Preface: Last evening....Sunday....September 22....I had another visit with a Jewish friend....a lady in her mid-80s....whose husband was a famed electrical engineer....with a bio on Wikipedia for his contributions in computerized technology. I wished her a happy Jewish new year that is coming up.....Rosh Hashanah which begins on October 2....and a solemn high holy days....for Yom Kippur begins ten days later....and she wished me a happy anniversary which coincidentally is on October 2 also.
New Year's Eve....now there's a happy time....where everyone wishes each other.....'have a happy New Year!' Well Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year's celebration....with the blowing of a shofar instead of the ball dropping at Times Square. It also begins the High Holy Days....Yom Kippur....the Day of Atonement being ten days later....these being the main holy days but they also include Sukkot.....Tabernacles or Booths being the names with which we are more familiar.
Now we gentiles start a new day at midnight....or somewhere around sunrise....but the new day to the Jewish person starts at sunset on the evening before. So Rosh Hashanah this year begins at sunset on October. 2...(my wife and I will be celebrating our 48th anniversary on that day....Lord willing)....and ends two days later....October 4th....at sunset.
Yom Kippur this year begins at sunset....October 11....and ends at sunset or sundown the next day. This is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish person. How many readers here have seen the film....Golda....that premiered last August? Probably none. I saw it the first day of release. It's a great film where Helen Mirren plays the Israeli Premier Golda Meir. The movie is all about the surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur of 1973. Israel almost lost that war. I did a review on the movie last August 25 and concluded with this....in bold print as it is here....But the reason that you might want to see this movie is that Israel may be in a similar situation in the very near future."
Forty-two days after posting this review....Israel was brutally attacked on the last day of Sukkot....another Jewish holiday....this one seven days in duration....of festivities. This year Sukkot begins at sunset on October 16....and ends at sundown October 23.
So this is a second Jewish cycle of holy days and festivals....the first being the Spring Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread and First Fruits and Pentecost. There is also what is known as The Three Weeks.....a very solemn time of remembrance that has within those three weeks....the 9th of Av. This is during the summer....and I posted on a forty day period....in fact the post is titled....Forty Days....that included those Three Weeks. I wish you might read for the first time or read again that post....last posted on August 22.
I should add this paragraph from a July of 2020 post for it explains why I do these posts on the Jewish feasts....
The dates of the future feasts of Israel are always only a click away for me or anyone who feels that surely major prophetic events will occur on these days. This isn't date setting for we do not know the years....but we do know that God's future plans for the Jewish people will most likely revolve around their feasts. To prognosticate on this is more than problematic....but to ignore it is being careless to God's warnings to us.
We should be particularly observant and in prayer from now until these Jewish feasts and our own contentious election are concluded. I use here the word 'observant'....not in the way that some Christians observe Jewish feasts....where they actually take part in the Jewish traditions....even Biblical mandates....but observant meaning more of a vigilance....knowing that our coming King is at the very door....and that God's mercy will extend to the Jews....in the very same way that His mercy was first extended to us....in that they will see their need of a savior....and indeed they will see their Savior....and rejoice....as we first rejoiced!
Tomorrow is yet another Lord's Day. We in America live in....as Bunyan called it....Vanity Fair. May our pastors remind us this tomorrow. Of the older and more courageous ones....may they warn their flock....(they are supposed to be shepherds are they not?)....of the absolute absurdity of attending a worship service....and then going home and spending the day in front of the idolatry and trivial nonsense of professional football.
Note: Tomorrow will be ninth straight week that John MacArthur will not be in his pulpit....(it is eleven weeks now!)....this due to a serious heart procedure that was done. Please pray that....if God wills it....he might return to he pulpit....for we need his voice. Please pray also that John Piper....should God desire this also....would return to the pulpit on more of a national stage.....for we need the preaching now in America.....more than we need the books....and we need the exaltation and exhortation.....more than we need the teaching....which we should by now be able to discern for ourselves.
An Addendum: Personally....I will stick with Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones and Piper and MacArthur on the issue of Israel.....and more importantly on what I see very clearly in the very word of God to us. God has not abandoned Israel. Others think that God has....and of those others....in the past year I have heard practically nothing of prayers for either the danger Israel is in at this time....or even for the concern for world war....such is the determination to avoid Israel like the plague. The apparent lack of love and even compassion...or at least the failure to show it......or even common sense....is so absent....that no matter what the truth on Israel would be....it is utterly astounding....and sends me back to the letter to the Ephesians in Revelation chapter 2....where this church had left its first love. Israel....the nation that exists today....indeed has broken covenant with God and their branch has been broken off....but God will bring them back. They therefore are not....non-entities! They are not neutral in God's eyes! I'm reminded of the man who was forgiven much....(that would be us)....but had no compassion on others who needed forgiveness!
The large single headline on the Drudge Report right now....is an Israeli flag.....in color....and the words....WAR ON FIVE FRONTS
Luke 21:20...."But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by enemies, then know that its desolation is near."
