The events throughout the Middle East have a powerful Biblical meaning. God’s chosen Nation of Israel is yet, after 63 years, a nation riddled in disobedience. That disobedience must be broken and we are watching the early stages heading into the dark “Seven Years.” By the end of “The Great Tribulation” and the Antichrist’s sinister design, Israel will be ready to cry out to their Messiah in Repentance. Zechariah prophesied this mournful time as God’s betrothed nation returns to their birthright. “And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem…” (Zechariah 12:10-11a)

Thank God that this awesome time does not end in mourning but quickly turns to great rejoicing. “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of Hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.” (Zechariah 13:1-2)

Apostle Paul carefully documented the word of Zachariah for the New Testament saints. We must never think for one moment that we have replaced Israel. Nothing in theology is more false than to forget the Family that gave our Lord in the flesh to us. The Holy Ghost by Paul said, ”For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is My Covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the Gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes.” (Romans 11:25-28)

It’s thrilling to know there are three “Feasts of Jehovah”which Israel is soon to witness and celebrate. Only the One Hundred and Forty Four thousand Jews will celebrate the“Feast of Trumpets” and even this company will miss the celebrated moment of the glorious Rapture. They will be saved and sealed in the beginning days of the “Feast of Atonement” which pre-figures the dark seven years of the Great Tribulation.

The glorious moment for all Israel will be the fulfillment of the “Feast of Tabernacles.” This great celebration will last a thousand years and all the Saints returning with Christ to reign will join this triumph. The first four feasts were perfectly completed in the death of Christ, the sanctifying period following His death, the Resurrection and the Day of Pentecost. Let’s look at the great Biblical picture of these“Seven Feasts of Jehovah.” It’s impossible to watch the world scene, especially the Middle East and not shout with anticipation.

The Seven Feasts of Jehovah! Everything that God did or revealed in the First Testament was given as a shadow or an example of His finished plan of redemption. Nothing in the Bible is an afterthought or a new thing, but all of His actions or words are the acting out of a pre-ordained drama. It can best be called the “Drama of Redemption.”Seven major feasts are the prophetic picture of Jesus Christ and His redemption accomplished. The actual feasts are the simple rehearsal of that accomplishment and were used to allow Israel to receive the benefit of the Father’s eternal plan.

Our God does nothing for its dramatic effect, but if He did, these “Seven Feasts” would transcend the greatest masterpieces of human existence. They are breathtaking in both design and message. Each feast foreshadows a unique part of God’s redemption story. Each one is a complete message in itself, yet fits into the total picture in such a way that it would be incomplete to let it stand alone. Indeed the seven feasts together are God’s redemption drama and the world will be His kingdom when the last curtain of the Feast of Tabernacles is lifted.

The Feasts of Jehovah! The seven feasts must not be called the Feasts of Israel, but the Feasts of Jehovah. Moses stated clearly what each feast was to represent. “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feast of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings. These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.” (Leviticus 23:2-4).

When Jesus was present in the flesh to be the Messiah, the Jewish nation had changed the Feast of Jehovah to the Feast of the Jews. Instead of Sevens Feast of Revelation, they had become the Feasts of the People and tied to the nation, instead of the promises of God. Listen to the Apostle John speak of these feasts in the Jewish terminology of his time. “And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” (John 2:13). “Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand.” (John 7:2).

No wonder Isaiah had said the following when he noted the backslidden state of Israel. “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.” (Isaiah 1:4).

The First Testament Foretold God’s Plan! The New Testament writers were ordained by the Holy Spirit to simply unveil what was contained in the First Testament. Nothing in the New Testament was new. The First Testament was their tutor to enable them to see all that Jesus Christ represented. All the things of God are higher than the wisdom of the wisest. Yet, God had chosen to teach by shadows, types, and simple events so that the New Testament writer or believer could grasp the depth of His wonderful works.

Let’s look at several New Testament Scriptures that show plainly what we are saying. Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-20).

Often the Word Of God fulfilled is misunderstood in the way Jesus used it. It means completed. Jesus did not fulfill to eliminate but to complete. The First Testament was the shadow and Jesus came to show that which was only dimly visible before. He eliminated nothing but the shadow and then established the finished product.

The Apostle Paul adds a beautiful dimension to this same truth. He said, “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:4). Remember, the only Scripture that the apostle could refer to was the First Testament. The Second or New Testament was in the process of being written, but was not canonized or accepted yet as an official document. The Old (First) Testament was their only approved Scriptures. The total message preached by the early church was based on the lessons and inspiration of the Law, the Torah or prophets and writings of the Jewish Scripture. Consequently, everything in the New Testament is Jewish and based on the anointed truths of their Scripture.

The Law Was a Tutor! (School Master or Teacher) It’s amazing to see the rebellion in today’s church against the laws of God. When you begin to see that the Law was God’s ordained schoolmaster and that it was the exclusive route by which the Father would bring us to His Son, then the Law becomes beautiful rather than restrictive. Rebellion against anything is always in the mind of the rebellious. What one man rebels against is the protection of another.

Look at Apostle Paul’s description of this breathtaking truth. “Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:21-26).

We are not to become disobedience and start breaking God’s Laws because the tutor finished His job. We are to move up to the higher level of the Lawgiver Himself that now abides in our life to effect the Law by grace instead of works. The Law is our teacher to bring us to Christ. The feasts were his object lessons to show us the dramatic effect of His Law. Every truth in the Law was to manifest itself in the feasts so that the Jewish people would have a witness of the fulfillment when it occurred.

The Jewish leaders and people allowed the feasts to become rituals instead of revelations and because of that they rejected the fulfillment or completion of the first four feasts. How did they miss seeing Jesus as their Passover Lamb? Everything that the Passover Lamb suggested or typified, He fulfilled. As we look at the life of Jesus Christ and His death and the numerous perfect expressions of the Passover Feast, we are amazed at such precision. But, remember they missed it because of ritualism and we see it because of revelation. This is a spiritual fact in all truth that never fails.

The Apostle Paul adds a kind of finished expression to the thought of the First Testament shadows becoming their light to the brighter day of Christ’s coming. Paul said, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17)

It would appear that the Jews were certainly free to continue their feasts days as a remembrance of God’s lessons. It is also clear that there is absolutely no spiritual life in those feasts because Christ has come. To place confidence in a communication of grace by any shadow of the First Testament is to revert back to the Law and its powerlessness to save. The glory of the shadow was only in its hope of the promise. Once the promise is completed, it is futile to trust in a shadow. The church must study the values of revelations afforded the First Testament worshipper and then quickly move into the glory of revelations fulfilled.

If the ritualism of the Jews so clouded their vision that Jesus Christ was totally rejected then for the church to return to those rituals suggest the same blindness all over again. All of us have probably heard the clear expression of how the two testaments relate to each other. I repeat it for all our benefits. The New Testament is in the First Testament concealed, while the First Testament is in the New Testament revealed.

What a glorious hour we are privileged to enjoy. Many has been the Saints in the past that longed to live in this day and yet so many among us only complain. Lift your heads my friends and see what our God is doing.

Joseph Chambers

jrc@pawcreek.org

IF YOU DOUBT THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE HOLY BIBLE THIS IS A MUST READ! The Holy Scripture is the most breathtaking book in the world. Not one nuance was missed as God revealed His revelation to His prophets. Our Heavenly Father was so satisfied with His revelation and its perfection that He promised to preserve it for every generation. “Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, Thou shalt preserve them from this generatio for ever.” (Psalms 12:7)Not only did He promise to preserve it, but He warned men not to corrupt it and leveled a serious judgment upon any man that tampers with His truth. In God’s design, He apparently first settled His Word in Heaven and then progressively poured it into holy vessels to be written down for His church. “Forever, O Lord, thy Word is settled in Heaven.” (Psalm 119:89)

Truth Begins and Ends with Jesus Christ! He is the eternal Word (logos). “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:1-5)

The truth as written in Heaven and revealed by His prophets in the Bible is centered in and totally identified with Jesus Christ as revealed in His flesh. In fact, Apostle John said, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:4)Imagine a Bible (the Word of God) that is not only a book, but is revealed in a person, the Son of God. The Bible and Jesus Christ are united in essence. Both the “Word” written and the “Living Word” are God’s perfect revelation. Pilate, in speaking with Jesus, asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38) He asked this question of Jesus because the Son of Man had said, “And for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” (John 18:37)Jesus had said earlier to His disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” (John 14:6) Jesus Christ is the truth in exactly the same fashion that the Bible is truth. They are inseparable. One is the Person and the other is the perfect revelation of that Person.

The First Testament and Jesus Christ! The Book of Genesis is filled with the person of Jesus Christ. In the very first Chapter of Genesis, Jesus Christ is revealed at least seven times. John the Revelator clearly established that Jesus is the first and the last. John stated, as Jesus had revealed to him, “Saying I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.” (Revelation 1:11) The words, “Alpha and Omega”, are Greek words or letters meaning the same as their Hebrew counterparts, “Aleph and Tau”. Seven times in Genesis, chapter one, as the Scripture deals with creation the “Aleph and Tau” are found in the Hebrew text without being translated. Here is a literal rendering of one verse showing where the Aleph and Tau appear. Remember Alpha and Omega are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet, while the Aleph and Tau are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Notice this verse, “In the beginning created God (Aleph and Tau) the Heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1, The Interlinear Bible) John clearly stated that the Word created all things and that same Word became flesh in Jesus Christ. Here, we see that “Word” as the Creator in the perfect picture of the creation story itself. This kind of Biblical perfection is found throughout Genesis and the whole Bible.

The Gospel in Genesis! In Genesis Chapter Five we have the Gospel message clearly presented. When the average person reads this chapter they are bored because it appears to be no more than the genealogies of the first ten generations of families. Let’s take a closer look by defining the name of each generation leader and then uniting those names in the text. Adam means man, the first man, and Seth, his son, means appointed. Seth’s son, Enos, means mortal; while his son, Cainan, means sorrow; and his son, Mahalaleel means the blessed of God. Jared was the son of Mahalaleel, which means shall come down; and Jared’s son, Enoch, means teaching. Enoch named his son Methusaleh because God had apparently warned that at his death the great flood would come. Methusaleh means his death shall bring. Lamech was the name of his son, whose name means despairing, clearly describing the condition of the world at that time. Lamech’s son, Noah, was named comfort and rest, because God was going to reveal Himself and comfort mankind.

When you see God’s revelation in this genealogy, the message is overwhelming. “Man, appointed to mortal sorrow, the great God shall come down, teaching, His death shall bring the despairing comfort and rest.” The divine revelations of the “Word” were never wasted. Each word and every verse was placed in Scripture to reveal a perfect manifestation of truth. No wonder Jesus quoted Moses by saying, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by ‘every’ word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3) The Bible is a perfect whole.

The Torah or Pentateuch! The first five books of the Bible are called the Torah. It’s amazing to look at this significant word. To the Jews the Torah is the most sacred books of the Bible. Remember, Torah in English is spelled with five letters, but in the Hebrew language it consists of only four Hebrew characters. The four Hebrew letters spelling Torah were Resh (Reysh), Vau, Tau, and Hey. When they were written, each letter had an original meaning. The four letters mean the following: Resh – Head, Vaul – Nail, Tau – Cross, and He – Reveals.Every time a Jewish person names or writes the name of his sacred text, he is declaring that the Head of that text was nailed to a cross and revealed the mercy and truth of that sacred revelation.

The Torah Contains Incredible Mysteries! A recent article appeared in the Bible Review publication entitled, “Divine Authorship?” This article was a review of the work of Jewish scholars, Doran Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg, of the Jerusalem College of Technology and the Hebrew University. The title of their work, which was printed in the eminent Journal Of The Royal Statistical Society, was “Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis.” These authors, who are mathematical statisticians, have discovered words encoded in the Hebrew text that cannot be accidental. Their work was from the Textus Receptus or Masoretic text. The author of this review, Jeffrey B. Satinover, explained the results as following:

“This in effect is what the researchers have found embedded in the Hebrew text of the Torah – a whole series of meaningful word-pairs in close proximity, something that they demonstrate cannot have happened by chance. These words they found in close proximity are not simply the words of the text (as would be the case in the analogy above of an unknown potential language). They were rather words composed of letters selected at various equal skip distances, for example, every second or third or fourth letter. It was as though “behind” the surface meaning of the Hebrew there was a second, hidden level of embedded meaning.” (“Divine Authorship?”, Bible Review, October 1995, p. 29) Mr. Satinover then explained how they used a combination of words related in life or history to show that the Biblical text revealed a prior consciousness of every human event.

I will let him describe it. “…the researchers…found the pair Zedekiah (a sixth century B.C.E. king of Judah), and Matanya, Zedekiah’s original name (see 2 Kings 24:17); and the pair Hanukkah (the Jewish festival that commemorates the re-dedication of the Temple after it was recaptured from the Assyrians in the second century B.C.E.) and Hasmoneans (the family name of the leaders of the Jewish forces that managed to wrest the Temple from the Assyrian monarch Antiochus IV Epiphanes).” Note that these names and events found encoded in the text of the Torah involved people who lived, and events that occurred, long after the Torah was composed, whether by a divine or human hand. “In their 1988 paper, the researchers selected, at random, 300 such Hebrew word-pairs with obviously related meanings, and looked for the words embedded in the text by treating the entire book of Genesis as a long cryptographic string. They would start at the beginning until they came to the first letter, then look to see if a second letter could be found two letters away. If so, they then looked for the third letter two letters away; if not, they stopped and searched for the next appearance of the first letter and repeated the process.”

“They continued until they found an occurrence of the entire word spelled out at every second letter. If not, they performed the same procedure looking at every third letter instead. “In this fashion they searched first every other letter, then every third, and so on (including reverse order). When they found the first instance (that is, at the minimum skip distance, and measured its proximity within the text-string to the first. They did this for all 300 word-pairs.” (Ibid, pp.30-31)

According to information in this review, the possibility of this happening by chance was less than 1 in 50 quadrillion. In fact, a public statement was offered by eminent scholars here in America as reported, “Following publication of this paper, a public statement was issued, signed by five mathematical scholars – two from Harvard, two from Hebrew University and one from Yale. ‘The present work,’ they said, ‘represents serious research carried out by serious investigators.’” (Ibid, p.31) Great Jewish scholars have contended that the Torah contains all knowledge. One such gentleman, Rabbi Gaon of the 18th century, stated, “All that was, is, and will be unto the end of time is included in the Torah…and not merely in a general sense, but including the details of every species and of each person individually, and the most minute details of everything that happened to him from the day of his birth until his death.” (Ibid.)

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, said it even plainer, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-19)

Revival is Absolutely Dependent on a Revival of the Scripture! The Holy Bible is the most incredible book in the world. It is literally a God-breathed book and is so powerful that it must be destroyed or diminished before the devil can accomplish one dark deed in his activities. The opposite is true if we want a revival in the church. There can be no victory or revival until the Word of God is returned to its rightful glory. All of our attention in this article so far has been in the First Testament. The Second or New Testament would be impossible without the first. When you grasp the absolute perfection of the thirty-seven books in this first portion of God’s Holy Word, then the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the New Testament message has even greater authority and meaning to you.

The Perfect Harmony of the Two Testaments! God chose Hebrew as the language of the First Testament and Greek as the language of the Second Testament. These two languages have tremendous similarities. There are identical numbers of characters (counting the one added to perfect each alphabet) in each language, and the two languages carry the exact same numerical values for the characters or letters. The only two languages that have this perfect identity and the exact numerical pattern are Hebrew and Greek. Remember, God distributed the languages Himself and carefully prepared these two vehicles for conveying His revelations.

First, let’s show the perfect harmony in these two books by looking at God’s fingerprints from Genesis to Revelation. The number thirty-seven has been called the fingerprint of God. Throughout the entire Bible this number and the multiple representatives identify the many expressions of the person of God. The number for “Jesus” in Greek is 888 or 37 x 24. While thirty-seven signifies the Word of God or His fingerprint, twenty-four is the number of priesthood. Jesus is the unity of both God and the priesthood, and the numerical value perfectly supports the same and unites the First and Second Testaments into one Holy Bible.

“In the beginning God,” the first four words of the Bible, is Brayshith Elohim in Hebrew with a multiple numerical value of 999 or 37 x 27. Bethlehem, the place of birth for the Son of God is mentioned thirty-seven times in the First Testament, but only eight times in the New Testament. Of course, God’s purpose for eight times in the Second Testament is because eight is the number of New Beginning, New Birth or the New Creation. Let me list a few expressions of the Lord Jesus and show the numerical values in multiples of thirty-seven.

2 Cor. 4:4 – Christ, who is the image of God = 37 x 105
2 Cor. 4:4 – Image of God = 37 x 37
2 Cor. 4:4 – God = 37 x 15
2 Thess. 2:1 – Lord = 37 x 37
Mark 12:29 – The Lord God is one Lord = 37 x 72
Col. 3:24 – The Lord Jesus Christ = 37 x 120
Rev. 22:20 – Lord Jesus = 37 x 33
Phil. 2:9 – And gave Him a name which is above every name = 37 x 108
2 Pet. 1:17 – This is My beloved Son = 37 x 111
Luke 20:13 – My beloved Son = 37 x 42
1 John 4:9 – God sent His only begotten Son into the world = 37 x 120
1 John 4:9 – His only begotten Son = 37 x 54
Gal. 2:20 – The Son of God = 37 x 66
John 10: 36 – I am the Son of God = 37 x 54
(A Scientific Approach to Biblical Mysteries, Dr. Robert W. Faid, pp. 28-29)

Dr. Robert Faid, a nuclear scientist and a consultant to nuclear power industries said, “As you can see, this theomatic number 37 seems to appear whenever God wants to point out something very special, and this happens throughout the Bible, both in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament. Could this be a mere coincidence? I’ll let you decide. I computed the probability of only the eighteen features of 37 we have examined. The probability of just these eighteen multiples of the number 37 appearing by chance is: 1 in 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.” (Ibid. p. 29) He further stated: “Even with our most powerful computers of today it would be utterly impossible to formulate one language whose alphabet could be used to write a single typewritten page containing the type of mathematical design we find in two languages and alphabets running through our entire Bible. The significance of this is awesome!” (Ibid. p.32)

The New Beginning in Jesus! In the section above I noted that thirty-seven is the fingerprint of God in the entire Bible. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ the Son of man, was named thirty-seven times in the First Testament, but eight times in the Second Testament. Eight is the Biblical numeric of new beginning, a new era and a regeneration of all things. It was Noah, the eighth person, (2 Peter 2:5), who led eight individuals from the ark to begin the repopulation of the earth. Circumcision was the foreshadow of the new regeneration in Jesus Christ and was performed on the eighth day after birth.

The name Jesus divisible by thirty-seven (37 x 24 = 888), represents God’s fingerprint on the entire Bible, but is also divisible by eight (8 x 111 = 888) representing the new beginning of His sacrifice at Calvary. His resurrection was on the eighth day and now His bride, the church, worships Him on the eighth day. The eighth day is a confirmation of His covenant with the New Testament church and our covenant to glory in Jesus Christ and His cross alone.

Greek numbers are shown to absolutely harmonize with Hebrew numbers to prove the Bible is the infallible Word of God. Jesus is spelled IHEOYE in Greek. The following chart is represented from Messiah, a book by Grant R. Jeffreys, (page 79):

Numeric Value of Names of Jesus! JESUS = IHEOYE = 888 (I = 10, H = 8, E = 200, O = 70, Y = 400, E = 200, Jesus = 888) Other Names of Jesus, Christ = 1480 (8 x 185), Emmanuel = 25600 (8 x 3200), Lord = 800 (8 x 100), Messiah = 656 (8 x 85) Saviour = 1408 (8 x 176)

The Lord Jesus and His Resurrection! The Lord Jesus Christ was God’s Passover Lamb in perfect fulfillment of the Passover Feast held in Egypt on Nisan 14th. To the Egyptians it was Nisan 13th because the heathen calendar did not change until midnight, but the Jewish calendar changed at sundown (typically 6:00 pm). (This is the origination of Friday the 13th being an unholy day. To the Bible believer there is no such thing as luck or being unlucky.) The heathen’s Friday the 13th was the Jewish Friday the 14th. The next day began this Feast of Unleavened Bread, which lasts seven days. During these seven days of the feast of Unleavened Bread, a regular seventh day Sabbath occurred. On the day after the regular Jewish Sabbath they were to offer a “he” lamb as a Feast of the Firstfruits unto the Lord. Originally in Egypt, the dates were Passover, Nisan 14th; the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was Nisan 15th and the regular Sabbath or the Eighty day was Nisan 17th. The Jewish multitudes, led by Moses, crossed the Red Sea on dry ground on Nisan 17th. As God gave them a new beginning, He also slew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea on that same day of Nisan 17th.

As we move forward to Jerusalem and the death of Jesus Christ, He was the perfect fulfillment to the very day. He was crucified on Nisan 14th and resurrected on Nisan 17th, the first day of the week or the eighth day by Jewish reckoning. Every jot and tittle of the prophets was fulfilled in His birth, life, death and resurrection. The two testaments became one book by this finished act of redemption. The Word of God is by this death signed in holy blood and covenanted to those who by faith receive His promises. Only God could have perfected the promised sacrifice of the kinsman Redeemer in this absolute fulfillment to the day.

The Easter (Ishtar) Confusion! An incredible documentation of Holy Scripture is found in the Book of Acts. Often critical reviews have used this Scripture to question the infallibility of the Received Text. Rather than create a question, it supports the precision of the Holy Spirit of truth. The Scripture says,“And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.” (Acts 12:4)

Some people argue that this was an error in translation. This word, Easter, they say, should have been translated Passover. If you will notice verse three (3), it says that Peter’s arrest was during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Passover occurs the day before the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins so that Peter’s arrest was after the Passover. Herod is said to have intended to slay him after Easter, which was a completely different celebration than Passover. It was a heathen event that would have been important to Herod and his court of Roman soldiers and leaders.

This pagan festival is appropriately described by Dr. Samuel C. Gipp, Th.D. He stated, “Easter, as we know it, comes from the ancient pagan festival of Astarte. Also known as Ishtar (pronounced ‘Easter’). This festival has always been held late in the month of April. It was, in its original form, a celebration of the earth ‘regenerating’ itself after the winter season. The festival involved a celebration of reproduction. For this reason the common symbols of Easter festivities were the rabbit (the same symbol as ‘Playboy’ magazine), and egg. Both are known for their reproductive abilities. At the center of attention was Astarte, the female deity. She is known in the Bible as the “queen of Heaven” (Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17-25). She is the mother of Tammuz (Ezekiel 8:14) who was also her husband! These perverted rituals would take place at sunrise on Easter morning. (Ezekiel 8:13-16) From the references in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, we can see that the true Easter has never had any association with Jesus Christ.” (The Answer Book, Dr.Samuel C. Gipp, Th.D., pp.3-4) The Word of God stands untouched and undefiled after all the foray by her enemies.

Conclusion! Every individual that accepts the Holy Scripture as the infallible Word of God and actually submits his total person to its authority will be transformed by its powers. This Word is God-speech. It is God-breathed and God-preserved. The power of the Holy Spirit is shut up in its revelations and is unleashed every time you allow it to become the absolute authority in your life. When the God-called preacher man lives in this Book until his sermons reflect the oracles of God instead of the opinions of men, his preaching will be dynamic.

The laymen of our churches will be transformed when our preachers get back to the Book. Laymen and laywomen, don’t wait! If the preacher fails to act, you get into this Book, accepting its absolute message and revelation. God is no respecter of persons. Any man and/or woman that dares to believe and acts on this infallible revelation will be used of God to bring revival. Your life and family will be brought back to God and your community will see a display of truth. The only hope of the church in its search for meaning is the God-given revelation of Scripture. Jesus will not be revealed on church walls in esoteric emotions and flamboyant displays. He certainly does not manifest Himself in icons and idols. Isaiah said, “I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” (Isaiah 42:8) He is the Word and His Written Word is His language. If you refuse His Words from the Holy Book, He has no other method of speech. The Holy Spirit confirms His Word, but never replaces it.

Joseph Chambers

jrc@pawcreek.org