Rethinking the Fall Feast in Relation to the Church - Part 1 The 2015 Dust Storm Roller Coaster Ride

The Fall Feasts have been a subject of intense scrutiny and study for the last seven or eight years.  We surmised that they were never intended for the Jew alone but were the Feast of God.  We've learned that the Hebrew word used in "Feast" is moedim which means God's Divine Appointment.  The hindsight of the fulfillment of the Spring Feasts by Jesus death and resurrection has stirred within the heart of believers the blessed hope of Jesus fulfillment of the Fall Feasts at his Second coming; starting with the Rapture on Rosh Hashanah.  Abigail and Dolley readers know that I have been a deep researcher into this possibility and have written many blog posts on the subject.  In light of the fact that we are still here, we must entertain the possibility that our hypothesis, while based in excellent research, was incorrect.

I have never been dogmatic regarding the theory of a Rosh Hashanah Rapture but it would be disingenuous to assert that I was not eagerly anticipating the 2015 Holiday.  As if to prove that He will not be controlled or governed by what we want Him to do, He sent a huge dust storm over Israel which delayed the siting of the moon for two days.

Massive Dust Storm

The Great Dust Storm delay had a reverberating effect that threw the entire holiday season into confusion and speculation of the dates.  The civic calendar was set but then the religious calendar went haywire!  Was the festival one day or two, what time does it start, what day does it start?  Did we have Elul 31?  What happened to the world markets?  What does this all mean?!? We have the last of the final blood moons on Sunday which kicks off the Feast of Tabernacles but even that is in question because of the delay in Rosh Hashanah!  In all, for the Watchers on the Wall, this Fall Season has been gloriously stimulating, confounding, and exciting!

As Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur have come and gone, with all their trumpet blowing, we eagerly anticipate the last feast, Tabernacles.  More important than that, and more profound we must conclude that the only sure Trumpet to be looking for is this one:  1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 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.

With the convergence of signs and the birth pangs it would be more fool hearty of me to double down on the Rosh Hashanah Rapture Theory and insist that we must wait another year, another seven or another fifty...  In some ways, I love that we were wrong!  I love that His ways are higher than our ways, and we will eagerly anticipate the day when He will show us where in the Scripture He hid the prophecy!  Maranantha!

Passover and Yom Kippur - What is the Difference (Millennial Bible Study Part 10)

I'm an American Christian, so the study of the Feasts was new territory for me in 2013; particularly, I've struggled to make sense of Yom Kippur.  How does this fit into the plan?  If Christ fulfilled the Spring Feasts with his first coming, I'd get through Rosh Hashannah but then "What happens next?".  Honestly, I still have much more study to do, but here is what I do know.

To look at this from a Feast perspective (Moedim - God's Divine Appointment), it is of note, that the redemptive sacrifice of Passover is the Lamb which saves you.  The blood of the lamb saved Israel in Egypt and the Messiah's role as the Passover Lamb, once and for all, saves mankind.  (Hebrews 10:10).  

The reconciliation sacrifices of the Yom Kippur, are goats which symbolically cover sin but do not save (Hebrews 10:4).  So, Israel participates in the Day of Atonement as a temporary covering, offered on behalf of the nation of Israel, by the high priest.  The very act of letting the high priest make the sacrifice and accepting it as your own is prophetic.

Spiritual Truth:  The fundamental difference between the lamb and the goat is that one saves and other temporarily covers. 

Taken together, one can extrapolate that since the church is never under the covenant of animal sacrifice, (which resumes in the Tribulation and the Millennium) then the church stops being part of the feasts at the Rapture, meaning that Yom Kippur and Tabernacles are fulfilled at the Lord’s Second coming but without a role of the church!

Passover will be celebrated during the Millennium, along with the Feast of Tabernacles for the Nations (Ezek. 45:21-25), it is possible that the New Covenant with Israel (Jeremiah 31:31-34) will omit the other Feasts because Christ's fulfillment of them is complete.  The order of the Feasts is Prophetic in their order - it starts with the Passover Lamb and ends with the Redemption of the Nations and God dwelling among His People.  Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

Significance of Yom Kippur 2015

This blog was originally published in September 2014, but while factually correct, did not have much of a point other than to highlight interesting tidbits.  I hope time and recent study will open the subject further.  Two years ago, I stumbled upon the below fact and it has niggled around in my brain since:

June 7, 1967 - Jerusalem (recaptured for Israel)
17640 days = 49 years (360 day years)
September 23, 2015 - Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)

There are three interesting subjects here:  The Six Day War, 49 years, and Yom Kippur.

Being an American Christian, I didn't know much about any of these.  I doubt I am alone, perhaps you are in the same boat as me?  There is something there, some reason that this is important!  Let's see what we can find out together.

Convergence of Signs

Abigail and Dolley readers you might recall that last Summer I did a pretty extensive study on the Feasts of the Lord, the Blood Moons, Rosh Hashanah, and the Rapture.  We are gearing up again for the Fall Feasts and my expectations continue to mount that we are truly living in the last days.  The Church is admonished to keep looking up that our redemption draws nigh.  Here are some compelling reasons that seem to mark a convergence of prophetic signs, a gathering together of momentum and circumstances:

Signs in the Heavens - Blood Moons, Super Moons, Solar Eclipses, Meteors, Sun Spots, Magnetic Polar reversals, just to name a few.

Wars and Rumors of Wars - Ukraine and Russia and the Middle East are exploding

Right is Wrong and Wrong is Right - the utter reversal of what is considered good, right, and moral is astounding.

Men will become lovers of self - five years ago we did not even have a term for taking a picture of yourself, now the pervasive selfie has littered the landscape and promoted ever increasing levels of narcissism.

Pestilence - I am third or fourth line in the fight against the Ebola virus.  I can not even convey how awful this situation is right now and getting worse.

Earthquakes - The USGS has stopped keeping this chart, it would alarm the public if they were to put this out in a twitter style graphic.  You can see for yourself that up until 2000 earthquakes over 6.0 remained infrequent.  This year, 2014 we have had over 114 earthquakes over 6.0.

Convergence of numeric and prophetic dates - God is orderly, He does not do things in a haphazard manner and thus, if we can observe patterns from history we can extrapolate and observe the way He has worked in the past.  Since God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow we can rely on the constancy.

7 days of Creation
7 days of the Week.
The laws of Sabbath for the land are arranged in 7 year increments
7 Sabbath years times 7 = Jubilee years
The Jews stayed in exile 70 years. (the number of Sabbath years they did not uphold)
Daniel 9 lays out 490 weeks (years) for the redemption of Israel.
One week remains of Daniel's weeks, one 7 year period
The Tribulation is 7 years
Yom Kippur 2015 is 49 years to the day of Jerusalem's recapture by Israel
Rosh Hashanah 2015 marks the end of a Sabbath year.  (Historically a devastating day/year financially)
The final blood moon takes place on the Feast of Tabernacles 2015

Conclusion, I am not naming dates but it is a compelling fact that all of these things are indeed converging.  There are hundreds more signs, hundreds more studies and nuances that can be brought to bear, I simply wanted to lay out for you simple facts and observations.  It is the Lord's deepest desire that all will come to faith in Him, that none should perish.  Chose this day who you will serve for tomorrow is promised to no one.

Blood Moon Tetrad

I am totally geeked out in a prophecy buff kind of way that the Blood Moon Tetrads start tomorrow, April 15, 2014.  Below is an excerpt from a blog I wrote last July when I first got interested in the phenomenon.

Blood Moon

A Blood Moon Tetrad is an occurrence of 4 Lunar Eclipses on the Jewish Feast days of Passover and the Tabernacles.  They call it a total lunar eclipse a blood moon because the diffused rays of the sun through the Earth's atmosphere can make it appear red, historically this scared the crap out of everybody.  A BMT (as they are called) has occurred 7 times since Jesus ascended into Heaven and each time it was a sign to Israel.  BMT's herald a terrible period of trouble for Israel followed up in deliverance.  When you add in the solar eclipse calendar to the lunar eclipse calendar, you get an even deeper picture.  When you add in the Elul 29 Shemittah, you get something else all together.

We had a Blood Moon Tetrad that coincided with the rebirth of Israel in 1948.  So Holacaust, then birth of the nation, then BMT1949-1950.  19 years later, 1967-1968 we have the Yom Kippur war or the 6 day war and Israel regains their capital, Jerusalem.  48 years later, we have another BMT 2014 - 2015.

Coincidentally this is the second time the spacing between triple occurrences has been 19-48, the year Israel was born again.  If you play with that number you see that by adding 1948 years to  the destruction of the temple in 70 AD you get 2018.  Folks in 2009 and 2010 were using this figure to predict a 2011 Rapture... we see where that got them... still here.  I am not trying to set dates, what I am trying to do is to get you to THINK.

There are youtube videos and charts everywhere but I couldn't find one that had everything I wanted to publish.  My handwritten notes and charts won't cut it, I may not be a professional, but I do have my standards...  I encourage you to watch the video and check out some of the charts, do your own research.  A number of charts have great info but some enterprising soul determined we were going to be Raptured in 2011 or 2012.  Others are pdf formatted only and blogger won't let me embed a pdf file, so for all you visual folks check out the below:

Lunar and Solar Chart 2014-2015

The above chart fails to note the two solar eclipses that occur on 4/29/14 (Yom Hashoah/Holocaust Memorial Day) and 10/23/14 (Rosh Chodesh Chesvan).  Whether they are significant or not, I can not say but felt the above was not inclusive and they warranted mention.

It is also noteworthy that in the 7 weeks model of Daniel, the number of days in a 7 week period is 17640.  Using the Biblical calendar we see that  9/23/2015 is exactly 17640 days from the recapture of Jerusalem on 6/7/1967.  Which happens to be on Yom Kippur.

Days of Awe

In the course of my research on Rosh Hashana, I learned about the Days of Awe.  This is the period between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur where tradition states that people whose name has been written in the Book of Death can seek God's mercy and forgiveness and have their names moved to the Book of Life.  The concept of Books is not merely traditional, the Scriptures hold many references.  Revelation 20:12 says, "I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God's throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books."  

I have discussed before that there are two schools of thought concerning those who will be saved after the Rapture and those who will receive the Great Deception and be lost forever.  One school says if you have heard the gospel and rejected it before the Rapture you are damned forever.  The other school says that each person has a chance after the Rapture, it's the last hope for all of eternity.  The Left Behind Series by Tim LeHaye and Jerry Jenkins takes the view that people that have heard the gospel and not accepted Christ will have an opportunity to be saved.  This is what Scripture says:


2 Thessalonians 2:6 And you know what is holding him back, for he can be revealed only when his time comes. 7 For this lawlessness is already at work secretly, and it will remain secret until the one who is holding it back steps out of the way. 8 Then the man of lawlessness will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 9 This evil man will come to do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and miracles. 10 He will use every kind of wicked deception to fool those who are on their way to destruction because they refuse to believe the truth that would save them. 11 So God will send great deception upon them, and they will believe all these lies. 12 Then they will be condemned for not believing the truth and for enjoying the evil they do. 

So breaking this down in a time line:  the restrainer of the Anti-Christ, I believe, is the Holy Spirit living inside the Church or the Bride of Christ.  Once the Church is Raptured, the time of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will be over and the Anti-Christ will be revealed.  Satan puts on his dog and pony show and fools those who are on their way to destruction because they refuse to believe the truth that would save them.  The Anti-Christ will put forth the lies but God sends a great deception.  There may be a time between the Rapture and the Anti-Christ revealing himself that all people have the opportunity to embrace the truth.  

So if the Rosh Hashana Rapture comes to pass the Days of Awe may come into play.  There may be a time period for which all men who have heard and rejected the Gospel of Christ will have a brief period to repent, accept the Lord and be saved.  I believe this will be the only hope for Americans left behind at the Rapture because unlike in most of the world, Americans are afforded every opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Bible says that God reveals Himself to all people so that no one has an excuse, for my fellow countrymen, this is doubly true.    Men choose Hell.  I know many who are perishing and if they don't change their hearts and accept the free gift of salvation they will be at the Great White Throne Judgement and hear, "Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire."