“December 12 and possibilities”     Gerry Almond (1 Dec 2009)

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE TIMING OF THE EVENT WE CALL THE RAPTURE: A POSSIBLE ANSWER TO THE “DELAY” FOUND IN BIBLE CODE POSTED BY RAPTURE2009.ORG UNDER THE TITLE “NEW MATRIX”.

Much has been written about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in return for HIS CHURCH at an event known as the rapture. It is imminent, it is certain, it is in the works, it is an appointed time, it is for the born again believers, it is for the watchmen, it is for the glory of God the Father, and it is for our protection from the force of God’s wrath on a Christ hating, Christ rejecting world that will be left behind to face the awful tribulation period, which includes the WRATH OF GOD.

I do not plan to be here with those left behind ones. I know that you don’t either..so let’s get ready to go when the Lord calls. That we are going is without question or our consent, thank God. WE ARE GOING, that’s all there is to it.

“For the Lord Himself shall descend from heave with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ will rise first: Then, we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord”. I Thessalonians 4: 16, 17. (KJV).

THE SACRED FEASTS OF ISRAEL
In the scripture, there seven such feasts. They are:
Passover (Pesach)
Unleavened Bread (included in Pesach)
First Fruits (included in Pesach)
Pentecost (Shovuos)
New Year (Rosh Hoshanoh)
Atonement (Yom Kippur)
Tabernacles (Sukkos)

These seven feasts take place over a period of 280 days, the same time period as the gestation of a human child. The major development points of the human child’s development follow the same time schedule as these feasts. One could say that God stationed the sacred feasts on the same timeline as the timeline of a human child’s development.

This clearly makes Israel a “woman” and her feasts are therefore on the cycles of the moon, measured in the very same manner as the reproductive cycles of a human female. For example, Moses was instructed that Passover would be the 14th day of the first (sacred calendar) month and it is a fact that from the union of man and woman until conception occurs is 14 days. This follows through the entire 280 days developmental period of a human child.

Now, every year the Hebrew people observed these feasts exactly on time. Although sometimes the full meaning of them escaped them, ESPECIALLY THE LAST FEAST…TABERNACLES.

THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES (SUKKOS)

Rather than produce a study of these seven feasts, I want to concentrate of the seventh and last one of the sacred cycle. Most of you understand that the Hebrews had two years eventually…the sacred year which ran from fourteen days before Passover to the start of the first month in which Passover would be observed, or one LUNAR year.

This year was called the sacred calendar year. The second was from New Year, also called Rosh Hoshono to the next Rosh Hoshono which was also a full year and was called the civil year. So, when one speaks ofabout the Jewish year, one has to specify which one he or she means.

The civil year is normally compared to our year, such as right now, Hebrew 5770 is underway because it either began last April on our calendar, or September on our calendar depending on which Hebrew year you are looking at. The sacred feasts, were, of course, on the April to April cycle.

The Feast of Tabernacles was seven days in length and was the Autumn Festival. There was an eighth day added to it, but was not a part of it. More will be said a bit later.

The prior seven days constituted the Feast of Tabernacles. It was a joyous occasion which gave us the idea of our Thanksgiving, as it celebrated the ingathering of the crops from both field and orchard. Back in ancient times it was considered to be the beginning of the year.

It has had several names, for example the Festival of Ingathering, the Festival of Booths, and it was even called God’s Festival. So important was this Festival, that the prescribed regulations required every male to make a pilgrimage to this one. When the Temple of Solomon was erected in Jerusalem, this was the first Festival celebrated there.

While this Festival could be celebrated in other places than Jerusalem, the city was, of course, the preferred site as the Temple itself was there. Both Pesach (Passover) and Sukkos (Tabernacles) were widely attended by the population as a requirement of observance under the Jewish law.

The pilgrims erect tents or “booths” from foliage or material that can house them for a period of time. They arrive early and have a sort of “vacation” before the first day because they also observe the Feast of Yom Kippur (Atonement) just five days before this Feast begins. New Year was ten days before that, i. e. the civil year called Rosh Hashonoh. The atmosphere by the time Sukkos begins is joyful. From Rosh Hoshonoh to the last of Tabernacles is 21 days length.

Every day there are ceremonial rites performed. People are occupied every minute of time. He that wished to observe all the ceremonies and services of the Festival would not have had time to close an eye; and would barely have had time to eat. Sleep would be very sparse during this week.

THE FESTIVAL ENDS

These ceremonies are repeated every day. On the morning of the seventh day, however, the priests march around the altar seven times instead of just once as in prior days. They proceed to beat the ground with their willow branches. This is the official end of Sukkos and the children seize and dismember the the tents and booths and eat whatever citrons are there.

In the evening of the seventh day, a host of Jews stand in the court, watching intently to see the direction in which the smoke from the sacrificial fire will blow. It is an omen for the success of the coming agricultural year. It was a crude weather forecast system that had surprisingly true results usually.

It is now evening and the lights flare up. The Temple is ablaze with torchlight. On the fifteen steps that lead from the Court of Women to the Court of the Laymen stand Levites, bearing harps, cymbals, flutes, trumpets, and other instruments; they play, and as they play, they sing the Psalms of Ascents.

It turns to almost morning. The Levites have retired. The people chant Psalm after Psalm. At the top of the stairs stands two priests, with silver trumpets in hand. Suddenly a rooster crows and that is the signal for the priests to blow the three calls. They then march down ten steps and blow again.

They march all the way down and, blowing yet a third time, they march across the court to the massive eastern gate of the Temple. They turn and, with their backs to the gate, recite, “Our forefathers stood on this spot with their backs to God’s house and with their faces to the east and worshipped the sun….but we turn to God and our eyes always turn to God”

As the dawn appears, the gates of the massive eastern doorway are opened and the assembled congregation goes out into the valley of Kidron, from which point they depart for home.

The next day, the eighth which was attached to but not a part of the Feast, there was a general repeat of the first day. The priests that attended this were assigned to do so as a requirement of service. Those who could not or did not attend the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles thus had an opportunity to at least participate in the very important first day.

In Jesus day, as He taught and withstood the Pharisees at the Feast of Tabernacles, John 7:37 records that “in the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, ‘if any man thirst let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water’”.

It is now necessary to do a quick summary of the “replacement” feast that overtook the great Feast of Tabernacles and became one of the most important festivals in Jewish history.

THE FEAST OF HANUKKOH

This festival is said to be a commemorative one honoring the liberation of the Temple from Syrian hands in circa 166 B. C. In Jesus day, it was referred to as the Feast of the Dedication (John 23: 10). During the three years of bitter conflict between the Syrians under Antiochus Epiphanes and the Hasmoneans under Judas Maccabeas, the Temple observance of Sukkos (Tabernacles) was not allowed.

After a long and bitter struggle, Maccabeas ousted the Syrians and recaptured the city and the temple. In celebration of this, a feast was born called Chanukkoh and It was celebrated just as Sukkos was with the singing of the Hallel and the waving of the palm branches. It became SECOND SUKKOS in the minds of the worshippers. It lasted eight days with the Hallel being included in every day of the Festival.

So popular did this festival become in short order that the priests determined that if Chanukkoh were to become a universal festival for all Jews (as they wished) and for all time, it could NOT be allowed to remain a SECOND Sukkos. It was therefore made the festival of the re-dedication of the Temple and thus its name Chanukkoh, which means dedication. Because Moses and Solomon both had held dedication services relating to the Temple, this dedication became AS IMPORTANT AS THEIRS IN THE MINDS OF THE JEWS.

Josephus was the first writer to mention the kindling of the Lights during Chanukkkoh. Through ancient records, the story of the kindling of the lights from a single flask of consecrated oil emerged. It was said that only one flask with the seal of the High Priest could be found when Judas Maccabeas rededicated the reopened Temple.

The others had been defiled by Antiochus. This miraculous multiplication of the oil caused the event to take on special meaning in the life of the Jewish nation, especially since it involved no less than the reopening of the Jewish Temple. After two millennia, now, the “not so important” feast has emerged as one of the GREATEST FEASTS OF ISRAEL.

This lengthy explanation of the two Feasts is necessary to establish just one fact. That is, that the Feast of Chanukkoh became familiar to the Jews as SECOND TABERNACLES AND EVEN REPLACED IT IN THE MINDS OF THOSE WORSHIPPERS. I, for one, had no idea that this Feast was so important, but it is, even today.

When Jesus was on earth, it is recorded in John 7:37 that He was at the Feast of Dedication when He declared that “My sheep hear My voice, and they follow me. And I give to them eternal life”.

I love the Lord very much and I have spent my entire adult life trying to serve Him, minus a couple of very bad falls. But then, who among us has not experienced this? I find such beauty in the designs of our God, especially in the type pictures presented by the sacred feasts of Israel.

These picture, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ, the central figure of the entire Bible. All revolves around Him and His work in redemption of fallen mankind. My earnest desire is that all people would or could somehow come to a saving knowledge of Him now, but as you all know, this will simply not be the case.

So, I comfort myself with the rationale that if Jesus would come today, the time that more babies would die, more children would be abandoned to the world system’s ways, and more adults would die in their sins would have only limited number of days left. At least, during that awful time called the tribulation and then the great tribulation, they could have a fighting chance to survive the fires of hell.

A SUPPOSITION AND A POSSIBILITY

SUPPOSE that the Feast of Tabernacles was actually REPLACED in the MIND OF GOD ALMIGHTY by the Feast of Dedication. After all, He said that these people (Jews) were near to Him with their lips, but far away in their hearts. YHWH threatened to take away their Sabbaths and new moons because of it. What could this mean to them and to us if true?

I think that it is POSSIBLE that those who felt that the rapture would be tied to Tabernacles in 2009, just as I did, may have been on to something. But which Tabernacles? Evidently we will want to look to SECOND Tabernacles, called Chanukkoh and sometimes the Feast of Lights.

It occurs in December just about the time of the winter solstice.Sometimes in a swing Jewish year, it is after the solstice but normally before. This year it begins on December 11 on our Gregorian calendar and runs for seven plus one days for a total of eight days.

Any one of those days might be the day, or none of them, but the FIFTH day is the day, both in the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkos) and in the Feast of the Dedication (Chanukkoh) that the Temple was lit up. Also,The SEVENTH day would correspond then, to the day of the removal of booths, as we saw above in Tabernacles, which may be a picture of our change at the rapture.

That fifth day date would be December 15 on our calendar, and the seventh day date would be December 17, three days BEFORE the winter solstice of December 21.

My SUPPOSITION is that we should trim our lamps and get ready for the Lord’s return immediately. In the Bible Code posted under “New Matrix” at www.rapture2009.org, the date of 9/21/09 was identified. But beside it was the word “delayed”.

I think that it is POSSIBLE that the delay in this case may be from Rosh Hashonoh to the last day of Chanukkoh. The count of days inclusive is 88 or 89 if the eighth day is included. It would therefore end on December 18 or 19, very near the winter solstice, but still in the FALL of 2009 on our calendar. This delay, if so, would break down somewhat like this:

9/21/09…..21 days delay (Dan 10)…10/11/09 inclusive count.
From 10/12/09 ….60 days…..12/11/09 Feast of Chanukkoh, first day inclusive count.
From 12/11/09….7 days… 12/18/09 last day of Chanukkoh inclusive count.
12/19/09….1 day…12/19/09 eighth day attached to but not part of Chanukkoh.
The “delay” found accompanying the Bible Code Matrix identifying 9/21/2009 may possibly be these days.
Of course only time will tell. I hope along with you all that His blessed return is SOON.

In His Service and watching
Gerry Almond