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Israel’s New Year and Examining Yeshua as Passover Lamb

Israel’s Biblical New Year begins tomorrow, Mar 17, the first of Nisan.

Let’s look here at how Yeshua was fulfilling the Word of God, who gave a pattern for how the Jewish people were to keep the Passover.  In Exodus, YHVH told Israel that their year would begin in the Spring/Aviv, on the first of the lunar month of Aviv/Nisan, marked by the New Moon.  God told Israel that each family was to choose their lamb for the Passover, and it must be without any imperfections.  They were to choose their lamb on the 10th of that first month.  They were to examine it during the next four days, and, assuming that it was without blemish, to sacrifice it to YHVH on the 14th of the month, at the Full Moon. Continue reading “Israel’s New Year and Examining Yeshua as Passover Lamb”

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2017: A Momentous Year

We are now into this new year of 2017, 5777 on the Jewish calendar (a 240-year discrepancy, but that is another story).  Three years ago I began to look at some significant dates connected with the return of the Jewish people back to this land of Israel, and also looking ahead to the coming again of Yeshua.
( https://www.streamsinthenegev.com/school-of-fish/eclectic-course-menu/dates-to-remember/ )

When the disciples asked Yeshua about the sign of His return at the end of the age, His first response was that they should be careful not to let any man deceive them, and that they should watch and be ready for whenever that exact time should come. (Mt 24:3,4,42)  Continue reading “2017: A Momentous Year”

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Three New Years

I remember that before I was a believer, I wondered and asked the question:  Why do we have and remember New Year’s.  I was particularly thinking about the Jewish “New Year” which had become one of the High Holy Days in the synagogue.  The answer that I gave myself, and to my parents, was that there must be Someone who is keeping us (the Jewish people) alive for another year.  It gives an opportunity to thank Him, and to also hope that He would do the same for the next year.

Now, I have what, for me, is a broader and a more personal understanding of the significance of New Years.  YHVH God has given three opportunities to observe a New Year.  He is the God of Creation and of Redemption.  We are all born in the flesh; we  must be born of the Spirit to inherit eternal life.  We are individuals; Israel is a nation, whom God calls His first-born son.  These New Years — new beginnings —  are begun by God, and adopted by His people — whether Israeli Jews, or whether Christians. Continue reading “Three New Years”

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PRAISE TO HIM WHO SITS UPON THE THRONE, AND TO THE LAMB!

Gen 3:15   And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.

Ex 12:1-7   And Yehovah spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be to you the beginning of months/new things.  It shall be the first month of the year to you.  Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth of this month they shall take to them each man a lamb for a father’s house, a lamb for a house.  And if the household is too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take according to the number of the souls, each one, according to the eating of his mouth, you shall count concerning the lamb.  Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year.  You shall take from the sheep or from the goats.  And you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month.  And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall slaughter it in the evening.  And they shall take some of the blood and strike on the two side posts and upon the upper door post of the houses in which they shall eat it. Continue reading “PRAISE TO HIM WHO SITS UPON THE THRONE, AND TO THE LAMB!”

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THE NEW MOON: COVERED, OR REVEALED?

(Corrected and/or Revised on 10 Sept 2014; 4 Jan 2015; Mar 2015; June 2015; Aug 2015; Mar 2016; 31 Jan 2018; 30 Aug 2018)

Tonight (March 11, 2013), there is a New Moon.  Do you see it?  What is it that you saw?

This New Moon also marks the beginning of the first month in God’s redemptive calendar year given to Israel, leading up to the Passover on the Full Moon in two weeks. (Ex 12:2)

I am not going to give a teaching here on all that is written concerning the New Moon celebrations given by YHVH to Israel to commemorate, both under the Law of Moses and also in the future Millennial Kingdom (Lev 23:24; Num 10:10; Ezek 46:1-8).  The New Testament tells those who are now believers in Yeshua/Jesus not to make too much of days, months, seasons, years, festivals, New Moons, Sabbaths – all of these things being shadows of things to come, but the substance is Messiah. (Gal 4:9-11; Col 2:16-17) 

The Lord has told us that all of the Scriptures are written about Him, and we know that all of the sacrifices and holidays/appointed times are also fulfilled by Jesus in the entirety of His first coming, and in the anticipation of His coming again to fulfill all that is written in the whole of the Bible, which still waits for the Kingdom of God to come. 

My main purpose here is to try to shed some light on a subject which seems to have been darkened by human reasoning, rather than understood by faith in God’s own Word. We believe by faith, not by sight.  (2Cor 5:7; Heb 11:2)  Continue reading “THE NEW MOON: COVERED, OR REVEALED?”

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NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

Each new year people tend to think not only of the year gone by, but also of what they  want to accomplish during the coming year.

Ex 40:17, 34-35   Looking at these verses, we see that on the first of the year for Israel, YHVH God filled the erected tabernacle with His glory.  We who believe in Yeshua are God’s dwelling place on Earth today, and He wants His glory to fill us:  to be immersed in the reality of God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. (Mt 28:19; Jn 14:23-24)  He wants to so bless us with His presence that we will not be satisfied in doing our own will but worship Him by doing His.  Even Moses could not enter the Tabernacle because the glory of God filled it!  That is really what the Sabbath is all about (Is 58:13-14), which in Messiah is to be a daily experience rather than merely a religious duty the last day of the week.

Resolve this year to know our Lord more and to demonstrate that by having fruit pleasing to our Father in Heaven.  Resolve this year to be more aware of your need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the glory of God, as evidence of, and as a confession of the need and desire to knowing Him more.  With this glory of the triune God within us, let us also resolve to speak of Him, and of our faith in Him, to others, that they, too, might come to know the one true God. Continue reading “NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS”

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Being Reconciled to God and to One Another

Matt. 23:16-21   The altar is greater than the gift

Matt. 5: 21-24   First be reconciled to your brother, and then offer your gift upon the altar

The calendar tells us that it is a new year,  a year which reminds us and the world that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh into the world which He made.  We can look back and consider how our God has watched over us and has kept us.  We can look ahead and know that our salvation and redemption are nearer this year than they were this past year.

The Lord is building up His church and showing Himself faithful, training us to trust Him fully to bring us through to glory at His coming. Continue reading “Being Reconciled to God and to One Another”