Welcome to Leviticus study number 37. We're still in the chapter of the Feast of the Lord to Israel, Leviticus chapter 23. We're only going to cover verses 23 to 25, and you'll see why when we get into that after we give out our hebelehala out to Jonathan Grove over in Pennsylvania, due east of where Ohio is, next state over. And Brother Jonathan, we hope that everything's well, and that's all I'll say about that. But we just want to send out a hebele halah, and thank you for listening, and following along as we go through the book of Leviticus. So let's get into our Bible study with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this time, and we know that you are the author. So it is with your spirit that we ask you help us. You promised to do that. We just appreciate this book and what we're learning about the feasts and just so much amazing information in your word that confirms you are God and that you are in control. And we just hope you come quickly. That is our prayer as we continue our study here in Leviticus in Jesus name. Amen. So, before getting into our study, I want to make a bit of a correction from the previous study. We were talking about the Feast of Harvest and how that compares to our Thanksgiving here in America. It's a different time of the year, June, and ours, Thanksgiving, is in November, but it's the same purpose. And I stated, and I think my words, I think I said, quote, the date of Thanksgiving was left to the discretion of each president until October 6, 1941, when legislation was finally passed and signed into law, establishing the last Thursday of November as the permanent day for the national holiday, but in quote. But the fact is, the law established the fourth Thursday. My source had it wrong. I repeated that. It's just a lesson I tell people all the time. You know, I do my homework, but every once in a while, sometimes I think I've got a good resource, and I think I'm telling you, it's not a big deal, but it's just something that I think I want to make sure you understand. You should always check out what you're told. Anything that comes from me, you check it out. Now, what I tell you from the Word of God, that's God's Word. That's infallible. But that's how you check me out, first and foremost. You check me out against the Scripture. But even when I'm giving things like this information on the date of Thanksgiving, check everything out that you hear. So the fourth Thursday was established as the law. And I looked it up, we had Thanksgiving on a fourth Thursday back in 2017 and 2018. What that does is it means there's a fifth, what I mean is there's a fifth Thursday. Having a 5th Thursday both of those years made the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas seem a little longer. Because it is. It's a few more days between. We'll have a 5th Thursday next year. The year that this is recorded is 2022. So in 2023 we'll have a 5th Thursday. And so there will be an extra Thursday after Thanksgiving before Christmas. And then it doesn't happen again after next year until 2028 and 2029, if the Lord tarries. I hope we're not here for that. I don't have a death wish. I always said if I go quickly, I'm not really concerned about dying. I don't worry about dying. It's the process that I'm worried about. It's not death. But we just hope and pray that the rapture happens. Now, if we are raptured before the year, well before next year, in 2023, or if we're raptured before 2028 and 2029, the Bible says the Antichrist will change times and laws. It's in Daniel. I thought I had a reference there, but I think it's Daniel 7. But that means it's a pretty sure thing that Thanksgiving and Christmas will either be outlawed or radically transformed or maybe just moved to a different time of the year. Anyway, they'll change it into something that doesn't thank the God of the Bible and doesn't commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ as Savior of the world. That much is for certain when the Antichrist takes over. But with that clarification we get into our text as we've covered the first three feasts. I'm sorry first four feasts of Leviticus 23 Passover Unleavened bread first fruits and harvest or also called feast of weeks and also called Pentecost Now we come to the fifth feast. It's the feast of trumpets It's called Rosh Hashanah It's also known as the Secular New Year. We'll talk about that when we... Well, I'll mention it here before we get into the text. I've said that the Bible says Nisan is to be the first month. This is where man and men's traditions get in the way, because even a lot of Christians will say it makes sense to make this the new year. But this was a time, we're going to see, where the jubilee would take place every 50th year. You'd count seven weeks of years, 49 years, and then that 50th year would be a jubilee. And it would happen this time of the year in that 50th year is when it begin and end. And that means it's a new beginning for people, a new beginning for people who were in debt and were bond servants in ancient Israel and that sort of thing. But that's still not the same thing as the beginning of the year for God's calendar. which is based on the feasts. So, there's something, some information there you might wonder because you'll hear people say that kind of thing. The Bible says Nisan, the first day of Nisan, that's your new year. So we pick up in verse 23 and then read verse 24 with it. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath. a memorial of blowing of trumpets and holy convocation. Now the feast would begin what we identified as the fall feasts. And it's around three months after Pentecost. Pentecost would happen in June when certain crops would begin to be harvested, but the harvest would continue right through our month of November even. And that's why we have difficulties following the timing of these feasts, because our calendar varies. Our Gregorian calendar, that's where I get my first name, Gregory, Greg. And when you compare that to the Jewish calendar, it doesn't match up. It's just off according to the year, sometimes a couple weeks early and sometimes a couple weeks later, sometimes real close. So it just changes from year to year. But also it's just the fact that Israel is in a subtropical climate zone. I've never been there, but I know people who have. I've done a lot of reading and watching documentaries on it. Before the whole 9-11 thing, I thought about trying to go over there, but the way it is to fly these days. breathing condition and the bad air on those airplanes. Even healthy people feel sick after they get off a long flight like that for sometimes two weeks. Well, I'd be over there for a week and then come back. I can't imagine the shape I'd be in when I finally got home. So I'm content to see it whenever Jesus returns and sets up his kingdom. It'll be much nicer then anyway. Right now Israel's filled with sodomites and Muslims and atheists and other assorted unbelievers. And even most of the Christians over there are very heretical. But as I said, Israel itself, as far as its weather and seasons and everything, it's a very subtropical climate zone. The south is like Florida all year long. And then northern areas are kind of like the Carolinas with its variations. That gives you a little bit of idea. But the Feast of Harvest, also called Pentecost, that we discussed in our last study, is like our Thanksgiving that I mentioned earlier, but it happens on our calendars sometime in June. Our Thanksgiving is cold weather and in Ohio sometimes we have really cold Thanksgivings. I remember one Thanksgiving where the high temperature was in the 20s. This year it's been in the 20s and 30s with lows in the teens in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving weather is supposed to be in the low 40s as a high. and then it enters into celebratory time of the Christmas season, the most wonderful time of the year, and New Year, and then on into winter. But the Feast of Harvest, it has that Thanksgiving theme that we talked about, but it's followed by a long summer, then it enters into a time of inner reflection, repentance, and solemn assembly, which takes us to the Day of Atonement, which we'll talk about next time. So you think about it, we're following our Thanksgiving is like ho ho ho and happy new year and all that and it's all supposed to be nothing but happy and joy. Now a lot of people do get depressed, people have lost loved ones, that kind of thing, but the idea behind it is Or as the Burl Ives song says, have a holly jolly Christmas, you know, that kind of thing. But the Feast of Harvest was quiet meditation, even sorrow for sins, a desire for forgiveness, and that sort of thing. And we'll get into all of that more in our next studies. But the Feast of Trumpets sets the tone for these fall feasts. So let's read verse 24 again. Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, in the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, and holy convocation. So it gives you three characteristics of this Feast of Harvest as it kicks off here in the first day of the month. Again, you have to go to the Jewish calendar and then kind of look at how it compares to ours. Harvest would take place in the seventh month in the Jewish calendar, which is Tishri, T-I-S-H-R-I, and it runs from about our mid-September to the middle of October, and that's looking at our Gregorian calendar. And we'll see in chapter 25 that this was when Jubilee, that I mentioned, would take place. That something took place every 50 years. And it was a time of restitution and liberty. And this was called a memorial of blowing of trumpets. And that was to recall what happened at Sinai. Now, you remember Moses is the one giving these feasts, but they'd be observing these for years to come after going into the promised land, and even today they observe these. But a lot of people point to the creation as somehow the reason why there's a blowing of trumpets. I believe it's pointing us back to what happened with the Jews and the giving of the law, the Mosaic Covenant, where we read about it in Exodus 19. I'm going to read this as it describes the scene from verses 17 through 20. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. I mean, you just try to picture what that looked like. I mean, it's this big mountain and then the people all gather at the bottom. And then the mountain looks like a volcano, probably. It's not a volcano, but it's smoking. And the reason it's smoking, again, not because it's a volcano, but because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Picture the Lord descending down onto that mount. It says, in fire. He's surrounded by flames. That leads a lot of people to come up with these things about ancient astronauts. You see that on the History Channel. I don't know what they call the show. Ancient Aliens? I don't know. Something like that. They'll show a picture of the space capsule coming back in the atmosphere. It has fire from the friction. that's taking place at the high speeds, meeting all the tiny things, dust particles and minerals and things that are floating in the air, and puts off a flame around it. Well, yeah, it might have looked similar to that, but I don't believe Jesus was descending in a capsule at that high rate of speed. But, you know, you can't blame an unbeliever for kind of seeing that pictured here. But as a believer, we know it's the Lord. It's not an ancient alien. The text goes on and says, "...and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." So it's just almost too much to wrap your mind around what they're seeing here. But when you read these things, it's important you slow down and think about what you're reading. It's an amazing account if you use your imagination to give it a little bit of a picture of what we're reading. So here's this Everybody's gathering around this mountain. It's smoking like a volcano. The Lord came down in fire and landed and everything's shaking. And it says, and when the voice of the Lord sounded long and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake and God answered him by a voice. Again, let that sink in on what this would have been like. The voice of the trumpet sounded long. You know, when the rapture takes place, it's gonna be the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God. Similar to what we're reading here. Not the same, but similar. And it says, and the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mount, And the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount, and Moses went up. I believe that's what this blowing of trumpets, when it says it's a memorial of blowing of trumpets, is pointing us to, not us. In particular, it was pointing the Jews under Mosaic law, pointing them back to that. But it points us, as far as our understanding of why it happened, our understanding is that it's pointing back to Sinai. So this first month, I'm sorry, first day of the seventh month, Tishrei, would be a Sabbath. And again, it's not this regular seventh day Sabbath, it's a high day. similar to the Sabbath that took place. You can read about it in John 19.31. Again, Jesus was crucified Wednesday, placed in the tomb before sunset, and then the next day, Thursday, was a high day Sabbath. Then the next day, Friday, would be the day where all the ladies would have to prepare for the regular weekly Sabbath. In addition to that, then they had to find all the spices and things that they were going to take to the tomb. And they didn't have time to do all that and get over to the tomb, which from what I understand, you could only visit the tomb during the morning hours. So then they had to wait another day, but it was a Sabbath day, so that put off until Sunday morning. And before the sun rose on Sunday morning, the ladies go to the tomb and it's empty. And that's all beginning John 19, 31 onward. You can read all about that in the book or gospel of John. So this is a special Sabbath, the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month. And it would be a spectacle of blowing of trumpets to call a nationwide convocation. And that's why we read then in verse 25 it says, ye shall do no servile work therein, but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. So only work done by the priests was allowed. The Levitical priesthood were exempted from certain Sabbath law as far as it pertains to their priestly duties. They still weren't allowed to break Sabbath outside of that. But the work involved in the blowing of the trumpets and the offering of the sacrifices and there was work, a lot of work. Any of you have ever killed and cleaned an animal and cooked it? and everything, there's a lot of work involved there. They were allowed to do that. We'll be given additional specifics regarding the fact that it says, ye shall offer an offering made by fire. So they would offer a burnt offering. And we'll see in Numbers 29, when we get there, and we'll talk more about it then. Of course, those blowing of the trumpets would carry on all day. It was an all day thing. And that's different, although there was other times where trumpets would be blown. As a matter of fact, every new moon, there'd be blowing of trumpets. We read in Psalm 81.3, it says, blow up the trumpet in the new moon. It doesn't mean to blow it up, boom. It means blow up, mean hold it up in the air and blow it up into the air in the new moon in the time appointed on our solemn feast day. But this was much more ceremonial, from sunup to sundown, an all-day event. And the exciting part about the Feast of Trumpets is that I believe, along with a lot of other people I know, that this could very well be the date that the Antichrist confirms the Mosaic Covenant with Israel in agreement with the global government, as we read in Daniel 9, 24-27. It just makes sense for various reasons. I mean, this Antichrist is going to want to make this a big deal. It's a joint arrangement with Israel and the global government. It's going to involve the building of the Temple. It just makes sense that they're going to have a big event. Where what better day than on the Feast of Trumpets? Because the trumpets are identified with the second coming and Jesus Christ return so if you take the you just think about the Antichrist confirms the covenant the Mosaic Covenant with Israel and In agreement with the global government, so they rebuild their temple and all that you count seven years from there and Exactly, and you come back to the Feast of Tabernacles seven years after the confirmation of the covenant. That's what the Bible says will happen. It will be one week of years, seven years from the confirmation of the covenant to the return of Jesus Christ. It works out perfectly with that scenario. Seven years later, the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, will return to then destroy the Antichrist and his covenant and all who have taken his mark and then set up his own earthly kingdom for a thousand years. And in the book of Revelation, the second coming is preceded by seven trumpet judgments. And we've studied that in our Revelation studies. Now the rapture will feature the trump of God, as I mentioned, the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, but it's only heard by those who are saved and called up. And the feasts are not connected to the church, therefore Israel. And that's why a lot of people try to tie the Feast of Trumpets to the Rapture. It's not tied to the Rapture, it's tied to the Second Coming or the return of Jesus Christ. The Rapture can happen at any moment. 2 Chronicles 2.4 explains these feasts are not connected to the church, they're to Israel. Again, 2nd Chronicles 2.4, Behold, I build in house to the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to him, and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the continual showbread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts of the Lord our God. Now listen, this is an ordinance forever to Israel. End of quote. It's not to the church. The rapture of the church is not connected to the feasts of the Lord to Israel. I have to say it over and over because people get sucked into this stuff and that's how people got sucked into the blood moon hoax. People get sucked into that harbinger nonsense that that guy that used to call himself a rabbi, I don't know if he still does, and so forth. I think all the books, I think the 88 reasons Jesus would return in 1988, I think Harold Camping's stuff, his various predictions of the rapture, and so forth. I think every false rapture prediction I know of started false and ends false. They start by thinking the feast is somehow tied into the rapture of the church and instead of just to Israel and so then they end false. They end wrong. So keep that in mind as you continue your personal studies. I'm not telling you, I never tell people, don't listen to anybody but Greg. What I'm telling you is when you listen to other people, don't forget the things we've pointed out in these studies and rightly divide the word of truth. Be a Berean. Search the scriptures to see if what you're being told is so that you don't get sucked into that nonsense. So with that, we'll pick up with the Feast of Atonement, also known as Yom Kippur, and Day of Atonement with our next study. And then after that, Tabernacles, the Feast of Booths, after that. So until then, keep reading the book and keep coming back to learn more until we do get raptured out of here.