Naysayers

I have, for a long time, wanted to use my real name on this blog, but because of opposition and stigma, I have not. The right time will come.

An acquaintance of mine has written a book entitled Feast-Keeping and the Faithful, and this book has caused more opposition, stigma, and heartache to those of us who truly believe we have found a long-forgotten gem in God's Holy Word. Back to that book another day.

When I first shared with a bunch of friends, about seven years ago, that I had attended a Yom Teruah at a local synagogue, I had no idea that anyone would think something was wrong with it. At that point, I was just interested in what Orthodox Jews did on that day. However, my Trumpets attendance had an immediate affect in that I was quietly uninvited from teaching an adult Bible class, i.e., teaching the class was not mentioned again. I did not protest, because not having the responsibility was something of a relief to me, but it, and having a shocking number of friends in other locations removed from church membership, gave me caution about saying much about what I have learned through my studies.

A very good Adventist friend of mine told me that observing the feasts is wrong, it makes people leave the church, and it keeps us from focusing on the sanctuary, which is the truth for the end times. I can't help but wanting to say, "Excuse me? What is observing the feasts all about if not gaining a deeper understanding of the sanctuary and its depiction of the plan of salvation through the annual holy days?" But I never did get to say it, because this friend is a talker and not a listener.

Yes, some have left the church, usually not so much because they chose to, but because they were asked to leave. And yes, some have been so excited about what they have learned that they are not judicious in how they share it. They trust that all will want to know and embrace what they have embraced. Some have been accusatory towards those who are not ready to accept it, saying things such as, "You cannot be saved if you don't believe this," so I know not all the fault is with the churches who have booted sincere people out of their congregation. And yes, there are those who did choose to leave, some because they cannot tolerate the hoopla around Christmas, a holiday not based on the birth of Christ at all; He was just pasted in later, on top of a pagan background. Have I mentioned Christmas in this blog? If not, I will attend to it at some point. Even though my church is increasingly secular in its Christmas celebrations, so far I find it relatively easy to avoid participating.

Some feast keepers, it is obvious, have attached to it strange doctrines, and because of that, their wanderings have painted the entire movement in shades of dark gray. Many, including the author of the book I mentioned, who travels around the world teaching his theories, seem to think that all who observe the Biblical feasts are following weird unbiblical doctrines not related to the feasts at all.

There are those who are strong advocates of using the term "Yeshuah" in any of its various spellings for "Jesus" and teach that if you use the name Jesus, you are not talking about the Son of God. Though I know "Jesus" was not how his name was pronounced, I don't agree with the Sacred Name movement, and I have already gone into that in other blog entries. Some have adopted what is called the Lunar Sabbath, in which the week begins at the new moon, and the weekly Sabbath is every seven days after the new moon. Of course, this leaves a few extra days at the end of most month which are not counted, and every month the "Sabbath" is on a different day of the week, an obvious contradiction to Bible teaching. Some believe a day starts in the morning instead of the biblical "even to even," and some teach that a day is only the sunlit hours. This has got to please a lot of people who see the Sabbath hours as restrictive instead of a blessing! These ideas get wackier and wackier and stray further and further from the Bible, and one can easily see how, in every case where there is truth, it gets attacked from all sides.

I believe that the biggest reason for these strange beliefs is that people will listen to someone, or read something that has been written, without checking the Bible for themselves. What's keeping people from coming together on beliefs is that so many will just read a book, such as Feast-Keeping and the Faithful, without studying to see what the Bible says. "This highly-educated person is smarter than I am, reads the Bible more, and has done more research, so I'll just go with what he says," appears to be the thinking of many -- on many topics, but especially on Bible truths.

Some believe that one can't know what the Bible says, and that you can make it say whatever you want it to say. Those who have that belief are exactly those people who will not study anything for themselves. They will listen to speakers, read books, and pick the one who has ideas that they like the most. It's a sorry state for those who want to follow the One who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."