Rabbi Schneider - The Most Holy Day of the Year
Once again I want to read Leviticus chapter 23 verse 4 to set the stage for the broadcast. Hear the Word of the Lord. "These are the appointed times of the LORD, holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them". I want to encourage you to watch the previous two episodes in this series, because it really gives you important structure to understand today's broadcast. I want to draw your attention beloved one, to something today that I had not previously pointed out.
I'm going once again to Leviticus, or Vaikra in Hebrew, chapter 23 verse 4. Hear the Word of God. "These are the appointed days of the LORD". These are the appointed times of the Lord. Now you'll notice when you look in your Bible that the word Lord there is in all CAPS, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Whenever we find God's sacred name in the Hebrew scriptures, which is composed of the Hebrew letters Yod, He, Vav, He. The English translators simply translated it as Lord. Often times God's sacred name, which He revealed to Moses in the book of Shemot, or the book of Exodus, it's often pronounced a breathy Yahweh.
But I want to clarify something, when we speak of God's sacred name it's not a noun. Generally a person, place, or thing is a noun. In other words, God our Creator can not be defined or limited to simply a proper name. In fact His name, Yod, He, Vav, He is actually a verb that represents continuous, unfinished action. When the Creator first revealed His name to Moses in Exodus chapter 3, He said to Moses when Moses asked Him, "What's Your name"? The Lord responded to Moshe, to Moses, "I am that I am". Often translated as well, "I will be what I will be".
And so God cannot be limited to a proper name as if calling Him Mark, or Joe. I know that's ridiculous, but often times when we think of somebody's name it is something that we can easily identify the person with by the name. But our Creator is not limited to the name Yod, He, Vav, He. In other words, He's beyond any proper type of limitation. He's unlimited. He has no beginning. He has no end and even the name that He gave us, once again a breathy Yahweh, is not a proper name as we would commonly think when we have people that have been named.
For example, I just had you know someone born into our extended family and we named this individual when they were born, but their name is different than the Creator's name Yod, He, Vav, He, because their name basically is a proper name that defines who they are. But we cannot define God. He's beyond our limited ability to do that. So I just wanted to clarify once again. Getting back to these appointed times, the Lord said, "These are the appointed times of the LORD". And the word Lord there in Leviticus 23:4 is God's name Yod, He, Vav, He, but it's not a proper name as we would have when we name a child. It rather is a name that connotes continuous, unfinished action. The Lord said, "I am that I am. I will be who I will be, or what I will be". God is unlimited and we need to reverence Him as such.
Now with that said I also want to say that these appointed times, beloved as I stated in the previous broadcast that we've been discussing, are for everybody that's a believer in Father God. These feasts are not just the Jewish holidays, they're not just the Holy Days of Israel, but rather the Creator said, "These are My appointed days". So if you're a believer in the God of Israel through Yeshua Hamashiach the Messiah, these days are for you as well as for the nation and people of Israel.
Now with that said, in the previous broadcast I talked about the first of the holy days that Jewish people often call Rosh Hashanah, meaning head of the year, because they believe that it was on this day that the Lord created the world. But Biblically a more accurate name for this holy day is Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets. And we talked about how this holy day, the Feast of Trumpets had significance in it's initial historical context, but that it's also prophetic. Again, you need to go back and watch the series. But the point is, that on the first of the seventh month in the Hebrew calendar, the month of Tishrei, the Hebrew children were commanded to blow a trumpet as a reminder. And we spoke about the fact last week that they blew the trumpet and when they did, when they blew the shofar it reminded them how the Lord appeared to them on Mount Sinai back in Exodus chapter 19.
Now when the Lord revealed Himself to Israel, so that over a million Jewish people, Israelites, at the base of the mountain saw His glory and heard His voice; God's revelation of Himself was proceeded by a cosmic shofar that sounded from heaven. Now once again I said that these holy days, these appointed times of the Creator had application in the initial historical context as well as being prophetic shadows. They pointed to something in the future. So when we ask our self what the Feast of Trumpets would point to in the future it brings us to the book of Thessalonians where once again the Lord is gonna come down from heaven, reveal Himself to all mankind and the scripture says it's gonna be proceeded by the blowing, once again, of a cosmic trumpet from heaven. The trump shall sound and Jesus will be revealed to all humanity.
As I closed last week's broadcast I talked about the fact that we are living in the days right now, children of God, leading up to His soon coming. In fact Jesus' last words were, "Behold I come quickly". Now I know that many of you have heard this proclaimed for years, Yeshua, Jesus is coming soon. But when I list for you what the scripture tells us things will be like on planet earth. Let me say it another way. When I give you a list now of the types of things that will be happening in our world immediately before Yeshua's return, you're gonna know that indeed His coming is nigh.
Let me review those with you. Last week I talked about the fact that Yeshua's coming is gonna be proceeded by gross sexual perversion on the earth, particularly we brought it back to Sodom and Gomorrah as Jesus told us His coming it would be proceeded by a time on earth that was similar to the time of Sodom and Gomorrah. What was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah? Extreme sexual perversion and widespread homosexuality. We're certainly seeing that in the earth today. And then the break down of marriage, we read in the last days men will forbid marriage. And today what are we finding? More and more there's a mindset, "Why get married? Why take the chance of getting married and being divorced? We can enjoy all the blessing of marriage without actually entering into a marriage covenant".
We're seeing the break down of marriage. And then we saw also as we looked at the scriptures last time, that in the last days, again the last days are leading up to Yeshua's return. We find that men will be lovers of self rather than lovers of God. And now more than ever people have cast God off their lives and they're just pursuing boldly, heathenistic pleasure seeking, just indulging themselves in everything that they think will satisfy the fleshly desires. We're living in a time where the world has broken off the yoke of God and they've taken on to them self the yoke of heathenism. They're pleasure seekers, seeking after the things of the world rather than a relationship with God.
Then we found that more and more nations are gonna be focused on hostility towards Israel. Once again, even here we're seeing in the US as President Trump named Jerusalem as the city where our embassy would be, we saw hostilities rise. And these hostilities against Israel will continue to mount, pressure will continue to build, tension will continue to rise. It's happened and it's gonna keep happening. It's leading up to Yeshua's return. I love the next one. Yeshua said in Matthew 24 that before His return the Gospel would be preached throughout the whole world.
And as I've been saying last week, what we're seeing today with the coming of television, radio, the internet, now is a time that's unique in history for the Gospel to spread across the world, because through these media technologies almost the entire world now is hearing the Gospel. Jesus is getting ready to return. And then finally we ended last week with the fact that Daniel told us that before the return of the Messiah in the last days, He said there would be a great increase in knowledge and in travel. And we are living today in the age of information technologies. People are traveling all over. We travel all around the world. We can get to the other side of the world by plane in less than a day. What we're seeing is phenomenal considering that these prophesies were written thousands of years ago.
How could Daniel have known thousands of years ago that in the last days knowledge would have greatly increased? And he saw people traveling to and fro across the earth. How could he have possibly known that unless he was indeed seeing vision in the Spirit? And beloved, the vision that he saw was in the Spirit. It's happening today. In fact Jesus quoted Daniel as a true prophet who's words spoke of His soon return and what things would be like on planet earth before He did return. Those were review from last week. I want to just give you a few more before we cover today the next holy day called Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, just a few more signs that will be happening on earth before the Lord's coming, false prophets, false teachers and false doctrine.
Beloved, what are we hearing today from so many preachers? We're hearing false doctrine. We're hearing preachers talk constantly about money, money, money. It seems like every message from some of these preachers is about money. It's a perversion of the truth. It is true that we need to sacrifice our income to God. It's a good rule of thumb is, never less than 10% and if you're more than 20% you should really pray about it. But if you're giving your finances to the Lord in a way that you're putting Him first in your life, between 10 and 20% of your income, you should have confidence that you're walking before the Lord. But some times today people are hearing messages that lead them to make unwise decisions and the reason is beloved, preachers are preaching for their own purposes often times.
We're hearing a tremendous amount of false doctrine today. Even the message of grace, which our salvation is founded in grace, but if all we hear is grace and we never are challenged to repent, something's wrong; Because Jesus' first words were, "Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand". John the Baptist that announced Jesus' coming, his first words were, "Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand". But so many messages that people are hearing today don't involve the message of repentance. We're hearing false doctrine. The scripture tells us that in the last days men would accumulate for themselves false teachers that would tickle their ears, that would tell them only what they want to hear and not challenge them with the truth.
Finally beloved, we find today such a removal of the truth of the Lord from the universe, that here in the Western world the leader of the earth; Really America is the leading nation in the world in many ways and what have we done? We've taken the Ten Commandments off of public property and more and more the Holy Spirit is pulling back as mankind is throwing off the restraint. This is all setting the stage for the Antichrist to arise and for King Jesus to return and crush him under His feet. And so that sums up my word to you this year, beloved one, on the Feast of Trumpets. I need to move quickly now towards the next holy day, which takes place 10 days after the Feast of Trumpets. It's called, listen now, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It's the most holy day in our calendar other than Shabbot.
I remember as a young boy going to temple every year for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Jews all over the neighborhood were in temple on these two sacred holy days. Yom Kippur beloved is about atonement, that's why it's called the Day of Atonement. In the Hebrew scriptures we read about it, in the book of Exodus, in the book of Leviticus. The high priest would take the blood of the bull and the blood of a goat and bring it in to the temple. He would then bring it to the most sacred room in the tabernacle and then the temple, called the Holy of Holies. In that room was the Ark of the Covenant. Inside the Ark of the Covenant was the Ten Commandments.
The high priest would take the blood of the bull and the blood of the goat and pour it on top of the altar that was the covering of the Ark of the Covenant there. And as the blood was poured on top of the Ark of the Covenant the Lord forgave the sins of Israel for the year. For the Lord said in Leviticus 17:11, "The life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you on the altar to make an atonement for your souls".
Everything in Israel's history involved the blood atonement. Passover involved blood. The blood covered the children of Israel, protected them from judgment. And as we look at Israel's history on and on, it was always through a blood covenant. It culminates beloved in King Yeshua's crucifixion. This is what the whole book of Hebrews in the New Testament's about. That in the Old Testament every year the high priest had to bring in the blood, but now that Jesus has sacrificed His own blood and died for our sin on the cross once and for all through that one offering, through His shed blood that took place one time, our sins are forgiven, past, present and future in Him. For everyone that will receive Him it becomes to them a free gift. You can see why Yom Kippur is the most holy day of the year, because everything starts with forgiveness. Until our sins are atoned for beloved, there's no way that we can have a relationship with God.