There are few people in the world who do not order their lives according to appointed times. We have a daily appointed time to sleep and a time to arise from sleep. We have appointed times in which we eat our meals. We order our lives around the appointed times to go to work, to school and various other activities. If you are active in a local sports league you understand that each game will begin at an appointed time. And we are all very familiar with, and understand the necessity to meet our appointments with our doctor, our dentist, our auto mechanic, etc.

According to the Bible the Creator has appointed times too which He set in the very beginning, -"Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years." (Genesis 1:14) Obviously these lights which separate the day from the night are the sun and moon. God established the sun and moon also for "signs", "seasons" and "years."

The first "sign" which was determined by these great lights was the separateness of the seventh day, the Sabbath, -"God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." (Genesis 1:21/2:1-3)

The Sabbath is the only day of the week given a name by God -the six common work days are simply given a number. The weekly Sabbath is a weekly memorial of creation-a weekly reminder that there is but one God who rested on the seventh day having set it apart as holy.

When the Lord gave His people the Ten Commandments He began the fourth with "Remember." "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy." Then God tells us why we must remember and keep the Sabbath, -"For the Lord your God made the heavens and

the earth and all things in them in six days and He rested on the seventh day-therefore He blessed the Sabbath Day and made it holy." Had people remembered the Sabbath and observed it there would have been no place for the idolatrous practice of worshiping created things as gods.

The weekly Sabbath is the sign of our Creator, but it’s also a sign between Him and His people, -"The Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel saying, You shall surely observe My Sabbaths; for this is a SIGN between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you." (Exodus 31:12-13)

So how do we KNOW that we are KNOWN by Him? According to this Scripture it’s those who LOVE God that KNOW Him. So how can we be sure that we LOVE God? Jesus said, "He who has My Commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." (John 14:21) God "discloses" Himself to those who love Him by keeping His Commandments. Keeping the Commandments of the Bible definition of what love is, -"And this is LOVE, that we walk according to His Commandments." (2 John vs 6)Notice also, -"By this we KNOW that we have come to KNOW HIM, if we keep His Commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to KNOW HIM’ and does not keep His Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His Word, in him the LOVE OF GOD has truly been perfected. Buy this we know that we are in Him: (1 John 2:3-5)

The sun and the moon were given also for "seasons." The word translated seasons in Hebrew is "moad" literally meaning, "appointed festivals for holy convocations." Isn’t it fascinating that our Creator wrote in the heavens the times for divine appointments we are to meet with Him? In Leviticus 23 we see the seven annual Holy Day Festivals of the Lord written in order, each in their own season. "These are the appointed times of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them." (Leviticus 23:4) The first of God’s appointed times is the weekly Sabbath. Afterwards there are seven annual Sabbaths, six of which may fall on any day of the week, and they occur in early Spring, late Spring or early Summer, and the fall.

On the first month of the Hebrew calendar, on the fourteenth day is the Lord’s Passover. You probably recognize this day as the day Jesus was crucified. But the first Passover, and from whence came the name, was observed in Egypt when the death angel passed over the first-born of Israel because of the Passover lamb’s blood on their doorposts. For us the Passover is the time that the Lamb of God offered His life to redeem us from our sins.

The following day is the first annual Sabbath of the year, the First Day of Unleavened Bread, a Feast which lasts seven days -the first and last are high Sabbaths. We celebrate this Feast with the understanding that since our Passover has been offered and accepted by God, we have been made unleavened, that is, without sin. Therefore we celebrate and rejoice for seven days which picture the duration of our life in Christ. This Feast occurs at the first-fruits of the barley harvest and represents a Harvest of souls -the first-fruits of God’s chosen ones.

Counting 50 days from the weekly Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread we come to the third High Sabbath of the year, the Day of Pentecost. Pentecost occurs during the time of the wheat harvest and also represents a great Harvest of souls -the nation of Israel as the first-fruits of the nations. It is also the time that God gave the Ten Commandments at Mt Sinai. And it is the time that the Holy Spirit fell on the 120 believers in Acts 2.

The remaining Holy Days all occur in the seventh Hebrew month which corresponds to our September-October. On the first day of the seventh month-at the sounding of the seventh trump, is the Feast of Trumpets. This pictures the return of the Lord in all His glory to make war with the rebellious and to save His persecuted saints. This time also pictures the first resurrection. It is the beginning of the harvest of the vine and produce, and represents the harvest of the nations which survive the Great Tribulation and those who will be saved at the second resurrection. (Rev.20)

Ten days later is the Day of Atonement. Atonement is a time of complete fasting. It was the day that the High Priest entered through the veil into the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the sins of Israel. Jesus is our High Priest of the Order of Melchezedek who stands at the altar to make intercession with His own blood. It is the time when Satan will be imprisoned until the Millennial reign of Christ is over. And a time when people will become at-one-ment with God.

Five days later begins the Feast of Tabernacles which lasts seven days but has another observance immediately following called the Last Great Day. Tabernacles pictures the Millennial reign of Christ with His saints, and the time that Israel will teach the nations the ways of God. The Last Great Day represents the second resurrection and the Great White Throne Judgment of God. Some will rise to condemnation and some will rise to have the books of the Bible opened to them. There are a great number of people who have lived and died without ever having an opportunity to know God. These will come up in this second resurrection and will be given their first opportunity.

Jesus prophesied of this in the Gospels, -"Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. "Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. "And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. "Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the Day of Judgment, than for you." Though these cities were wicked even as to offer their children to idols, they will find some tolerance at the Judgment because if Jesus had preached and performed miracles there they would have repented. In contrast, many of the cities of Israel had hardened their hearts and rejected Jesus.

Notice this about Nineveh, -"The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the Judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here." (Matthew 12:41)

I could mention the many Scriptural references where Jesus went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath, but people usually argue that in doing so He was just keeping and fulfilling the Law of Moses. And I could mention the many Scriptural references where the Apostle Paul taught in the Synagogues on the Sabbath -but again, many would argue that in doing so he was just trying to reach Jews with the Gospel, and that is where they were on the Sabbath. And I think those are legitimate considerations. There are some problems with these counter-arguments though, 1. Paul taught the Ten Commandments to the Churches, -"Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the Commandments of God." (1 Corinthians 7:19) 2. We have a passage in Acts where the Apostle Paul and Silas observed the Sabbath by resting and praying by a river in the city of Phipippi, -"And on the Sabbath we went outside the gate (of Philippi) to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer;" (Acts 16:13) Here we see Paul and Silas making a distinction between the days and observing the Sabbath as a holy day.

In the year 55 AD the Apostle Paul sent a letter to the Churches of God in the cities of Corinth. In this letter he explained that the church was to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread with the understanding that they had been freed from their sins by the sacrificial work of the Passover Lamb, Jesus. Leavening is a type for sin in the Bible, and all leavening and leavened foods were to be removed from homes before the First Day of Unleavened Bread. This was to symbolize that the faithful lived without sin -pure and unblemished before the Lord. There in 1 Corinthians 5 Paul is using this analogy to make the point that those born again in Christ are "unleavened" have become a holy Temple (3:16) and are without sin. "Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the Feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)

Later in the same letter the Apostle reproved the Churches for not keeping the Passover correctly, and explained to them the correct way which he received from the Lord. "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night that He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is My Body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the New Covenant in My Blood; do this, as often as you drink it in remembrance of Me."

Notice first that Paul says that he is delivering to the Church that which he had received from the Lord -they kept the Passover. The timing for the Passover is on the "night that He was betrayed." And most importantly, the Passover is observing the New Covenant. The disciples officially entered the New Covenant as they ate the unleavened bread (Christ’s Body) and drank the wine (Lord’s Blood) on that first Christian Passover observance. Jesus said, "drink it in remembrance of Me." But how many mainstream Christian Churches eat and drink the Passover in remembrance of Jesus? Periodical communion is not observing the Passover on the "night that He was betrayed." Christians are told to do it in "remembrance" meaning it’s an annual memorial observance of when the Lord was arrested and crucified.

Jesus specifically chose Paul to be His Apostle to the Gentiles. And as we have seen he clearly taught the Corinthian converts to Christianity to observe the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. I might add here, that the appointed times of God all stand or fall together because they reveal God’s great plan of salvation. Three great harvests during three seasons, which represent three separate and distinct harvest of souls. Passover and Unleavened Bread are just the beginning and are associated only with the Barley harvest.

As we read through Acts and the Epistles we can see that the Gentile Christians were familiar with the Festivals as Paul mentioned them in marking his journeys. In Acts 18:21 in the KJV, he said, "I must by all means keep this Feast in Jerusalem." Notice that he was planning to "keep" that Feast in Jerusalem. Under the Old Covenant all the Feasts were to be kept in Jerusalem because that is where God’s Temple was. But in the New Covenant the Feasts could be kept anywhere because the Church, both individually and collectively, is God’s Temple. Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 that there would come a time when true worshipers would not worship God on a mountain or in Jerusalem, but would worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

"We sailed from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and came to them at Troas within five days; and there we stayed seven days." (Acts 20:6) If Paul and the early Church were not observing the Feasts of the Lord then why would he even mention them to these Gentiles? Philippi and Troas are Gentile cities who had no prior history of observing these "Jewish" Holy Days-yet they knew them well. The only explanation is that they knew them because they had been taught to observe them.

Soon they set sail again because Paul was in a hurry to get to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost, -"For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he would not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hurrying to be in Jerusalem, if possible on the day of Pentecost." (Acts 20:16) Obviously Paul had the intention of keeping this Feast at Jerusalem with the rest of the Apostles and brethren there. So in Acts Chapter 20 we see that Paul and his co-workers stayed in Philippi to observe the Feast of Unleavened, and later set sail for Jerusalem with the hope of keeping Pentecost with the Apostles and brethren there. There are about 50 days between the two Feasts. Paul closed his first letter to the Corinthians by saying that he would come and stay with them for a while after he goes through Macedonia -and again uses one of God’s appointed times as a reference. "I will come to you after I go through Macedonia, for I am going through Macedonia; and perhaps I will stay with you, or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way wherever I may go. For I do not wish to see you now just in passing; for I hope to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permits. But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost;" (1 Corinthians 16:5-8)Again the Apostle references time using one of the Lord’s Festivals. He is obviously saying that he kept Pentecost in Ephesus and set sail afterwards.

How many Christians do you know that could reference seasons and times using the appointed Holy Day Festivals of the Bible? If you were to tell the typical Christian that you would come to visit after Atonement, or the Feast of Tabernacles -would they know when to expect you? Probably not, because they do not observe these times. But if you were to say, "Hey, I’ll be coming to visit after "Christmas" or "Valentine’s Day" they’d know exactly when to expect you.

During the Millennial reign of Christ the nations who had survived the Great Tribulation will come to Jerusalem to keep the Feasts, -"Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, there will be no rain on them. If the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on them; it will be the plague with which the Lord smites the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles." (Zechariah 14:16-19)

1 Corinthians 13 says that many things will one day pass away when the "Perfect" comes. But one thing that will never pass away is the weekly Sabbath. Amazingly, though the Sabbath stands as a memorial of the creation week of this present planet earth, it will carry over into the new earth and the new heavens, -"For just as the new heavens and the new earth which I make will endure before Me, declares the Lord. So your offspring and your name will endure. And it shall be from new moon (each month begins at the new moon) to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all mankind will come to bow down before Me, says the Lord." (Isaiah 66:22023)