Day of Blasting, Yom Terorah, which happened last Wednesday evening. That was the marking of the first day of Tishri. And now we're going into this coming week and Friday or Thursday evening at 6 p.m. will begin the Day of Yom Kippur. Anybody know what Yom Kippur is? That is the Day of Atonement. the most important day on the Jewish calendar. That is a day of great significance because it is a day of forgiveness. And that's what they look forward to. And so we're actually in a period of time right now in ten days from day one of Tishri to day ten. We're in the ten days of awe as often times it's referred to. Sometimes called the ten days of repentance. Because after all, to come to and to share in and enjoy and be blessed by the atonement that comes from God, it's very important that you be repented. And so God has marked that in their calendar as a celebration and we'll look at that. But the text verse is Revelation 3.3. Let's read that and I'll explain why that is a good text verse for Yom Kippur and the Days of Awe. Revelation 3.3 says, Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Of course, what we have on the beginning of the Jewish calendar for the seventh month of Tishri is an announcement on day one with the blasting of the trumpets, Wake up! Wake up! It's time to repent! Don't go any further! Repent! Repent! And so that is the announcement. And that's what Yom Torah announces for the beginning of the seventh month in the Jewish calendar. It's time to repent and in ten days, There will be the Day of Atonement when we give an account to God. Now, according to God's calendar, that seventh month is called Tishri. And in Leviticus, it actually shows us why that is the seventh month, although some are confused, and they call it Rosh Hashanah, or the first year. but it's thought that that was pretty much corrupted because of that is the calendar and the day and the for knowing when the uh... new year day started the calendar was corrupted during the babylonian captivity but the bible in leviticus says it is the seventh month that we recognize these things not the first month so it's gotta be the seventh month this is uh... the month of tishri yom torah was just observed last week. And as I mentioned before, it's rather interesting, but it's all by sight. So it could have been on day Wednesday at 6 p.m., or it could have been Thursday. It all depends on the sky, whether there were clouds, or whether it was hazy, or whether it was a clear sky, whether they could actually see the sliver of sun shining on the moon. Now, being the seventh month in God's calendar means this. It means that the moon has appeared seven times since the month of Abim, which was somewhere around March or April, since the Passover month, and that's the first month of God's calendar. Now, why do you suppose that would make sense that the Passover event would mark the beginning rather than the end? Well, because that's when salvation begins. That's when our restoration in Christ begins. And then on that seventh month, the wrap-up month, the month of completion, now we have a very significant event. Time's up. It's time to repent. If you haven't done it yet, it's time to do it. And then on day 10, we have the official marking of the Day of Atonement. on the 15th day, then we have the Feast of the Tabernacles, or the remembrance of God's deliverance from bondage. Remember, that's what was going on in Egypt when God delivered Israel out of that nation. Now let's look at Leviticus chapter 23, verse 23 and 25. Because this introduces the memorial of Yom Teruah by saying this, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month... Notice it's not the first month, it says in the seventh month. In the first day of the month shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, and holy convocation. You shall do no servile work therein, but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord." Two things I want you to take note of here, and there's some others, but notice it's a Sabbath, and notice that there is an offering made by fire. And we'll come back and visit those two principles in just a minute. But first of all, I want to make an interesting observation. I presented this last year, sometime around November, I believe, or the end of October, where I presented the Gospel of the Moon. Anybody remember that? That was a fascinating study in itself. But here what you have is, at this moment, on the first day of Tishri, the blowing of the trumpets, you have at the very beginning, the first sighting of the sun shining on the moon. There you have the shining light, the first dawning of the first light, the light shining on darkness, which is likened unto conviction. When the light of the gospel shines into a darkened heart, in the heart of a lost soul, and when that conviction comes upon them, then it's time to make a decision. God has given you accountability to the gospel, to make a choice. And the light as it shines upon the lost reminds me in John 1, 1-5. It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God, and all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. Who's that talking about? Christ. That's right. In Him was life, and the life was the light. of man, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." And there you have a blackened moon, and then at the dawning of that first day, you have that little sliver of light begin to appear in darkness. Just like we experience with conviction of the Holy Spirit bringing that truth of the light of the gospel into our own hearts. Now the next event that follows that, that follows the dawning of the light, is ten days later, is called the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur. And this year, that's going to be September 29 in the evening, and then go through Friday. Now Leviticus chapter 23, look at this. Leviticus chapter 23 verse 26 down through 32 describes the day of atonement. We just read about the day of the blasting of the trumpets, now we're going to talk about the day of atonement. In verse 26 it says, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement. It shall be a holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. And ye shall do no work in that same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God. For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people. And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people. Ye shall do no manner of work. It shall be a statue forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest. And ye shall afflict your souls in the ninth day of the month from even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath. Now, there's a particular emphasis in observing this day. And what is that? The Sabbath, ye shall do no work. In fact, to violate the Sabbath on this day was so heinous that you would suffer the death penalty if you were to do any work on this day, on this Sabbath of observing the Day of Atonement. Now the Jews call that period of time in between Yom Terorah and Yom Kippur, those 10 days, they call the Days of Awe or the Days of Repentance to prepare themselves to meet God and to receive His forgiveness. Now let's consider Yom Terorah because that introduces the 10 days. And take note, on the Day of Atonement, the emphasis was, Thou shalt not work. Do no work therein. Now, if you look at the descriptions of Yom Terorah and the descriptions of Yom Kippur, you have six elements in there. Number one, you have the seventh month is when it occurs. Number two, you have that Yom Terorah occurs on the first day. Number three, it's a holy convocation. That means it's celebrated nationally. That would be like what we're going to be celebrating in November, Thanksgiving Day. So it's a national holiday is what we have. And that was their holy convocation. A memorial of blowing of trumpets. That comes from the word terroir, blowing. Number five, it's a Sabbath day, you do no servile work thereon. And number six, you make an offering, an offering made by fire unto the Lord. So you have six elements, and each one is very interesting, and a lesson can be developed on them. But there's two of the most important, and that is, number one, the Sabbath, and number two, the offering by fire. Those are the two most important elements in my mind, and they are a part of the instruction. All six elements are important. God does not waste His words, nor does He waste instruction putting something down here in the Bible to bore us to death. He gave it to us because it's very important. And we see that in the instruction that He gave to Moses. In Hebrews 8.5 it says, who serve, referring to the tabernacle and the patterns that were given to Moses, Back in the day, he says, "...who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle. For see, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." That pattern is not for the tabernacle only, but for the feast only and everything else that God also gave to us. He has given us a pattern to learn from. So of the six elements, these two in particular I want to talk to you about. Number one, here's why I consider them very important. Yom Teruah is the call to repentance. And the call to repentance is a call to humble yourself before God, to confess your sins to Him, to throw yourself on His mercy. It's a time to forsake your own efforts. It's a time to confess your own unworthiness. It's a time to admit that you're a sinner. You're imperfect. You're unable to do anything worthy of God's favor and blessings. It's a time to give up on yourself and to depend on God. It's a time to abandon your way of doing things and then turn to God and depend on His way. And it's a time to beg for mercy and grace from God. So let's look at this Sabbath a little more carefully. This is the reason why I'm saying that the Sabbath is so important, such an important observance. And even as he pointed out on the Day of Atonement, you violate the Day of Sabbath and you will be killed. Now the Sabbath day is a day of no work. It's a day to, as he says, remember that your works are useless, to gain God's favor. Amen? It's a day to acknowledge that there are absolutely no works involved in salvation. So, let's review a couple of very important verses that we're very familiar with. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. What does that say? For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. That is a familiar verse, should be familiar to all of us. But it's an emphasis, it's not about works. Romans 3.20 and verse 28 says, Therefore, By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. I mean, you can't get any more plain than that, can you? And yet it makes you wonder, these folks who teach works for salvation, it makes you wonder if they ever read the book of Romans. Galatians 2.16 also is very significant because it says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." It's not going to happen. Now this is the significance of designating the day of the blasting of the trumpets and the day of atonement as Sabbath days. because they are a reminder to us that salvation and repentance comes without the works of our efforts, but rather on the works of God. We have to enter into the rest of Christ, not relying on our own selves. So the Sabbath day is a day of rest to commemorate the rest that the saved souls have and find in God. So let's look at Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 1. Because that passage right there talks about the rest to be found in Christ. Hebrews 4.1 says, Therefore, let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left of us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. In verse 3 he says, for we which have believed do enter into rest. As he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world, For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all of his works." And what I'm doing is I'm showing you the referencing of the rest that we have in Christ, and he is arguing the case here that we find our rest in Christ not in the law, but in Christ by faith. Hebrews 4, 10 through 11 says this. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest. Boy, that almost sounds like a contradiction, huh? I thought he said no work. Why are we laboring to get into that rest of no labor, no work? That labor is, let us strive for, let us pursue this. Let's go after that rest. It's not in your own efforts. He's not contradicting himself. He's just emphasizing, man, this is something you want to pursue. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Uh-uh. We pursue it through believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then in Matthew 11, verse 28, Jesus spoke of this rest, saying this, Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So the call to repentance then is a call to rest, is a call to cease from your labor, from your arrogance, from your self-righteousness, from your vanity, and from your pride. It's a call to humble yourself and to admit to God that you are not good enough for heaven on your own, you're not worthy of eternal life, and you're not deserving of God's blessings and mercies. Now, what a day the Sabbath day is. That's what it comes down to. That's what the Sabbath day is all about in commemorating the rest that we have in Christ. Romans 5, verses 1-2 describes this rest that we have in Christ. Because it says, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We don't gain access to God by the law. We don't gain access to this grace by our own efforts. It's only by the work of Christ and by faith, not by the law. Well, we know that stuff already, don't we? But I'm teaching you here the significance of the Sabbath. that what oftentimes people ignore or neglect to understand about the Sabbath is they don't see the significance of truths that are so foundational. That is a truth that has been built in to the very traditions and calendars of God's work with Israel. It's built right in there. When you trust in Christ, You're not trusting in yourself. When you give your life to Him, you are forsaking your own. You're depending on His work, not on your own work. And then you gain rest and enter into the rest of God, and in the peace of God, and you're no longer at odds with God. Now that brings peace as well. So there's two things. Number one, you're resting from your own labors, but number two, you're finding rest from the condemnation and sense of guilt and condemnation that you otherwise might have before God. You're no longer under the shame of guilt, the anxiety of judgment, and the fear of condemnation. That's peace. In the peace of God, you're called His friend. You're delivered into the presence and fellowship of Christ. His Spirit is sent to comfort us rather than to convict us. and this is what the Sabbath is all about, this is peace, and this is why Yom Terorah and Yom Kippur are observed as Sabbath days. Now that's all I'm going to say about that, because we're familiar with the territory, but I wanted to connect the ideas and the significance of having the Sabbath on these days. But the offering, the second point I want to cover here, real briefly, the offering by fire. The offering by fire, the last of the six elements that I mentioned a little earlier, is the offerings by fire. What is that all about? Do you remember in the tabernacle that when you came in from the east side, you had the entrance into the curtain of the courtyard, right? And you walk in through the curtain, what's the very first thing you see? is the brazen altar of sacrifice. And what was going on on the brazen altar of sacrifice? 24-7. Starting in the morning, they were throwing a bull on there and burning it, and the fires were going all day long burning it. And then in the evening, they would throw another bull on top of that, and it would burn all night long. And then in the morning, they would start it all over again. But that wasn't the only thing burning. Then you had all the other offerings by fire. You had the lambs and the goats and the doves and everything else that God was receiving as offerings by fire. These were being offered and the fires were going and burning over and over and over again, continuously, never ceasing. Brethren, that's the fires of hell right there. If we look at Revelation chapter 21 verse 8 it says, But the fearful and unbelieving, the abominable and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. That's the fires that the brazen altar of sacrifice represents and what we have is that fire going and burning at all times. And as the people, whether you were a Gentile or whether you were a Jew, you approached the tabernacle, there's one thing that became very clear. You would see the smoke rising. You would hear the sound of death. And when you entered in, you saw the sight of death. And you would smell the smell of death. The grounds would become so saturated with blood, they could no longer take it, and the blood would just flow under the wall there, into the valley of Jezreel. And it would just flow. You know, you ever seen blood on the ground? You ever been to a slaughtering house or slaughtered? You know, that smells after a couple days. It gets worse and worse before it gets better. It's sticky. And that is, a lot of people sort of sanitize the whole concept of the tabernacle and the Jewish rituals. But it was nothing but death. Death and destruction. Fear. is what it was all about. But that's what I want to leave with you then. The offering by fires on those days was this is what's required to be atoned. You need to repent and receive the forgiveness and gift of God which was burnt on that altar of sacrifice. Because if you don't receive the substitute and receive that offering from God, then it will be you who will be paying in that eternal fire. But the choice is yours, amen? We're glad you joined us for our services here at Mission Boulevard Baptist Church. If this program has helped you and you would like to have more information about trusting Christ as your Lord and Savior, or if you would like to have resources to help you in your spiritual walk and growth, please email us at the address on your screen. We look forward to having you join us again online, but you are always welcome to personally attend any of our services at the Mission Boulevard Baptist Church here in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Hi, this is Dr. Patrick Briney. I hope and pray this important lesson has improved your life. For more life changing lessons, and to get your free book that I've written for you, visit my website at patrickbriney.com. And please share this valuable lesson with at least three of your friends, to enrich their lives in our Lord Jesus Christ. I'll upload my next lesson for you soon. God Bless.