A New Way

Welcome once again. It's good to see you. What has been our theme the last couple weeks? We've been talking about baptism. Thank you. That comes from looking at the sign of the Son of man.

Today we're going to follow that idea and see a new way that God has prepared. Because when we get baptized, we bury one life and we have a new life following a new way. In the sign, remember that this points to a path, the path of Israel as they came out of Egypt.

Remember, there was the midnight Passover that the clock symbolizes because the comet marked the time of midnight. Then they left Egypt and they came to the Red Sea. Right? Now, what happened after they crossed the Red Sea?

What was the next thing that happened? They went through and the water came crashing back down. Who was in the water? The Egyptians. For hundreds of years, Israel was in bondage to Egypt. They were slaves. Now all of a sudden, in one day, they are free.

Their slave masters are all dead. Then where did they go? Where did God lead Israel after he brought them through the sea? First, they went to the wilderness. Now, if you had the whole earth to choose a place to live, would you pick the wilderness?

The wilderness is not a really nice place to live. You wouldn't choose to dwell in the wilderness. And yet, that's where God brought His people. Now, this represents the baptism of a believer, crossing the Red Sea.

That's the baptism. It's a freedom. Suddenly, when we accept Christ into our lives, we believe in His power, we're free. We're free from bondage. We're no longer slaves to our sin. We have freedom in Christ.

But there's a flip side to that. That is now we're wandering around in no man's land, in this wilderness where nothing is growing. There's very little life in the desert. It's just dry sands. It's not a place that would normally support life.

That's kind of how it is when the believer comes to Christ, a person comes to Christ, and they accept Him. Suddenly now, their whole life is turned around. On one hand, they have freedom. But on the other hand, it's like a strange new world.

All those former things that we used to participate in Egypt for representing our old life of sin, all those things, we don't do those anymore. Those are taken away. Sometimes we might feel like we're just kind of wandering around.

Okay, what do we do? You lose all your friends because they don't want to follow you with Christ. They want to continue partying and doing their things or whatever it was, your former lifestyle. There's a loss associated with our baptism into Christ.

When God brings us to the wilderness, we look at the world now as believers, we see the world, and we see how dead and dry and lifeless the world is. Our perspective has changed. And now we look back at the things that we used to take joy in, we used to enjoy those things, and now it just doesn't bring that satisfaction because we have satisfaction in Christ.

We have our joy in Him. But when God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, even before they left, He taught them something. Exodus chapter 12. Let me bring that up for you. Okay, verse 1. And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt.

They were still in Egypt now. This is after nine plagues have fallen on Egypt. And Moses has just gone in to Pharaoh to warn him about the 10th plague. The 10th plague was the midnight Passover, where the death angel would go through the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn at midnight.

Whether firstborn of man, firstborn of beast, they all the firstborn throughout the land died, except those who had the blood on their doorposts. Then before they go anywhere, before the plague falls, God gives instruction while they're in the land of Egypt.

In verse 2, He says, This month. Now, the word month in Hebrew simply means moon. It's the same word. This moon shall be unto you the beginning of months. God is teaching them about time, about the calendar.

He's giving them something special, a different way to understand time. He says, it shall be the first month of the year to you. God points out to the moon and He says, see that moon? This moon shall be the first moon or the first month of the year.

When He was preparing them to leave Egypt – Egypt had their own calendar, but it wasn't God's calendar. The first thing that God does when He is taking His people out from slavery is He gives them a completely new calendar, a new understanding of time.

Then, He does something else. In verse 3, He says, Speak ye – talking to Moses – Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house:

He is leading them to prepare for this Passover when the angel of death would pass over their houses. First, He says to get a lamb and He gives them other instructions. I don't need to go through all of that, but this is the beginning of the Passover service.

They have a lamb, they would take that lamb on the tenth day and they would separate it from the flock. And then, on the fourteenth day, in verse 6, you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

Everyone had a little lamb for their family or a couple of families together and they would kill it on the fourteenth day of the month. God was setting up a feast, a holiday. He gave His people – this is the first – of several holidays.

He gave them a new calendar with new holidays that they could celebrate, they would celebrate every year throughout their journey, throughout their lives. As Christians, it's nothing new.

We know about the symbolism of a lamb. What does a lamb represent? Jesus. Jesus, right? The Passover lamb is pointing forward to when Jesus would come and give His life and Israel would kill the lamb in the evening.

Then they would take the blood of that lamb and put it on their doorposts, strike it on the two side posts and on the upper doorposts of the houses wherein they shall eat it. They would eat the lamb and they would put its blood over the doorposts.

That points forward to Christ. His blood is over our house. He protects us and on the door posts of the house. That's where you come in and go out. You know, in ancient times, the entryway, the door, the gate of a city.

That's where the elders would gather to make decisions or to transact business. There would always be somebody at the gate and that's the role of the blood of Jesus. His blood stands at the door of our hearts and He guards us.

He protects us. It's his blood that protects us from the angel of death that would otherwise kill us. I want to look at the holidays that God gave. He started with Passover, but He gave a whole series of holidays throughout the year.

And for this, I'm going to need the board. In the year, there are actually seven feasts that God set out for Israel to keep. Some are in the spring and some are in the autumn, right? It's interesting when we look at them because there are some patterns that we can follow or that the feasts follow that we can recognize that show us some interesting things.

Let me use green for spring when things start to green up. First, there was the Passover, right? I will represent that just with a line for the day of Passover. But Passover was not just one day, but it began with one day and then continued for a week.

There were another seven days when they would eat only unleavened bread. It says in verse 8 of Exodus chapter 12, And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

Then it describes how they would eat it. Verse 15, Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

First there was Passover. I'll mark that with a P. Then there was the week of unleavened bread. Now, this is the first holiday that is described, and that's in the time of the Exodus. But then later when God brought the into the wilderness, He gave them all of His laws, and He describes all of the feasts.

I'm just going to quickly go through them, and we will see the patterns. It comes from Leviticus chapter 23. He describes the Passover, the 14th day of the first month at evening is the LORD's Passover. Leviticus 23, verse 5.

For seven days is the feast of unleavened bread. Again, I won't go through these details. That's the part that we already saw. But then they would count week after week. Verse 15, You shall count unto you from tomorrow after this Sabbath. That's after that first day of Passover.

That first day of the week was a special Sabbath day, and the last day also. These were special Sabbath days, the first day and the seventh day. Then they would count seven weeks.

Seven weeks is 49 days, and then the 50th day. They would count 50 days, and then they would have a new offering. This was the feast of what? Of Pentecost. We call it Pentecost now, coming from that 50-day count.

They counted from that first Sabbath of the Passover. Then they would count seven weeks, and out there somewhere was another Sabbath day, a ceremonial Sabbath day, that was the feast of weeks.

The pattern is, there's one day followed by a week, followed by a gap, and another day. These are the spring feasts.We're getting our school lesson, but trust me, it'll get better, okay?

Just let's get through a little bit of the tedious stuff, and then we will see some nicer aspects to it. Now let's look at the autumn feasts. Continuing down, now we come in verse 24 of the same chapter, 23 of Leviticus:

Speak to the children of Israel, saying, in the seventh month, in the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, and holy convocation. Another feast day in the seventh month.

These were in what month? The first month. We have the first month and the seventh month. Those are the months that are highlighted as the feast days. In the autumn, I'll use red, and this is another sabbath day, a holy convocation where they would all gather together.

This was on the first day of the month. Then there came the 10th day of the month. In verse 27, the 10th day of the seventh month there shall be a day of atonement. We've talked about that several times.

It shall be in holy convocation. Another Sabbath day, a ceremonial Sabbath on the 10th day. So several days there, and we have the 10th day. Let me just put in the numbers.

This was on the 14th day, and this is 50 days later from there. Then we have here in the seventh month, this is on the first day, the Feast of Trumpets. Then the 10th day is a sabbath day, the day of atonement. Just a little bit more.

He talks about the day of atonement, and then he says, speak to the children of Israel saying, the fifteenth day of the seventh month – still in the seventh month, now the fifteenth day – is the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord.

Now we have a few days and another seven-day feast of tabernacles. On the first day shall be in holy convocation. A sabbath day on the first day of that week. Then he describes what they would do during the week in verse 39.

Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land – this was in the autumn, they were gathering the harvest – ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days.

On the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. After the week there was another sabbath, first on the first day, then another day after another holy convocation.

How many sabbaths do you see? Seven, right? One, two, three in the spring. Remember here we have the spring feasts, and then we're based on the spring, and then we have the autumn, four sabbaths in the autumn.

Seven ceremonial Sabbaths for the feasts. Now it's interesting when we look at this, there are some patterns that we can see right off the bat. First of all, we have a week-long feast and a week-long feast. Just before that week-long feast we have the Passover day.

Then just after that week-long feast we have a holiday or a holy convocation day. We see some symmetry, the day, the week, the week, the day. Then we have one separated and isolated all by itself, and we have a similar thing on the other side.

Here's an isolated one and an isolated one. And this one – well, it's also interesting because in the Passover, if you remember, I read it, they first separated the lamb. In Exodus chapter 12, it says, in the tenth day of this month – that was the first month – they would take to them a lamb.

Everyone, a lamb for his family. They did that on the tenth day. There was actually a day out here also, so we have this same pattern. They took the lamb, it wasn't really a holiday, but they did something on that day.

They separated the lamb, and we have the same thing there. From the fourteenth and then the fifteenth until the 21st, here we have the fifteenth to the 21st, and then one more day, the 22nd. A very similar pattern.

The tenth day was an important day in both the first and the seventh month, and then this symmetry in all of the other days. The feasts of God are very symmetrical. That's the first thing that we can see with this.

There's a reflection. One side is reflecting the other side. Now, what do these things mean? We took a fair amount of time to lay them out through the year, the first month and the seventh month feasts, but there's a greater message.

That's what I want to look at a little bit in this reflection. When we see a reflection like this, as is often the case in God's Word and in His design, when He creates things, He likes to use reflection and symmetry.

It reminds us of the picture that I used a few times before. You can imagine a mountain here. On one side of the mountain, you have the spring feasts, and on the other side of the mountain, you have the autumn feasts.

The two come together, and each part, just like in the mountain, each level is related. You have similar aspects at each level as you go out from the mountain, that's where the symmetry is.

You have a day, the week, the week, the day, both of them as though on different levels on each side of the mountain. Now let's understand what the feasts point to, and we already know what the spring feasts point to, because it's all in the Bible.

Those things happened in the Bible times. On what day did Jesus die? When was the crucifixion? Passover. It was on Passover. Here was the crucifixion day. And the Passover, of course, in Hebrew thinking, the day began in the evening.

The Passover day began in the evening when Jesus had the last supper with His disciples. That was on Thursday night, as we would think of it, and that was when He ate the Passover lamb with His disciples.

That was what the Passover meal pointed to, was that last supper. But then about 24 hours later, He had gone through, been betrayed, gone through all of the trials, and they put Him on the cross, and He gave his life by the end of Friday before the sunset.

All of that took place on the day of Passover. Then the next day was that first feast day, the first day of unleavened bread, when Jesus was in the tomb. We know this 50th day was after Jesus ascended, and He poured out the Holy Spirit on the disciples.

That's the day of Pentecost. All of these things happened in the year of the cross, but not the autumn feasts. The autumn feasts are a reflection of the spring feasts. They're a reflection of those feasts that were fulfilled at Christ's first coming.

In the context of the Exodus of the children of Israel, then we can see a little bit of a spiritual application. Let's go back to our map. You know, God gives His word, and oftentimes in the word, there's the map pages. That's what we have in the sign of the Son of man.

When they left Egypt, what holiday did they celebrate? Passover. Passover. Historians say that it was, or Jewish history, they say that it was at the time of the seventh day. They traveled for seven days.

They would have ended up at the Red Sea, ready to cross the Red Sea at the end of the seven days. We see this journey, represents that first week of feasts. So, it's a process. It's a week-long feast. That's a process, a process of deliverance.

First, they came out of Egypt. They were fleeing. Then, they came and crossed the Red Sea, and they had their final deliverance, and it says they saw the Egyptians no more. Now, what does that point to?

In spiritual terms, not referring just to literal Israel anymore, but to God's people, this points to their deliverance: first from sin, from Egypt, where Egypt represents the land of bondage to sin.

Then it's a process until a final great deliverance, where a way is made through the sea where they couldn't have gone before. But miraculously, they were able to cross the sea, and that corresponds to God's miraculous opening of the heavens to deliver His people at the Second Coming.

In the spring feasts, we see this process of deliverance. That process is fulfilled in our lives as we're delivered from sin and ultimately delivered from this world. What do the autumn feasts represent?

What clues do we have? If we look again at our map, we've talked about before how all of the feasts are represented here at each of these key points. Passover, first day, and seventh day, and then the next one is Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks.

The comments point to Pentecost because it was on that day in 2023 when they made that crossing. That's the next feast in the list. Then we come to the Day of Trumpets. Now, we've talked about this being Yom Kippur at the tip, but that was the tenth day.

First, there was a Day of Trumpets. Now, looking at our mountain, what would the Day of Trumpets be comparable to? Which feast? It's comparable to Pentecost, right? That's the reflection across the mountain right there at the top.

Pentecost and trumpets are related, and you'll notice at this crossing, there are two comets. They're representing two feasts. Both the Feast of Trumpets and the Feast of Pentecost are represented at this point.

That makes sense also because in the history of Israel. Tt was at the Feast of Weeks, that first year when Moses went up the mountain and God thundered the Ten Commandments in a loud, booming voice. At that point, there was also the sound of a trumpet, of the blowing of a trumpet that was heard.

This represents not only Pentecost, but also the Feast of Trumpets. Then next, we have the Feast of Yom Kippur, Day of Judgment. After that, we have another week-long feast representing a process. That's the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Feast of Tabernacles, that's when they would dwell in booths, representing their time of wandering through the wilderness. That's represented at this part here, where the throne in Orion represents God tabernacling with the people.

Or if you will, the people making their journey in the presence of God, or with God. God was dwelling with them. That's representing the Feast of Tabernacles. Then finally, at the end, there was one more day after that, and that represents Shemini Atzeret.

Is that last holiday after the Week of Tabernacles, which points to the final deliverance through the latter rain. That holiday was known as a time when they would pray for the latter rain that would ripen the harvest.

That they could bring in the final harvest of the year. All seven feasts are represented in their perfect sequence in this sign. Which itself is quite a confirmation that this sign is not something to ignore. And it is interesting because the end of the world is said to be the harvest time and the reapers are the angels Yes, amen.

The end of the world, Jesus said the harvest is the end of the world, and the angels, like the comets, are the harvesters. They gather the harvest in the end. We go to Orion, to God's throne in His heavenly kingdom. Amen.

Amen. We still haven't completely identified what the Feast of Tabernacles really points to, but this gives us a strong indication, because we see that this is the Christian's journey: coming out of sin through baptism, receiving God's law, sounding warnings, incorporating His law as part of our own character, reforming our lives, walking with him, and finally being delivered at His return.

This is about our journey through the wilderness, traveling with Jesus, or with our God. He goes with us. He's in our hearts. Now, this is where there's an interesting reflection, also, again, in the meaning and significance of these feasts.

Because in the spring feasts, when Christ came and gave His life on the cross, God came and dwelt in the flesh of man. God was with man. On the other side, we, man, mankind, or Israel, is dwelling with God. It's the reflection.

Christ came to earth, He became a human, and He lived an exemplary life, so that, with the Holy Spirit, we can give the sound of the trumpets, the warnings, and we can dwell with God in the Spirit. We can live in the Spirit, like Paul says, and that's the reflection.

Jesus lived in our flesh, and we live in His Spirit, and that's in our journey, made possible because He first came to earth. You can think of it, even if you were to turn this around, then the mountain would be in the opposite direction, coming down and going up.

Jesus came down, and we go up. [43.37min] Amen. That's the plan of salvation. When Jesus brought His people out of Egypt, He gave them a completely new way of life. They were no longer slaves, but He didn't leave them just without anything.

He gave them a whole culture. He gave them feasts. Feasts to remember things that happened in the past, their exodus, their great deliverance. And feasts to look forward to, and all of these things were connected with their daily lives.

They lived directly off of the land. They had the harvests, and they would gather in the harvests, the early harvests of the barley and the wheat, and the late harvests for the summer crops, and the other things that they would harvest from the land.

That represents our reflection of Christ's work. In all of these things, when we do our part in the Spirit, we're reflecting what Christ did in the flesh. Just as there was a cross for Jesus, Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me.

We see the same thing as we have looked at before, where our baptism is a baptism into His character, His cross, if you will. We take up our cross, we learn from Him, and we follow Him in the end. It's all made possible because He came to the earth first and gave His life.

When we study the cross, it's actually from a study of the time of the cross that we learn how the ancient calendar – that God gave to Israel – actually works. It comes from a study of the cross.

You can find it on our website at Full Moon at Gethsemane, our old website, lastcountdown.org. From an understanding of the calendar: historians tell us that Jesus came at His birth. His birth was in the autumn, around the time of the week-long feast in the autumn, when all of Israel would come.

They had the holy convocations, so they would all come to Jerusalem together, and there was a great company of people. Mary and Joseph also came along with them, and were there in Jerusalem during the feasts. As they were heading back shortly after the feasts is when Jesus was born.

We can understand now with an understanding of the calendar, we can know when Jesus was born based on the timing of the feasts and some other aspects that are connected with that.

We have an article also on our lastcountdown.org website called Christmas 2.0. It explains how we can know the true date of Christ's birth. It's not December 25th, like the world celebrates today, that actually comes from a pagan background related to the winter solstice.

But we see that it is actually at the time of the feast of the seventh month, and in this year it's on November 9th, the 8th of the 9th, that is the birthday of Jesus. We will be celebrating His birthday, having our Christmas, the true Christmas, if you will.

One thing also, when Comet K2 crossed through the Horologium constellation on the clock, indirectly it pointed to the crucifixion because we have the time of Christ's crucifixion marked on the clock.

It was at three o'clock, just like this. This is the six o'clock, and this is three o'clock. It was in the afternoon when Jesus died, about the time of the evening sacrifice that was at about three o'clock.

At each quadrant of the clock, at nine, at twelve, at three, and at six, the Bible specifies different things that happened at His crucifixion. First, He was put on the cross at nine o'clock. In Jewish thinking, that was the third hour of the day.

Then at noon, the sixth hour, there was darkness over the land. Then at the ninth hour, which would be three o'clock, He gave up the ghost, and by six o'clock, or about evening, He was buried.

Pointing very much to the cross of Christ from the Horologium, and also showing that our journey begins at the cross. When He died on the cross, when we understand the calendar, it was May 25th, AD 31.

Then two days later was May 27th, AD 31. In this year, 2023, May 27th was the day of Pentecost. We see even there His crucifixion at the Horologium, His burial, just like one is buried in baptism, and then the resurrection at Pentecost, as we see it in this year.

If we look also at comet E3, when it comes back around to the Horologium at the end of the sign of the Son of man, this is representing Jesus' Second Coming when He comes not as a baby anymore, but He comes as the king, like in Revelation 19.

Where He is described as having a sword coming out of His mouth, and that's represented in heaven by the pendulum. Comet E3 comes to that pendulum on the day after May 27th, which is May 28th.

That points to the sequence of events as they happen at Jesus' coming. First, there's the great resurrection, May 27th, and then we're all caught up together in the air. In the Bible, it talks about how first the dead are raised, and then we who are alive and remain are caught up together with them.

First the resurrection on the 27th, and then on the 28th, when the comet crosses that line, there is the rapture, if you will, being caught up together with those who are just resurrected.

Again, it points to that anniversary of Christ's resurrection. Amen. With that, let's stand, take a breath, and let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you once again for the amazing works that you have made.

You have done all things well, the Bible says. We see that when we look in the heavens, and we see the striking relationship to your word, both in time and in the symbolism. We just praise you for revealing these things at this time.

It is the sign of the Son of man, and we see the things happening all in their order, just as you prophesied. The tribes of the earth have been mourning, and in the end, you will come and deliver your people.

We will see the Son of man, not just the sign of the Son of man. Thank you for the beauty, the symmetry that you build into your word. We ask that you will be with us and guide us in this time ahead, that we may sound the trumpet, the warning, and that many people will hear here and reform their lives.

That we may walk with you and reflect the life of Christ as He walked with us, until you come to receive us to yourself, that where you are, we may be also, as you have promised. We thank you for that, for your promises, for your love, your faithfulness that is new every morning.

We love you also, and we long to be with you very soon. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, and in His new name, Alnitak, the wounded one of Orion. Amen. Thank you, and hope to see you next week.