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To: Buggman; P-Marlowe; Forest Keeper; Dr. Eckleburg
God wrote the Sabbath (and by extention, all the Feasts; cf. Lev. 23) into stone by His own finger.

Well, your extension is plainly wrong because the Levitical feast laws were not written in stone by the finger of God. Only the Ten Words were. That makes very clear the difference between the two. And it also makes clear which portion was able to “pass away” with the coming of the new covenant.

The only valid question is whether Gentile followers of the God of Israel should keep all of the commandments,

You only state that to avoid an equally valid question, which has to do with how?

With all this mumbo-jumbo about feast days it remains a fact no proponent is able to turn in the Bible and say “thus saith the Lord” regarding the modern traditional expressions of the ancient feasts.

4 'These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. 5 On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's Passover. 6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. 7 On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. 8 But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.' " 9 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. 11 He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the Lord. 13 Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord, for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin. 14 You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

15 'And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. 16 Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord. 17 You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord. 18 And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, without blemish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be as a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the Lord. 19 Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering, and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering. 20 The priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. 21 And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you. You shall do no customary work on it. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations. 22 'When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the Lord your God.' "

23 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 24 "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. 25 You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord.' " 26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 27 "Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. 28 And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. 29 For any person who is not afflicted in soul on that same day shall be cut off from his people. 30 And any person who does any work on that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. 31 You shall do no manner of work; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. 32 It shall be to you a sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict your souls; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your sabbath."

33 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 34 "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. 35 On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. 36 For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work on it. 37 These are the feasts of the Lord which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire to the Lord, a burnt offering and a grain offering, a sacrifice and drink offerings, everything on its day-- 38 besides the Sabbaths of the Lord, besides your gifts, besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings which you give to the Lord. 39 'Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest. 40 And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. 41 You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, 43 that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.' " 44 So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord. (Lev. 23)

This is what God has commanded by done in that day. He never altered those instructions. He never provided ground rule for man to make changes, that is, to invent traditions to suit the circumstances.

Don’t try t claim you are keeping God’s commandments while ignoring the bulk of them. That’s fundamentally dishonest.

As often as you make your claim you still cannot address that boulder-sized issue.

142 posted on 10/22/2009 12:07:45 PM PDT by topcat54 ("Don't whine to me. It's all Darby's fault.")
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To: topcat54; P-Marlowe; Forest Keeper; Dr. Eckleburg
Well, your extension is plainly wrong because the Levitical feast laws were not written in stone by the finger of God. Only the Ten Words were.

And you think God gave the Ten Words at random from Mt. Sinai? On the contrary, every other command in the Torah--indeed, every other command in Scripture, flows out of the Ten, which in turn flow out of the Two, which flows out of the One ("Love the Lord your God . . ."

So, for example, the commands against kidnapping all stem from the command, "You shall not steal," since to kidnap a person is to steal their life. All commands against occultism of any sort derive out of, "You shall have no other gods before Me."

In the case of the Sabbath, I referenced Leviticus 23 because it starts with, "The LORD'S appointed times which you shall proclaim as holy convocations--My appointed times are these . . ." and then lists the Sabbath as the first of the Appointed Times/Feasts. Indeed, all of the Appointed Times have their associated Sabbaths, High Sabbaths as they are called.

More fundamentally than that, however, is the fact that all of the Feasts (with two possible exceptions, Firstfruits and Trumpets) are memorials of different phases in the Exodus. What is the first Word of the Ten? "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Therefore, we keep the Feasts to memorialize that "command" written in stone.

So yes, God wrote His Feasts in stone for those who have studied His commandments and understand how they link together.

With all this mumbo-jumbo about feast days it remains a fact no proponent is able to turn in the Bible and say “thus saith the Lord” regarding the modern traditional expressions of the ancient feasts.

So what? You can't show me a, "Thus sayeth the Lord," on whether to worship on Sunday, let alone having a pulpit, teaching standing up, having a cross in the background, a choir in a special loft, using an organ, having a tiny wafer of bread for communion, using grape juice instead of wine for the same, having a steeple, men wearing pants and women wearing dresses, sitting in pews instead of at dinner tables, or a host of other practices which you keep.

Of course, you could argue that you are simply building on the framework of worship that the Bible provides. So are we and so are the rabbis. And it is our experience that the Jewish traditions in the keeping of the Feasts only enhances their connection to Yeshua. There is no Biblical commandment to have the Afikomen in the Passover, for example, but there are few symbolic representations of the Messiah that are more profound.

Frankly, I find the rabbis far better than Christian pastors at basing every tradition on the Scriptures. It's better to listen to Moses hidden behind a veil than to refuse to listen to Moses, as you do.

This is what God has commanded by done in that day.

That's what God commanded the priests acting on behalf of Israel. My High Priest carries out the sacrificial service for me in the true Holy of Holies; therefore, let us keep the Feasts.

Shalom.

146 posted on 10/22/2009 2:01:16 PM PDT by Buggman (HebrewRoot.com - Baruch haBa b'Shem ADONAI!)
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