Sid: We want everyone everywhere to be so filled with the love of God that a world that is broken and hurting can see the reality not the false witness that so many have seen but the real Yeshua, the real Jesus, the real God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You know my good friend Dick Reuben, and he’s the one that’s credited with laying the foundation for the great revival that occurred in Pensacola, Florida at Brownsville Assembly of God, makes this statement, “When the pattern is right the glory comes down.” Is our pattern for New Covenant Christianity right? Another friend of mine a pastor of a large church in Jacksonville, Florida said to me “Sid one day I was in Jerusalem in the giant synagogue and I was just praying.” This is a traditional synagogue, “And I was just praying and all of a sudden the Lord came to me and He said ‘I would be more comfortable in this synagogue than in your church,’” and my friend has a wonderful church. He was shocked but the more that you find out about how changed, what we call the church today has become the more you realize what this revelation meant, what Yeshua, Jesus, meant when He spoke to my friend. I have on the telephone Kevin Howard. Kevin is a Hebraic scholar and a wonderful Bible teacher. I was given a gift of the most beautiful book by a couple that really have a Jewish heart, they’re not Jewish but they really have a Jewish heart. It’s one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen on the Biblical festivals. The title is “The Feasts of the Lord.” One of the reasons that it’s so beautiful is it is a hardback book is the artwork. There are over a 150 full color photographs, or paintings, or charts that help you to understand the history and the customs of these Biblical feasts. I have on the telephone as I said Kevin Howard. Kevin why did you write this book?
Kevin: Well Sid it’s a pleasure to be with you today and I’m glad to speak about the book and answer that. Really the passion, or purpose, for writing the book was so that readers could understand two basic important truths concerning the feasts, that’s just basically it. First that feasts are vitally important to us because they are owned by the Lord. Hence that was title for the book “The Feasts of the Lord.”
Sid: Now when you say they’re owned by the Lord why do you say that?
Kevin: Well in Leviticus chapter 23 God commanded Israel to keep 7 annual feasts, 4 of them in the spring and 3 in the fall. However, He just didn’t give them cultural observances, you know the world is full of cultural observances, but He appointed these feasts and He owns them in this sense. He calls them in Leviticus chapter 23 He said “These are My feasts.” So the Lord appointed them and He owns them. So when I say “The Feasts of the Lord” they are the feasts given by the Lord but they are owned by Him, they are in other words collectively God’s divine appointment calendar with Israel.
Sid: You know it was pointed out to me a few years ago when it says in the English, but it’s from the Hebrew “That we are to have holy convocations.” The word convocation could have just as easily been translated rehearsals.
Kevin: Hmm.
Sid: And I really believe there are insights into future events in these Biblical feasts that the church is going to miss if they don’t understand these feasts.
Kevin: That’s exactly right. In fact that was the other purpose for me writing the book and I’m very excited and passionate about that. These feasts are so important because they are prophetic. As you said the Bible speaks of them prophetically, in fact the Bible likens them to shadows which prophetically point to the person and work of history’s most stellar individual the Messiah of Israel.
Sid: Well I’ll put it another way, how in the world can someone understand the gospels, the New Testament, which were written by Jews in a Jewish culture, for Jewish people without understanding the culture?
Kevin: I agree, I agree. In fact you see for example Passover you see paintings of Passover and Jewish men setting around the table, or the Last Supper, you know the Da Vinci painting and it’s very Roman it’s not a Jewish Passover you know. We’ve got to understand the roots and foundation, and cultural context to fully understand the events of the gospels in the New Covenant.
Sid: Why do you have… I mean the pictures are beautiful, but what is the real motivation of these gorgeous full color pictures with every festival?
Kevin: The photographs, the original paintings, the sketches I really wanted in the book to bring it to life, to put another dimension into this so that it wasn’t just another book, you know a reference book on the feasts but something that would be an experience for the reader to visualize and feel the worship of the ancient temple and how the feasts were celebrated Biblically as well as how the feasts are celebrated today in a modern Jewish home. All of those to bring about the experience in a visual side of the feasts that these are real and incredibly beautiful things are taking place here and ultimately pointing towards Jesus the Messiah.
Sid: You know since most Christians were not raised in a Jewish home like say Yeshua was.
Kevin: Right.
Sid: What you do when they read this book it’s going to help or remedy the situation of not even being able to visualize a Passover Seder. I mean with the pictures and the inscriptions you have you take someone right into a Jewish home for these observances.
Kevin: That’s exactly right. That was my motivation was to give an experience. Obviously we can’t go to the temple in Jerusalem of ancient Israel, but through artwork we can step back in time in our mind’s eyes and experience that as well as step forward to the modern Jewish home today and see these things. Even if we’re living in Timbuktu away from any Jewish community we can see what’s going on in the feasts.
Sid: You know some that very few Christians are aware of are the different calendars that it’s necessary to understand to understand the Bible itself. I wonder if you could briefly describe them.
Kevin: Sure. Often times people wonder why Passover seems to move, sometimes it’s in March other times it’s in April. Why it moves around on our secular calendar? The answer is found in that it’s tied to the Jewish calendar. The Jewish calendar has typically 12 months but the months are arranged or calculated or determined differently than on our standard secular calendar. These Jewish months on the secular calendar begin with the new moon. Without getting too technical the moon goes through its phases roughly every 29½ days. A new Jewish month comes up either every 29 or 30 days whenever the new moon occurs and it’s dark. So…
Sid: As you explain in the book which I found fascinating they actually had 2 people to verify that it was a new moon?
Kevin: Yes the Sanhedrin as really in the case of all Jewish law there had to be 2 or 3 reliable witnesses and 2 witnesses would verify that they had seen the new moon and therefore the new month would be declared. So the Hebrew calendar, the Jewish calendar, is lunar whereas our modern calendar is solar. So the Jewish calendar is corrected every so often with an extra month, a 13th month to kind of bring it back into correction so that Passover always stays in the Spring it doesn’t continue to cycle through into the wrong season. So it’s sort of a lunar solar calendar instead of our strictly solar calendar that we use.
Sid: Now we’re coming into what are known in Judaism as the high holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. As a matter of fact, Rosh Hashanah begins this Friday evening and we’ll be talking about these 2 festivals. Just out of curiosity I mean doing a book like this, going to Israel so much what is your favorite Biblical festival? Is that a fair question?
Kevin: Well yes it’s a fair question. I guess whatever holiday I’m currently celebrating that seems to be my favorite holiday. So it’s kind of hard to say “This is my favorite,” but I guess if I were hard pressed to say “What is my favorite?” I would have to say it’s Passover, I love Passover.
Sid: Out of curiosity do you have a Passover Seder with your family?
Kevin: Yes we do every year we have with our family and also sometimes with the local congregation. It’s a wonderful time of food and fellowship and just pointing towards Jesus as our Passover lamb.
Sid: I wonder, we won’t have enough time, but I wonder if you could kind of give us a thumbnail of the 7. It’s an interesting number that’s God’s number for perfection of the 7 festivals.
Kevin: Sure, and you’re exactly right the 7 annual feasts were no mistake. It’s the Biblical number for perfection and completion as you’ve said. So God gave Israel 7 feasts, 7 annual feasts. It’s interesting that these feasts occur 4 in the spring and 3 in the autumn, or the fall of the year kind of bunched together 2 major times a year.
Sid: Why is that?
Kevin: Well I would say a lot of them are tied, looking back to some agricultural, or farming purposes, or feasts of the harvest, but I think ultimately and most importantly these feasts are prophetic in nature and they look towards the work and person of the Messiah. The Messiah has 2 comings a first coming and a second coming. Just you so know I am not Christianizing the feasts or reading something into them we have absolute full weight of New Testament scripture that say these feasts are prophetic speaking of the Messiah. Paul himself said these are shadows but the real body or the substance is none other than the Messiah Himself. So that the feasts he taught us were simply the shadows of Messiah’s work of redemption throughout history. So Messiah had, it’s interesting in His first coming Paul said in Corinthians “He is our Passover Lamb.”
Sid: I’ll tell you what Kevin our time is up.
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth