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Throughout history, people have experienced life not as a straight line, but as a series of patterns. The progression of the seasons, the cycle of planting and harvesting and the movement of the heavenly bodies regulated the days and years of traditional societies.
Important days every year were marked by feasts and special celebrations, uniting communities as they commemorated important events in the sky and on Earth.
And as Genesis 1:14 states, the heavenly bodies are “for signs” as well as “for seasons,” and these patterns were established by God Himself.
While the Bible outlines several specific feasts which God intended His people to celebrate, Christians have become disconnected for two major reasons. First, most people no longer work in agriculture and modern Christians often have a hard time staying connected with the rhythms of nature and the seasons, as many live in urban, artificial environments.
Secondly, because of “replacement theology,” many Christians believe the biblical feasts – and the biblical law – no longer apply.
Yet one pastor argues there are great spiritual rewards for keeping “God’s feasts.”
Pastor Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries, the discoverer of the “Blood Moons” phenomenon and the author of “God’s Day Timer,” says believers who get on “God’s calendar” will find their walk with God strengthened.
“Christians need to reconnect to these feasts by not just studying them but by practicing them!” he exclaimed to WND. “We need to be doers of God’s Word and not hearers only. My book ‘God’s Day Timer’ enables believers in a practical way to observe all the feasts. God is throwing a party, so why would you not want to come? All the feasts are divinely appointed dress rehearsals of what’s to come! By keeping them we better understand the prophetic times we are in.”
Biltz maintains the biblical feasts are important not just because they help believers live out their faith in the present day, but because they are God’s way of preparing His people for the events to come. As summer is almost halfway over, Biltz says Christians should start thinking about how they will observe the fall feast days.
“The Fall Feasts are the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur and the Feast of Tabernacles, and they are all important,” he explains. “The one most important to focus on at this time, though, would be the Feast of Trumpets because the Fall Feasts will be fulfilled in order and it comes first.”
Each one of the feasts begins and ends at sundown. The Feast of Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah, is the biblical new year and begins at sunset on September 20 in 2017.
“The prophetic significance of the Feast of Trumpets, I believe, is that the tribulation will begin some year on that day,” claims Biltz. “The shofar blast of the first angel will probably happen on that day as well.”
Yom Kippur begins at sunset on September 29.
“The prophetic significance of the feast of Yom Kippur involves the nation of Israel,” Biltz told WND. “Yom Kippur is Israel’s National Day of Atonement. Some year on that day Israel will be atoned for and they will fulfill their calling by God to be a light to the nations in an incredible way.”
The Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, begins at sunset on October 4.
“The prophetic significance of the Feast of Tabernacles is that some year on the day of that Feast the nations will face their Day of Atonement as the Messianic age begins and all nations will have to come to Jerusalem,” explains Biltz. “All nations will have to keep the feast or they will receive no rain and the plague.”
For anyone concerned with eschatology and events to come, Biltz argues keeping the feasts is one of the most important things believers can do to truly understand prophecy and the end times. And he mourns how modern Christians have lost a direct connection to how the first believers honored God and incorporated their faith into their everyday lives.
“By not observing the biblical feasts, we have lost an invaluable connection to the Almighty,” claimed Biltz. “Anyone who is interested in prophecy but does not understand the biblical calendar and doesn’t keep the feasts really is like a ship out on the ocean without a compass! Without keeping the feasts, the connection to understanding prophecy puts you in kindergarten eschatologically.
“I don’t argue with a blind person over a work of art. God has either given you eyes to see and a heart to understand or not. My advice is to just try them and you will see the Messiah in a whole new way!”
So many Christians are alienated from everyday life and have lost touch with their faith, and seemingly every pastor or television host has a solution. But as Biltz argues, the solution is there all along – and it lies in simply observing the feasts God has already laid out for believers, and getting back in harmony with His order for life.
