Topical Studies
God's Holy Days
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Leviticus 23:5 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The Passover, the first of God's commanded annual festivals, pictures the beginning—the very first step—in God's great Master Plan of salvation for mankind. The Passover was to be a yearly reminder of God's intervention in delivering the Israelites' firstborn from death. It also pictured, in advance, the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ, "our Passover" lamb (I Corinthians 5:7; I Peter 1:18-19), for the sins of mankind. The sparing of the Israelites' firstborn from the death angel through the shed blood of lambs on that first Passover is a symbolic type of our being spared today from the eternal penalty of sin (Romans 6:23) through Christ's sacrifice. After Jesus' death, the Passover, celebrated with the new symbols of unleavened bread and wine, became a yearly memorial of His sacrifice, for Jesus became the reality that the Passover lamb had foreshadowed.
Why Christians Should Keep God's Holy Days
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Amos 4:4-5 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Because of their connection to Israel's past, Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba all bore significant religious meaning to the common Israelite. Jeroboam I set up a golden calf at Bethel (I Kings 12:25-31), since the city had religious associations from the days of Jacob (Genesis 28:10-22; 35:1-7). Gilgal's significance sprang from Israel's entrance into Canaan after her forty years in the wilderness and the circumcision of her men there (Joshua 5:1-12). Beersheba had strong connections with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the nation's fathers (Genesis 21:22-34; 22:19; 26:32-33; 28:10). Even so, Israelite religion displeased God on two counts. First, the Israelites of Amos' day were guilty of following the sin of Jeroboam I, combining the worship of the true God with that of idols. God hates idolatry (Exodus 20:1-6). Apparently, the people were thronging to these pagan shrines and punctiliously offering sacrifices. In all their religious fervor, however, their eyes were not upon the God of heaven. Their religious practice was not done in obedience to God as they claimed, but had been conceived in the mind of a man. In His denunciations of their religion, God tells them that their worship would do them no good because its foundations were in a source other than Himself. Second, their religion was self-pleasing. Because of their careful observance of their form of worship, Israelites felt good about themselves, but they forgot their social responsibility. They failed to love their neighbors (Amos 8:4). Ritual sexual indulgence was common practice (Amos 2:7). Despite their sincerity, they abandoned all godly standards and values and despised authority and law (Amos 3:10).
John W. Ritenbaugh
Prepare to Meet Your God! (The Book of Amos) (Part One)
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Amos 5:21-24 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
It appears that Israel kept God's holy days, or thought they did. These verses contain three essential elements of worship: festivals, sacrifice, and praise. And God in disgust cries, "I don't want any of them!" Their worship, though it was done in His honor and in His name, repulsed Him. It was repugnant to Him.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The World, the Church and Laodiceanism
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Amos 5:21-24 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba were places of pilgrimage, places people went to observe the feasts. But God says, "I hate, I despise your feast days" (verse 21)! Verses 22-23 show that the Israelites loved all the rituals and entertainments of the feasts, but they did not leave the feasts better people (verse 24). They returned to their homes unchanged, unrepentant, after what was supposed to be a rededication of their lives to God!
John W. Ritenbaugh
Prepare to Meet Your God! (The Book of Amos) (Part Two)
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Amos 5:21 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
There is no indication that the Israelites were not keeping the holy days of God. However, there was something about the festivals that God did not consider them to be His. These days were now "theirs." They were keeping them in a self-centered way, according to their own desires.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace and Law (Part 23)
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Amos 5:21-23 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Until his calling by God, Amos lived and worked in Judah. However, God elected him"apparently a Jew and thus from the rival Southern Kingdom"to bear His challenging indictment against the Northern Kingdom's sins, as well as His call for Israel's repentance. Amos prophesied several decades before Isaiah against a nation that was much farther "down the tubes" than was Judah. Israel was very prosperous but already in the moral gutter, wallowing in the filth of her sins. It could easily have been an intimidating assignment, but Amos resolutely fulfilled his responsibilities in denouncing, among other things, Israelite attitudes and the ways they observed God's festivals. Amos 5:21-23 sounds similar to Isaiah 1:10-17, but it is addressed to Israel. It is not certain if this involved God's feast days since Jeroboam, Israel's first king, changed a number of things in Israel's worship after Solomon died. However, the context indicates that God may have accepted the days they kept and their offerings if everything else in their conduct had been righteous. They may well have been God's feasts because, as in Isaiah, God is not against the days per se, but the attitude, character, and conduct of those keeping them. Whether they were actually God's festivals is less important than the principles contained in the context. The entire chapter revolves around keeping the festivals in a way acceptable to God so that He might bless.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Amos 5 and the Feast of Tabernacles
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Matthew 11:20-24 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Christ mentioned the people of Tyre and Sidon, Sodom, Nineveh in Jonah's time, and finally the Queen of the south. All of these examples of people who lived in different generations are compared to those of Jesus' day, the vast majority of whom did not understand or believe Christ's message. Jesus tells us that they all will be resurrected with the generation that lived during His time! Jesus gave enough examples of people living at widespread times to prove that most of humanity will be alive at the same time on this earth. There will be pre-Flood men and women, all twelve tribes of Israel, those who lived during the Middle Ages, and the vast majority living now. Even babies and children who died untimely deaths will be resurrected then. They will all rise in the second resurrection because they had not been called by God during their first life. The ancient peoples Jesus mentioned in Matthew 11 and 12 would have repented if He had personally come to them in their day. They will repent when resurrected and given access to the Holy Spirit after the Millennium. The Bible shows that the vast majority of those who ever lived will finally be born into God's Family at the end of this coming period of judgment, pictured by the Last Great Day. God's Master Plan of salvation for mankind will then be complete. Then the spirit-composed members of God's great ruling Family can look forward to new heavens and a new earth—and to new and wonderful opportunities in ruling the universe under God our Father and Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother!
Why Christians Should Keep God's Holy Days
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Acts 20:16 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
About 25 years after Christ's ascension into heaven, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, hurried to be in Jerusalem in time for Pentecost! Just as the early church kept Pentecost every year, so the true church of God continues to keep it today as a continual reminder of our part in God's great master plan of salvation.
Earl L. Henn (1934-1997)
Holy Days: Pentecost
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Acts 27:9 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
All biblical scholars know that "the fast" refers to the Day of Atonement. The evangelist Luke wrote this more than thirty years after Christ's crucifixion. If the Day of Atonement no longer existed, God would not have inspired those words! The early New Testament Church of God set the example for God's church today. And the true church of God today keeps all of God's holy days—including the fast of the Day of Atonement!
The Day of Atonement: The World at One with God
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