This day is a
Holy Day – to be observed like a Sabbath. It is an appointment with
God: a sacred rehearsal must be included – a public worship service to
rehearse historic past and prophetic future events. It is the last of
seven days wherein no leaven is allowed, and unleavened breads are
required eating. It is an ordinance – one of the three kinds of Torah
commandments (judgments, ordinances, and statutes): ordinances are
physical performances to show spiritual truths.
“Yahweh’s (moedim) appointed times which you shall proclaim as
sacred rehearsals -- My appointed times are these:” - Leviticus 23:2
“When both (silver trumpets) are blown, all the congregation shall gather
themselves to you at the doorway of the tent of
(moed) appointment” – Numbers
10:3.
“Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a
feast to Yahweh; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as
a permanent ordinance. 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened
bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses;
for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh
day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the
first day you shall have a sacred rehearsal, and another (miqra-qodesh)
sacred rehearsal on the seventh day; no work at all shall be done on
them, except what must be eaten by every person, that alone may be
prepared by you. 17 You shall also observe the (Hag
haMatzot) Feast of Unleavened Breads, for on this very day I brought
your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this
day throughout your generations as a permanent (huqqah) ordinance”
– Exodus 12:14-17.
The theme of the Day
is: after God delivers His people, the wicked try to take them back,
but then God destroys the wicked. This happened at the Passover in
Egypt, and it will happen in this world’s last day.
On this date the
Israelites came to the Red Sea, and the Egyptian army caught up to them.
The people greatly feared, but Moses said, “Stand still and see Yeshua
Yahweh” (the Salvation of Yahweh).
“But Moses said
to the people, ‘Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of Yahweh
which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have
seen today, you will never see them again forever’ ” – Exodus 14:13.
On this Seventh
Day, Israel entered the Red Sea miqvah – baptismal water (on dry
ground), and came up the other side, but the Egyptian army was drowned.
“For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all
under the cloud and all passed through the sea; 2 and all
were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” Corinthians 10:1-2.
This day is known as "The Day of Faith."
The Talmud teaches that, at
the Red Sea, some had faith to jump off the banks before the
waters parted and landed on dried seabed, while others entered after
seeing the parted waters. All had greater faith after crossing and
seeing the Egyptians killed (Exodus 14:31).
Three kinds of faith are distinguished in the Hebrew Bible:
·
Emunah
b'moach -
Intellectual faith (belief in a fact or historical event - such as
Yeshua's crucifixion).
·
Emunah
b'lev - Faith of
the heart (trusting one's safety or security to something - such as
salvation by Yeshua's work).
·
Emunah
b'evarim - Faith
that encompasses one's entire being (the controlling factor of one's
thoughts and activities).
The final
deliverance: Yeshua will reign
on this earth, with those whom He has delivered, for a thousand years.
“Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to
them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of
their testimony of Yeshua and because of the word of God, and those who
had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark
on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned
with Messiah for a thousand years” – Revelation 20:4.
At the end of the
Sabbath Millennium, the armies of the world will gather for “the final
solution” – to destroy the Holy City, but fire from heaven will destroy
them.
“When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his
prison, 8 and will come out to deceive the nations which are
in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together
for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. 9
And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp
of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and
devoured them” – Revelation 20:7-9.
A seventh-day
purification, indicated by rising from a miqvah, is required for many
matters relating to death and renewed life. Examples are: after touching
a dead body, or touching a tomb.
“'anyone who in the open field touches one who has been slain with a
sword or who has died naturally, or a human bone or a grave, shall be
unclean for seven days. . . 19b and on the seventh day he
shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and
bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening” – Numbers
19:16 & 19.
As coming out of
the waters of the miqvah represents a birth - being born through the
waters of Eden, so by the physical we picture the spiritual - being born
through the Spirit of Messiah.
__________________
This year (AM 5765
/ AD 2005), for the Seventh-Day seder, the Sabbath order prevails; extra
readings pertaining to the Seventh Day of the Feast are added. No leaven
may be present.