God's Holidays

Within Man's work week, God prescribed to his people 7 special times that they were to observe, which are benchmarks in his plan of redemption. In Lev 23:1 it says, "The LORD said to Moses, 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘These are MY appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.'" Many people today do not realize that these were given by God himself and are not man made or Jewish holidays. I like to call these sacred times, God's Holidays. They are Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles.

For the sake of time, we will not go into the specifics of each of these holidays at this time, but we will look at a general overview and ask if and how they apply to each day of Man's Work Week. Is it coincidence that there are 7 days of the week and 7 Holidays? Let's see if there is a pattern revealed when we compare what took place in each day (or millennium) of Man's Work Week with each of God's Holidays.

PASSOVER

The first holiday in God's list of 7 is Passover. We must look into the scriptures to discover when the first Passover took place. Since this is the first holiday, is it possible there was a "passover" sometime in the first millennium? The basic meaning of Passover is that God passes over sin that is covered by blood. Remember when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they realized that they were naked. Once they realized this, they became ashamed and sought to cover themselves. How often do we find ourselves running from God when we know that we have displeased him? It was by the knowledge of good and evil that they obtained, that mankind became aware of just how holy God is and how unholy they were. The result? FEAR. They feared God because of his holiness. The only way for them to cope was to cover themselves and hide. It's no surprise that they used fig leaves. This was easy and required nearly nothing on their part. For an almighty, righteous and just God, this covering could not undo what man had done because God had already given the penalty for sin, which is death. God had warned Adam that in the day that he eats of the forbidden fruit, he would surely die. Blood was required. In order for Adam and Eve to continue living, blood had to be spilt as payment. Here is where we discover the very first passover. “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (Genesis 3:2). God observed the first Passover when he allowed mankind to live on by performing a sacrifice and covering them with the skins he had made for them.

Where does this holiday fit within Man's Work Week? Within the first day of Man's Work Week or the first 1000 years, God overlooked man's sin by paying for it through sacrifice! You can see here that God's first Holiday matches up precisely with what took place in the first day of Man's Work Week.

UNLEAVENED BREAD

When we look at the meaning of unleavened bread in the scriptures, we discover that "unleavened" means without yeast and that yeast is often pictures sin. "Therefore, let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:8). Like yeast, sin puffs up and makes one proud. The apostle Paul tells us of this principle in Galatians 5:9, "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." So, unleavened bread is bread made without yeast. It is the removal of yeast. So, unleavened bread pictures, the removal of sin. How does this correlate to the 2nd day of Man's Work Week? In the 2nd millennium of mankind, we discover that "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time" (Genesis 6:5). And so God chose to remove them from the face of the earth by flooding it. The Lord essentially washed the entire earth clean of the sin that corrupted it. He cleansed it. We are beginning to see a pattern that God's Holidays are also connected with the major events that take place in Man's Work Week. Let's see if the pattern continues.

FIRST FRUITS

In the 3rd day of Man's Work Week, we discover that God makes a covenant with Abraham and tells him that he will be the father of many nations. It was by his seed that Israel became a nation that was "holy to the Lord, the first of His harvest" Jeremiah 2:3. This is why God instructed the Israelites to bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain that they harvest once they entered the land that God gave them. This was an offering of First Fruits to the Lord.

PENTECOST

This holiday is a very special one. In the 4th day of Man's Work Week, we know that Jesus Christ was born. He was Emmanuel - God with us. 50 days from his cruxifixction we discover that the Holy Spirit, who descended upon Jesus like a dove, also descended upon the disciples empowering them to take the message of salvation to the world.

TRUMPETS

This day is a day of blowing trumpets. The Israelites were to blow trumpets to signal the year of Jubilee, which is a year celebrating 50 years. During this time, slaves were set free, land went back to its original owner and debts were forgiven. 50 is the number for deliverance. What we discover in the 5th day of Man's Work Week is grace. In biblical numerology, it just so happens that 5 is the number of grace. Deliverance has finally come to man as a result of the illumination of God's Word by the Holy Spirit, which is Jesus himself. It was during this time that the Word went out as a call for man to repent and receive the gospel, which was no longer for the Jews alone, but was extended to the gentiles. This day marks the beginning of the ingathering of God's saints. We were once slaves to sin, but have now been set free. We are no longer citizens of the world, but citizens of heaven (our original land). And, our debt of sin has been forgiven.

ATONEMENT

Here in the 6th day of Man's Work Week, we are awaiting our Savior Jesus Christ to return so that we can be clothed with His righteousness. Remember that God gave us a path towards redemption by his sacrifice, but we await a greater redemption when our bodies are no longer plagued by sin and death, but our garments are made of robes of white and we will have immortal bodies. This obviously has not happened yet, but will occur by the end of the 6th millennium when Jesus returns as the 2nd Adam.

TABERNACLES

In the book of Exodus we discover that after atonement was made for the sins of the people, God's presence came down from heaven and dwelt among mankind. This was only a shadow of the time when God will indeed dwell with man once again like he did in the very beginning with Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. This holiday marks the 7th day when we will be at peace with God. It is our sabbath day. Our day of rest!