place of the departed where he witnessed to the lost souls who had rejected the Message of God's prophets. On the Day of Pentecost He re-entered and resurrected His body in glorified form and was "waved" before the Lord as the firstfruits of those who had fallen asleep. He ascended on High and with His own blood cleansed the heavenly sanctuary of the sins of the Old Testament saints; then He descended, and raised the Old Testament saints who had been captives of death to glorified captives of eternal Life.
Leviticus 23:4-14 specifies when the Feast of Unleavened Bread should be held, lays down strict requirements for the first and last days, which are to be holy convocations, and appoints a special observance for the day after the Sabbath, which was resurrection Sunday, known to Israel as the Feast of First Fruits, on which the priests present the Lord with a wave offering consisting of a single sheaf of barley offered on behalf of the whole nation.
This represented the first produce of the barley harvest just then beginning, and according to Leviticus 23:10-14 the bread was made of unleavened flour from the previous year's harvest. No significance or symbolism is attached to the flour's age, and there is no mention of which grain was used, nor is any specialty accorded the bread denoted in Scripture. It was simply bread. Nothing from the new harvest could be used or eaten until the offering was presented. The barley harvest in Nisan was the first harvest of the year. Since fruit of a single sheaf represents one Man in his risen state, we see in this a type of the resurrection of Messiah, who had to be waved and accepted as representative of the whole harvest before the Old Testament saints could partake the same eternal Life.
John 12:23-25, "Jesus said, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Truly, I assure you, unless a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. He who loves his life shall lose it; and he who hates his life in this world will preserve it to eternal Life.
Jesus was the original Seed, the forerunner and Spiritual progenitor of every Son of Adam willing to renounce this world for the promises of God, even at the cost of his life, with the assurance of eternal Life. Like a seed, he will not expire but progress to a superior form of life, and God will raise him to glory in an incorruptible body.
I Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-44, "Some will ask, How are the dead restored to life, and what kind of bodies will they have? What a foolish question! You will find the answer in your own garden! What you sow does not grow into a plant unless it dies first. Nor is the seed you sow the body that is to be, but bare grain of wheat, or whatever it is you are planting: then God gives it the body of His choice according to the kind of seed. . . So is the resurrection of the dead, our earthly bodies which die and decay are different from the glorified bodies we will have in the resurrection. What was sown was perishable, what is raised is imperishable. The bodies we now have were sown in dishonour, for they become sick and die; but they will be full of glory when we come back to life again, for they will be raised in glory and strength. It was sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body".
Your present body is like random, perishable seed and no comparison to the glorified body you will inherit at the translation when you will be mature like ripened grain. And although the Church Age saints first returned to the earth in a kind of death pending the first resurrection, you will be changed in the atoms without death.
Unlike our day, which begins after midnight, the Hebrew day begins after 6.00 pm. God's Passover was slain and prepared between 3.00 pm and 6.00 pm on Friday, Nisan 14, and eaten sometime after 6.00 pm the same night, which was Nisan 15, a sabbath and the commencement of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Feast of Firstfruits fell on Nisan 16, which was resurrection Sunday as recorded in Matthew 28:1-6 (in which the words "In the end of the sabbath" belong to chapter 27), and in John 18:28 and 19:31.
The time of the Feast of Weeks was determined by the Passover and commenced on Nisan 16, or resurrection Sunday on which Messiah was waved before the Lord, I Corinthians 15:20, "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept." Pentecost followed fifty-two days after Passover at the completion and close of the wheat harvest. It was celebrated with thanksgiving for it types the Pentecostal Jubilee and our meeting with the saints in the air. Whereas the Old Testament saints were represented by the harvest of barley—its inferiority to wheat being marked by the offering of barley in the ordeal of jealousy (Numbers 5:15; Hosea 3:2)—as Christ's "wheat Bride" and Israel's Queen we are represented by the most noble of grains.
We are ready to be offered as two loaves of bread baked with leaven and made with flour of the first fruits sifted fine, indicating Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. This new wave offering represents the Alpha Bride born of the apostolic faith and the Omega Bride born of the same faith restored by the prophet of Malachi 4:5-6 (Romans 15:16). The Alpha and Omega Bride are identical as God showed Brother Branham in a vision recorded in The Masterpiece. The day after the earthquake sinks Los Angeles, which will be the same night by Hebrew reckoning, we will witness to our loved ones and all we meet as Jesus witnessed to the departed souls. The following day we will be waved before the Lord as Christ was waved on Nisan 16 two days after the earthquake that marked the breach in Jehovah's relationship with Israel (Daniel 9:26; I Peter 3:19-20; Jude 5-6). Our acceptance will signify God's consecration of the whole harvest of the Alpha and Omega Ages and the PART-Word saints in-between. Since we are "baked with the leaven" of corruptible flesh we cannot be offered as a burnt offering, an assurance Christ's Bride will not go through the tribulation. As the former rain began to fall on that first day of Pentecost, the latter rain will fall on this first day of Pentecost, initiating the resurrection of the sleeping saints and the manifestation of the living Sons of God. Then on the fiftieth day we shall be "changed and caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: so shall we forever be with the Lord".
The two wave loaves were seven palms in length and four in breadth, signifying "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" in His Bride of all Ages redeemed by the seven-fold Spirit of God under the first Four Seals. They were made the evening prior to, or in the event of a sabbath preceding, two evenings before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. This shows (in type) that His end-time Bride with the perfect interpretation of the Word (I Corinthians 13:10; Revelation 10:7) was fully redeemed in Christ on Calvary, for at the close of the Laodicean Church Age redemption is over. Whereas the saints of Pentecost and the Church Ages required Christ's mediation for their ignorance of the fullness of the Word, when He opened and revealed the Seven Seals, all seven sabbaths or Church Ages were fulfilled and there was no further delay for mediation, yet we were not born-again (Revelation 10:6). This proves that our dispensation is the holy convocation typed by the fiftieth day of the feast when all servile work is prohibited, including mediation for ignorance. But with "the true sayings of God" (Revelation 19:9; 22:10) we do not need mediation, and as we are all members of one Body, they cannot be resurrected and glorified without us. Brother Branham said, "These people who died in here are depending and waiting on us." Let us not keep them waiting.
One loaf was given to the high priest typing Christ the Principal Man, the other to the ordinary priests or seven shepherds who officiated during His absence. It was eaten that same night in the temple, and no fragment was suffered to remain till the morning, signifying that when we go Home we will not leave so much as a hoof left behind. Praise the Lord! Then the Angel of the Lord will reveal Himself to Israel in the office of Son of man (Revelation 7:1-2).
Pentecost signified the restoration of the Law to Israel, but the Pentecostal Feast was never celebrated until Israel had entered her natural rest in Canaan, God's provided place for them to live and worship (Leviticus 23:10). Canaan with its wars and killing does not type the millennium, but the time of overcoming, which in the antitype was the Church Ages when the full number of Spiritual Israel was gathered in to her promised rest. For Israel this will be the time of Jacob's trouble and the in-gathering of their 144,000 elect. After the catching-away of the Bride, God will anoint two Hebrew prophets with the Spirit that endued Moses and Elijah to reveal whence the nation fell. "Remember the Law of My servant Moses, the statutes and judgments which I commanded Him in Horeb for all Israel." They will place Scripture in history to expound their seven Trumpet judgments and introduce Messiah's 'parousia' Coming with His Bride, their Queen.
James 1:18, "Of His own will He gave us new birth by the Word of truth, so that we might be a kind of firstfruits in His Family." But after the harvest of the field, the husbandman was to leave some grain for the poor in revelation and those unfamiliar with the faith to glean during the tribulation and retain their names on the Book of Life (Leviticus 23:22).
Leviticus 23:23-25, "The Lord said to Moses, Tell the children of Israel, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no servile work, and you shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord".
Three of the appointed times of meeting fall in Tishri, the seventh month of the harvest season, and their antitypes apply exclusively to the nation of Israel as the work of redeeming the nation begun on the first Passover will conclude with the true Atonement of the nation on the tenth day of Tishri and the restoration of the kingdom to Israel typed by the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which speaks of that day of millennial rest no man has completed.
The first of Tishri was New Year's Day in the civil year and commenced the sabbatical month in which the sabbatical year and year of Jubilee completed the cycle of harvest feasts in the ecclesiastical year, the natural typing the Spiritual. It was the month of ingathering the last of the ripe fruits, the vintage and the olive, as well as ploughing and sowing at the start of a new cycle. The first of Tishri is a holy convocation, a Feast of Trumpets fashioned from the silver half shekel of the ransom of souls (Exodus 30:11-16; Numbers 10:2, 10). Their sound represents the Voice of God: to some it will be the joyous sound of redemption, to others foreboding judgment and doom (Isaiah 58:1; Hosea 8:1; Revelation 1:10; 4:1).
The Feast of Trumpets is a memorial that reminds Israel of their Covenant and puts God in remembrance of His promises (Isaiah 43:22-28), an announcement from the King that the glad sabbatical month has begun, and that the great day of atonement is at hand. In the modern service of the synagogue, Psalm 81 is read at the Feast of Trumpets which they regard as a commemoration of the creation, when "all the Sons of God shouted for joy" (Job 38:7). The rabbins may not understand that from the foundation of the world God foresaw us shouting for joy at the revelation of our redemption in Jesus Messiah and the promise of a renewed creation.
At the end our holy convocation and the Gentile dispensation, Israel's Seventh Trumpet will shatter the "silence in heaven about the space of half an hour" (Revelation 11:15-19), call the resurrection of the PART-Word Bride, the manifestation of the living Sons of God, and our translation and catching-away to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in the Sky (I Corinthians 15:52; I Thessalonians 4:16). In Isaiah 26:13 it is called "the great trumpet".
As the ministry of the prophet of Revelation 10:7 revealed the mystery of the six written Seals in the exposition of the unwritten Seventh Seal, under the Seventh Trumpet two prophets will reveal the mystery of the previous Six Trumpet judgments upon Israel (Revelation 8:6-9:21; 11:15-19). Matthew 24:31, "Jesus Messiah will send His angels, (two Hebrew prophets), with the great sound of a trumpet, and their Message will gather His elect from the four winds (war and strife—Revelation 7:1-3), from one end of heaven to the other" into the 'Goshen' of Israel (Revelation 7:1-3; 11:3-6). These men are waiting for the manifestation of the Sixth Seal and Seventh Trumpet that will end the Gentile dispensation; then they will be anointed with the Spirit and authority that endued Moses and Elijah to reveal Israel's Trumpet mysteries. This three and a half-year ministry will be the antitype of the Feast of Trumpets, gathering an election of 144,000 from "the house of Judah and the house of Israel out of the north country into the land of their forefathers" (Jeremiah 3:18) for the revelation of their atonement. Then Israel will mourn the iniquity of Talmudic Judaism by which the Pharisees caused their forefathers to kill Messiah (Leviticus 23:32; Jeremiah 6:26; Amos 8:10; Zechariah 12:10-14:9; Matthew 15:9; 27:25; John 7:1; Revelation 1:7).
Leviticus 23:26-32, "The Lord said to Moses, The tenth day of the seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement: it shall be a holy convocation. You shall afflict your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord. On this day you shall do no work of any kind: for it is a day of Atonement, to make atonement for you in the Presence of the Lord your God. For whoever is not afflicted in this day shall be cut off from His people. And whosoever does any work on this same day, that soul will I destroy from among the people. You shall do no work whatever: it is an everlasting ordinance throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be for you a sabbath of solemn rest and you shall afflict your souls on the ninth day of the month beginning at eventide; from evening to evening you shall keep your sabbath".
It was on this day of national humiliation, enjoined in law, that types Israel's soon-coming realization of her great sin and humiliation in the recognition of Christ's 'parousia,' repentance and rebirth in one day (Isaiah 66:8), and not on the first of the month, that the Jubilee was to be proclaimed and will soon be proclaimed. Thereafter "the remnant of the woman's seed that keep the commandments of God (the nation of 144,000 elect Israelites), and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (the foolish virgin and other groups of "saved" non-elect Gentiles), will be hunted down like dogs and give their life for their testimony" (Revelation 6:11; 12:11, 17).
This was a day of expiation and fasting from the evening of the ninth to the evening of the tenth, five days before the Feast of Tabernacles which implied rest in Israel's inheritance, and atonement must precede the realization of rest. This was a day upon which the holy convocation must have been kept in the home. It is significant that it should fall upon the tenth day: ten is the number of closed history, the reckoning of the double five, of well-used or badly-used free moral agency, the number of judgment—what Brother Branham called a "bad" number.
Leviticus 16 pronounces observance of the Day of Atonement as a day of national purification, a preliminary condition for participating in the great obligatory Feast of Tabernacles or ingathering (of souls). Yet all of its legal atonements could not bring full purification under the blood of bulls and goats as indicated by the goat for Azazel, with which the Levitical atonement sends inexpiated sins away to a future and real atonement (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 10:1-10). The two goats represented one sacrifice (as did the two turtledoves—Leviticus 14:4-7; 48-53); they represent Jesus Messiah who both died for our sins and carried them away to a place of no remembrance (Hebrews 9:28). We can only "joy in the Lord" when "through our Lord Jesus Christ we have now received the atonement" (Romans 5:11).
The high priest placed two lots into an urn, into which he put both his hands and took out a lot in each, while the two goats stood before him, one on the right, the other on the left; the lot in each hand belonged to the goat in the corresponding position: when the lot "for Azazel" was in the right, it was a good omen. He then tied a tongue-shaped piece of scarlet cloth on the goat for complete sending away or removal, and according to the Gemara, "the red cloth ought to turn white as a token of God's acceptance of the atonement; which illustrates Isaiah 1:18, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." No such change took place for 40 years before the destruction of Jerusalem; a signal testimony from Jewish authority to Messiah, as His ministry was precisely 40 years before the destruction of the holy city; the type ceased when the Antitype came.
"Living He loved me, dying He saved me.
Buried, He carried my sins far away.
Rising He justified freely forever:
One day He's coming—Oh glorious day!""Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice!" All of Israel's feasts were celebrations of joy before the Lord, except the fast of the Day of Atonement.
The sin of Israel having been removed, the Feast of Tabernacles occupied a week from the fifteenth to the twenty-second of the seventh month. The first day was a holy convocation as a memorial of Israel's wandering in the wilderness and dwelling in tents when God revealed His Attributes which would later identify Him in Messiah:
Jehovah-Jireh - the Lord our Provider (Exodus 16:11-16; Matthew 14:15-21).
Jehovah-Rapha - the Lord our Healer (Exodus 15:26; Matthew 4:23).
Jehovah-Nissi - the Lord our Banner (Exodus 17:8-15; Revelation 19:11-16).
Jehovah-Shalom - the Lord our Peace (Judges 6:22-24; Luke 19:38).
Jehovah-Raah - the Lord my Shepherd (Numbers 27:17; Matthew 26:31).
Jehovah-Tsidkenu - the Lord our Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6; Romans 10:4).
Jehovah-Shammah - the Lord is Present (Ezekiel 48:35; Revelation 21:3).
Jehovah-Saviour - the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam and Kinsman Redeemer
for the first Adam and his fallen race (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6-7; Matthew 1:21-23).Whereas Pentecost typed the firstfruits of the world's harvest in an ingathering of an election from all seventy nations, the Feast of Tabernacles typifies the completion of that final and universal harvest in a spiritual ingathering of the fruit of six thousand years for the millennium. Whereas the first day was a sabbath which Adam and Eve broke, the eighth day is an eternal sabbath that will never be broken. However, it is not our intention to teach in depth on the Feast of Tabernacles as our purpose is to lay the groundwork for a study of the antitype of the Feast of Trumpets.
Homework: Please review Old Testament Shadows and Types.
The Feast of Tabernacles is referred to in John 7 where Jesus alludes to the custom of drawing water from Siloam in a gold goblet on the last day of the feast and pouring it mingled with wine on the sacrifice on the altar with great rejoicing. It was to the Words of Isaiah 12:3, which were repeated in commemoration of the water drawn from the rock in the desert, that Jesus said, "If any one thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. I am the living Rock of living water. For Scripture declares that rivers of living water shall flow from the innermost being of he who believes in Me." He spoke concerning the baptism with the Holy Spirit which was to come. Coming the next day at daybreak to the temple court as they were extinguishing the artificial lights, two colossal golden candlesticks in the centre of the temple court, recalling the pillar of fire in the wilderness, He said, "I am the Light of the world" (John 8:1-2, 13). As the sun by natural light was eclipsing the artificial lights, so Jesus implied, "I, the Sun of righteousness, am superseding your typical light".
"The great last day of the feast" is the eighth day marked by a service in memory of the dead and a special prayer for rain. Joy was the prominent feature, the feast was called Hosanna, "save we beseech Thee." This cry had accompanied Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the first day of the Feast, "And Jesus went into the temple of God, drove out the merchants, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of those who sold doves . . . but when the chief priests and scribes saw His miracles of healing, and heard even little children in the temple shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were indignant. . . In the morning as He was returning to the city, He was hungry, and noticed a fig tree besides the road. He went over to see if there were any figs, but there were only leaves. Then He said, Let there be no fruit on you forever, and instantly the tree withered" (Matthew 21). The fig tree, represented Israel, whose apostate chief priests, elders, and Pharisees caused the nation to reject and crucify their King who came not to destroy, but having salvation in Himself (Zechariah 9:9-13). "Behold, your temple is forsaken of God and desolate. For I tell you, You will not see Me again, until you say, Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord" (Matthew 23:38-39).
Zechariah 9:10 and Isaiah 11 refer to the future restoration of Israel after their long dispersion whereas the antitype of the Feast of Tabernacles connected with Isaiah 12 is the thanksgiving hymn of the born-again Israelites, just as the other two great feasts, Passover and Pentecost have their antitype respectively in Christ's sacrifice for we Gentiles, and in His writing His new law in our hearts.
The trumpet call on the first of Tishri was not only in connection with the central sanctuary as it was from time to time throughout the year, but on this day it was a universal proclamation throughout the land of Israel to announce the day of Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles are at hand, typing the full consummation of the Kingdom of God. In the antitype, the final sabbath month will result in Israel's repentance and Spiritual restoration, and the consequent reappearing of Israel's High Priest, Jesus Messiah from within the veil (Acts 3:19-21), or the recognition of His 'parousia' by 144,000 elect Israelites, followed by the harvest of the world (Revelation 14; 19) and reversal of the curse of Genesis 3:19-21.
In the antitype of Israel's Feast of Trumpets the Message of "Moses" and "Elijah" will call the nation out of spiritual Egypt by bringing the past to remembrance: their rejection of Abraham's grace Covenant at Kadesh, the conditional Covenant they dishonoured at Sinai, their disobedience to the prophets, the apostasy of Israel followed by Judah's apostasy, the development of Babylonian Pharisaism, assimilation and miscegenation with the Jebusites, Amorites, Hivites, Hittites, Perizzites and Edomites, the murder of Messiah at Calvary, assimilation and miscegenation with the Khazars, and their ongoing wickedness under the dominion of Edom. Their prophets will identify indisputable historical facts with prophetic truth as Bible Believers' Church has done in a more humble work based on the ministry of William Branham, the "Elijah" of Malachi 4:5-6. The fruit of their ministry will be the Spiritual awakening of 144,000 elect Israelites to repentance, pardon and true Atonement, or new birth, ensuring their part in the antitype of the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which will be the Millennium. But first they will be martyred by the Judaeo-Roman Catholic church and the non-Semitic, anti-Semitic so-called Jews. nl481.htm
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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations overseas. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
Bible Believers' Church
Gunnedah NSW
Australia 2380e-mail Bible Believers URL Bible Believers' Website
PowerPoint presentation The Second Coming of Christ
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