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Why I Keep the Feasts of YHVH

A “line upon line, precept upon precept” approach (Isaiah 28:10-13)

(All Scripture references are from the King James Version)

Definitions:
Torah: The first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), also called the “Book of Moses” since Moses wrote them, and often called “law” throughout Scripture. They comprise the words and instructions given by YHVH for his people.
Yahshua: The true Hebrew name for Jesus. In Hebrew, Yahshua means “salvation”. For texts about his name, see Proverbs 30:4, John 14:13, Revelation 2:13, among many others.
YHVH: The English equivalent of the Hebrew name for God. In Hebrew, it is spelled hwhy (yod, hey, vav, hey) and is sometimes written Yahweh, Jehovah, or Y’Hovah.



The Witness of Yahshua:

Yahshua was our example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and we are to walk as he walked (1 John 2:6)

Yahshua kept the feasts – John 2:13; John 5:1; John 7:2, 10, 14

Yahshua fulfilled the spring feasts at his first coming: He was our Passover – 1 Corinthians 5:7; he was our Firstfruits—1 Corinthians 15:20,23; he was our unleavened bread (John 6:33-51 he says he is the bread four times). How do we know it was unleavened? By looking at what is leaven. Hypocrisy (Luke 12:1), false religious doctrine (Matthew 16:11-12), malice and wickedness (1 Corinthians 5:8), none of which describe Him.

Likewise, might Yahshua fulfill the fall feasts with his second coming? Paul links understanding the feasts with not being taken by surprise at the second coming – 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5 (times/seasons is a reference to the appointed times. The feasts are the appointed times).

Yahshua was without sin (John 19: 4-6, etc), and did not need to make a sacrificial offering during the feasts or any other time.

What did Yahshua cause to cease? Sacrifices and oblations (Dan 9:27). He is our example: the days are valid without sacrifices, since He was the final sacrifice, just as the weekly Sabbath is still valid without sacrifices. The days remain valid, but sacrifices are no longer required.

What did Yahshua nail to the cross? The debt we would have owed for our sins (Colossians 2:14). The Greek word translated “handwriting of ordinances” means a legal document, such as a mortgage. The context is baptism, and being dead to our sin, because he has forgiven them.

Why did Yahshua come to earth? We’re told repeatedly - to take away the sin of the world. See John 1:29, Isaiah 53:10, Matthew 26:28, 1 John 1:7, 1 John 3:5, Revelation 1:5. There are no texts that say He came to do away with the law. Those who are to be part of the new covenant will have the law written in their hearts. Hebrews 8:10

What did Yahshua specifically say he did not come to do away with? Not one jot or tittle of Torah (law) is to pass away as long as heaven and earth are still here (Matthew 5:17-18). John 1:1-3 tells us that He was the Word of God, with God from the beginning, and through Him all things were made. Why would He come to destroy what He made? In fact, if the law could be changed, then why did Yahshua even have to come and die for us? YHVH could have just changed the law, making a sacrifice unnecessary.

If you are Christ’s, you are of Abraham’s seed (Galatians 3:29). The new covenant is with the house of Israel (Hebrews 8:10). Gentiles were grafted into Israel, not the other way around (Romans 11:17-21). If your religion has nothing in common with Abraham and Israel, you’re likely outside of the covenant.

The feasts are YHVH’s (Leviticus 23:2), he calls them “my feasts” not “Jewish” or for the Jews. YHVH doesn’t change (Malachi 3:6), he won’t alter the things that come out of his lips (Psalm 89:34) and Yahshua is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8)

The Witness of the Disciples, the Spirit of YHVH, and the Apostle Paul:

The disciples kept the very first feast post resurrection – Acts 2:1, so clearly they didn’t believe the feasts were nailed to the cross.

YHVH established the feasts post-resurrection via the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost – Acts 2:2-4. Why would YHVH choose a feast day to memorialize in this way if he wanted us to know the feast days were done away with at the cross? Wouldn’t he have chosen any other day but the feast day if he had changed it? Ponder this: Might those not gathered for Pentecost miss the latter rain when it falls?

The Apostle Paul kept the feasts post-resurrection – Acts 18:21, Acts 20:6, 1 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Corinthians 16:8

Paul taught everything he was shown to teach – Acts 20:27

The accusations against the feasts are the same false accusations against Paul, that he taught against Torah (Acts 21:21), and that he was a mover of sedition among the Jews (Acts 24:5). The accusations could not be proved against Paul (and they can’t be proved today). Acts 24:13, Acts 25:7

Paul never taught against Torah: He believed everything written in the law and prophets (Acts 24:14), he never offended against the law of the Jews or the temple (Acts 25:8), he never spoke against the prophets or Moses (Acts 26:22), he never committed anything against the customs of his fathers (Acts 28:17)

All of the trials where Paul gave his defense were golden opportunities for him to defend himself saying yes, I taught against Torah because it was done away with, and then proving how it was done away with. Instead, he insists repeatedly that he taught only what was from Moses which was the customs of the Jews. Paul was not a hypocrite. (2 Corinthians 11:23-27). Be careful not to twist his words to suggest that he taught against Torah when he repeatedly says he never taught anything against Torah.

Until his death, Paul taught about the kingdom of YHVH and Yahshua, out of Moses and the prophets – Acts 28:23. The New Testament did not exist in those days. The people searched the Old Testament and found that Paul’s teachings were true – Acts 17:11. [Those of you who want to discount the old testament need to remember that the vast majority of the new testament contains quotes from the old testament, so if you throw out the old testament, you’re actually also throwing out much of the new testament. YHVH doesn’t change (Malachi 3:6) and Yahshua is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8). We don’t have a new God or new religion that voids Torah just because YHVH sent his Son to be a sacrifice for our sin.]

The Torah teaches Messiah – Luke 24:27.

Paul never once says “keep the (7th day) Sabbath”, but he twice says “keep the feast” (Acts 18:21; 1 Corinthians 5:8). Yet many know to keep the day he never spelled out, but refuse to keep the days that he twice specifically spelled out to keep. He also stated that he didn’t need to write of the times and seasons (1 Thessalonians 5:1). This was because he didn’t need to write what he had done with them during his missions.

Paul’s writing is hard to understand, and the unlearned and unstable wrest with Paul’s words to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16)

Moses (Torah) was taught to new believers post-resurrection, and would instruct the Gentiles so they would learn what to do or not do in addition to the essential prohibitions about abstaining from idols and fornication. (Acts 15:19-21) (Fornication is a statute, not a commandment, which is just one of many times the New Testament reaffirms statutes.)

The redeemed will sing the song of Moses - Revelation 15:3. Moses did not sing about anything except Torah. If your song is something other than Torah, you are not matching the description of the redeemed.

The Witness of False Prophets:

False prophets will come (Matthew 7:15 and many more), teaching “another Jesus” (2 Corinthians 11:3-4)

To those who receive not the love of truth, God will send strong delusion, they will believe a lie, and be damned (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). Beware of hardening your heart to truth.

We (Gentiles) have inherited lies – Jeremiah 16:19 tells us that in the end days, the Gentiles will come from the ends of the earth, saying that they have inherited lies, vanities, and things wherein there is no profit.

It is the antichrist who thinks to change times and laws (Daniel 7:25). He only thinks he changed them. YHVH changes not.

The Catholic church claims to have done away with the feast days. In a letter that SDA evangelists frequently quote, by T. Enright, Bishop of St. Alphonsus Church, offers $1000 (in 1905 dollars, which would be quite a huge sum today) to anyone who can prove from the Bible alone that we are bound to keep Sunday holy. Sadly, the evangelists don’t read the entire letter, which also says, “The Catholic Church abolished, not only the Sabbath, but all the other Jewish festivals.” If you keep pagan sun worship days instead of YHVH’s feasts, you are following the beast, not the One True God.

Early church history (such as from Flavius Josephus) confirms that the earliest Christians kept the annual Sabbaths of YHVH.

Christmas is pagan. Check your encyclopedia. You will find that Christmas, based on the ancient winter solstice (the day with the shortest amount of sunshine) is the “rebirth of the sun”. It was a day dedicated to worshipping the sun god. This predates the birth of Christ. Common practices at this time of year are called the way of the heathen. See what Scripture says about your Christmas tree in Jeremiah 10:2-4.

Easter is pagan. Check your encyclopedia. Easter is the worship of the spring fertility goddess, Ishtar, hence the bunnies and eggs, both symbols of fertility. In Scripture she is called the “queen of heaven”, and worship to her provokes YHVH to anger (Jeremiah 7:17-18, and 44:15-23). The period known as “Lent” is called “weeping for tammuz”, and is called an abomination, along with other sun worship practices, and will result in YHVH not hearing our cries. Ezekiel 8:13-18

Keeping tradition over YHVH’s word is worship in vain (Matt 15:9)

How long are the feast days valid?

Feast days are forever (Exodus 12:14,17,24; Leviticus 23:14, 21, 31, 41)

Unleavened Bread and the 7th day Sabbath are both a sign. Exodus 13:9 (speaking of Unleavened Bread), Exodus 31:13 (speaking of Sabbath).

There is evidence that the feast days existed pre-Exodus. The creation week (Genesis 1:14) includes the Hebrew word “moed” (Strong’s 4150), which is used of the appointed times and feast days. Lot served a feast of unleavened bread (Genesis 19:3), although the timing is not specified. Psalm 81:2-5 says that Joseph kept the Feast of Trumpets, which was a statute in Israel. Joseph was dead long before the Exodus. Similarly, the first time you see the word “Sabbath” in Scripture is post-Exodus (Exodus 16:23), yet there is little doubt that Sabbath was kept all through the book of Genesis.

There is evidence that the feast days will be kept in the new earth. Yahshua refers to eating the Passover with us after his second coming. (Matthew 26:29). Zech 14 speaks of the Feast of Tabernacles in relation to Yahshua’s second reign. Isaiah 66:23-24 establishes that worship based upon the new moons and Sabbaths will be practiced in the new heavens and the new earth. New moons are the means to calculate the timing of the annual Sabbaths.

The end time message of Elijah, promised in Malachi 4:4-5, before the great and dreadful day of YHVH, is to remember the law of Moses, the statutes, and judgments.

The minute you find yourself thinking you know all of YHVH’s truth, (in other words, you consider yourself rich, in need of nothing) is the minute you need to hit your knees in repentance because you are really wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17). Repent of your Laodicean attitude and be open to more truth until the day you die.

Choose this day whom you will serve (Joshua 24:15). It is time to repent of your error, and come out of Babylon (false worship such as Christmas and Easter). YHVH’s ways are always better.


SUMMARY: Yahshua, our example, and whom we are to walk as he walked, kept the feasts without making sacrifices. He caused the sacrifices to cease at his death and resurrection, so we, too, can keep the feasts without making sacrifices. He came to take away our sin, not to take away the unchangeable law. The covenant is with the house of Israel, not with a pagan sect. The disciples, Holy Spirit, and Paul all honored the feasts post-resurrection. Paul taught only in accordance with Torah, and accusations that he taught against Torah were unprovable. Paul specifically says twice “keep the feast”. Many of his writings cause the unlearned and unstable to wrest, to their own destruction. Those who receive not the love of the truth will be sent strong delusion. Gentiles have inherited lies. The antichrist thinks he changes times and laws, and incorporates known pagan worship days into the church, but keeping tradition over YHVH’s ways is worship in vain. The feasts existed from creation and continue to exist through the new heavens and new earth. They are to be kept forever. We need to repent of our error, and choose to serve the One True God, YHVH, as He has written.

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