HOME      FEASTS

The Day of Faith

The Seventh Day of the Feast of Unleavened Breads
Nisan 21 on the Biblical Calendar – from Thursday April 28 at sunset until Friday April 29 at sunset in AD 2016.

The Eternal Ordinance

This is a Holy Day, to be observed like a Sabbath – a day set aside for the worship of our Creator. It is an appointment with Yahweh: a sacred rehearsal must be included – a public worship service to rehearse historic past and prophetic future acts of God. It is the last of the seven annual days wherein no leaven is allowed, (a negative command) and unleavened breads are required to be eaten (a positive command). This is an ordinance – one of the three categories of Torah commandments (judgments, ordinances, and statutes): ordinances are physical performances to display spiritual truths.

“Yahweh’s appointed times which you shall proclaim as sacred assemblies – My appointed times are these:” – Leviticus 23:1.

 

“In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, between noon and sunset, is Yahweh’s Passover offering (preparation of the lamb). Then on the fifteenth day of the same month there is the Feast of Unleavened Breads to Yahweh; for seven days you shall eat unleavened breads. On the first day you shall have a sacred assembly; you shall not do any laborious work. But for seven days you shall present an offering by fire to Yahweh. On the seventh day is a sacred assembly; you shall not do any laborious work" – Leviticus 23:5-8.

 

“Then the fourteenth day of the first month shall be for Yahweh’s Passover offering (preparation of the lamb). On the fifteenth day of this month shall be a feast, unleavened breads shall be eaten for seven days. On the first day shall be a sacred assembly; you shall do no laborious work.   . . . On the seventh day you shall have a sacred assembly; you shall do no laborious work” – Numbers 28:16-26

 

“Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to Yahweh; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as an everlasting ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened breads, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses; for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall have a sacred assembly, and another sacred assembly on the seventh day; no work at all shall be done on them, except what must be eaten by every person, that alone may be prepared by you. You shall also observe the Feast of Unleavened Breads, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance.” – Exodus 12:14-17.

Counting the Omer

The seventh day of unleavened breads is the sixth day of counting the omer, as the count begins on the second day of the feast – following the High Sabbath.

“You shall count for yourselves, from the morrow after the (High) Sabbath – from the day when you bring the Omer of the Waving, seven weeks – they shall be complete. Until the morrow after the seventh week you shall count fifty days” – Leviticus 23:16, Deuteronomy 16:9.

Blessed are You, Yahweh our God, King of the Universe,
Who has sanctified us by Your Word, and instructed us to count the omer.
Today is the sixth day of the omer
.

Today is the "Day of Faith"!

The theme of this day is: after God delivers His people, the wicked try to take them back, but then God destroys the wicked. This is what happened at Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, and will happen at the end of this age.

On this date the Israelites had come to the Red Sea, and the Egyptian army caught up to them. The people greatly feared, but Moses said: “Stand still and see Yeshua Yahweh (the Salvation of Yahweh).” Israel entered the Red Sea mikvah (baptistery) on dry ground, and came up the other side, but the Egyptian army was drowned upon following.

 

“But Moses said to the people, "Do not fear! Stand still and see Yeshua Yahweh (the salvation of Yahweh) which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever” –  Exodus 14:13.

 

“When Israel saw the great power which Yahweh had used against the Egyptians, the people feared Yahweh, and they believed in Yahweh and in His servant Moses” – Exodus 14:31.

 

The Talmud teaches that some had faith to jump off the banks before the waters parted, and landed on dried seabed, while others entered after seeing the parted waters. All had greater faith after crossing and seeing the Egyptians killed.

 

“For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea”
– 1 Corinthians 10:1-2.

It was the Torah’s required day for a mikvah immersion for Yeshua, beforehand being untouchable, but after which “doubting Thomas” could touch Yeshua and come to faith.

 

”Anyone who in the open field touches one who has been slain with a sword or who has died naturally, or a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.  . . .   On the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening” – Numbers 19:16-19.

 

“The first day of the week (the fourth day of the feast) came Mary Magdalene . . . Yeshua said to her, ‘Do not touch Me; for I am not yet ascended to my Father’” (a phrase for ascending from a mikvah) – John 20:1, 17.

 

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Yeshua came. So the other disciples were saying to him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.’ After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Yeshua came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you.’  27 Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.’  Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed’” – John 20:24-29.

Three kinds of faith are distinguished in Hebrew:

·         Emunah b'moach - Intellectual faith (belief in a fact or historical event - such as Yeshua's crucifixion).

·         Emunah b'lev - Faith of the heart (trusting one's safety or security to something - such as salvation by Yeshua's work).

·         Emunah b'evarim - Faith that encompasses one's entire being (the controlling factor of one's thoughts and activities).

In the end of this age, Yeshua will reign on this earth for a thousand years, with those whom He has delivered. At the end of that Millennial Sabbath, the armies of the world will gather for “the final solution” – to destroy the Holy City, but fire from God will destroy them.

 

“And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Messiah for a thousand years. . . . Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them” – Revelation 20:4-9.

 

© 2014  Beikvot HaMashiach

(Followers of the Messiah)