Friday 11 March 2016

Passover

I don't know anything yet like I ought to know it. But on observing the Passover, I think that if something is important to us with all good conscience, then it will also be important to God because it was important to us first.

(God doesn't only always take all the initiative in our relationship - He also enjoys responding to us.)

So if someone on earth exercise his faith in a certain way on a certain day of the year because it's important to his conscience that he exercises his faith in that way on that day of the year, then heaven will respond to that fact that he has exercised his faith in that way on that day.

God and heaven respond to faith, even if faith dwells in a slightly different conscience in one believer than it might be in another believer.

God is sometimes also happy to go along with the fact that we simply enjoy doing something! That's the kind of Father He is!

He responds to our faith. He responds to our desires.

If someone else feels in his conscience that the Lord has made all days equal and therefore exercises his faith in the same way everyday, then that person honours the Lord in his heart just as much as the person who regards one day above another does.

So God and heaven is responding differently to different people. To each according to his conscience, faith and desire. And that's okay. Our Father has a soft side and delights in our heart.

So we can live and let live. It's no biggie. Unity and considering others is the all-important issue here.

However, if you ask me concerning my conscience about the Feasts, I don't believe God intended that the Passover should be celebrated literally forever.

I know it says in the Law that it would be a statute in Israel forever. But I don't think that was intended to mean literally 'forever' - because so many other things were also said to be 'forever' yet we know they no longer apply (like animal sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood, for example - both of those also were said to be 'forever' - ye the New Testament states that there has been an annulling of those things).

So 'forever' doesn't mean forever literally - it meant for as long as the Old Covenant still stood.

But even if it literally meant forever - it said forever 'in Israel' - not in Australia!

It's impossible to keep the Feast of Passover in the Southern Hemisphere. (According to the Law, it had to be kept in the month Nisan, in the Spring. That's only possible in the Northern Hemisphere but not in the Southern - because it's Autumn not Spring in the Southern Hemisphere during Nisan! So no matter whether someone in the Southern Hemisphere tries to observe the Passover - whether in Nisan or in Spring - either way he has to break one point of the Law regarding when the Passover was to be kept!

That alone ought to be enough to tell us that the Passover was never intended for the whole globe!

Jewish believers in the first century may have kept it because it was still possible to (because the altar and Levitical priesthood were still in tact). But it wasn't possible to keep the Feast anymore after the Temple was destroyed around AD70 (because the Feast demanded pilgrimage to Jerusalem to the altar and sacrifices - which was no longer possible after the destruction of the altar, Temple and priesthood.)

So no-one was able to keep the Passover legitimately after AD70. Of course unbelieving Jews invented new ways of keeping it (ways which Moses' Law would never have allowed).

Something isn't the Passover just because we eat roast lamb and call it the Passover - it was only the Passover if you kept it exactly the way Moses wrote in every point. That's not possible anymore.

But for believing Jews and Gentiles, it was no crisis, because they'd already learned that the Feasts were only a shadow but Christ was the real thing.

I also don't believe the Apostles taught the Gentile churches to observe the Feasts. I believe the opposite - they told them they didn't have to.

Trusting in Jesus as our Saviour everyday is what Paul meant by "let us keep the Feast".

Jesus didn't die just to give us a renewed way of keeping the Passover. He was the Passover!

I don't believe heaven operates on a calendar which the entire Southern Hemisphere cannot be synced with!

The Patriarchs didn't observe the Passover, prior to the Exodus. The Passover included components which had exclusive relevance to the Jews' Exodus from Egypt - not to the Patriarchs before them, and not to us today.

If someone holds a revival service on a day that would have synced (in the Northern Hemisphere) with an ancient Feast, of course God will do great things - because they're exercising their faith.

But I could hold a revival service on any day of the year and see exactly the same things happen.

There isn't anything that God isn't willing to do on any day of the year; there isn't anything that He's only willing to do on set days of the year.

Everyday is called "Today" - "today is the day of salvation" - "behold now is the acceptable time."

All things are possible to him who believes - "while it is called today".

But as I said at the start - if someone desires to focus their faith in a special way at a special time of the year - that's okay. Live and let live.

Love is the important thing.