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These festivals are built around the material harvest seasons in
Palestine--the early spring grain harvest and the autumn harvest.
God's great PURPOSE is fulfilled in TWO phases--the physical phase
begun with Adam, and the spiritual phase--a new, or spiritual creation--which
began with Jesus Christ, and continues today.
During the physical phase or period, God called out of Egypt his people
Israel and made them one of this world's nations. But God had closed up the Holy
Spirit upon Adam's sin (Gen. 3:22-24) UNTIL Christ the second Adam should
come and die in our stead in payment for our sins. God gave his annual holy days
and festivals to that nation Israel. But they (except the prophets) did not have
God's Holy Spirit, and so they did not understand the real spiritual MEANING of
these feasts.
God foretold the coming of Christ, born as a human, as in Isaiah 9:6-7.
But
Old Testament Israel never understood, and Judah rejected him when he came.
But as prophesied, Jesus was born to become a KING. He said he was born
to become a KING (John 18:37). Jesus' Gospel was the Gospel of the KINGDOM
OF GOD--of which he shall be King. He taught his disciples, died on the cross,
then ascended into heaven.
Then notice, Acts 3:19-21: The heavens have received him UNTIL the times
of RESTITUTION of all things. He is in heaven on the Father's throne, as the
High
Priest of THIS CHURCH. He is coming at the time of RESTITUTION of all things.
What is restitution? It is RESTORING to a former state or condition--restoring
something that had been taken away.
What former state or condition needs restoring? What was taken away--and
when?
Jesus did not restore anything at his first coming. Adam did not restore
anything. Jesus will not restore anything Adam had. It antedates Adam.
To understand, notice II Peter 2:4: "...God spared not the angels that
sinned..."! What! Angels SINNED? People suppose angels are
HOLY--righteous--perfect! Yet angels SINNED! When? Study verses 5-6. After
the sin of angels, came the sins of the antediluvian world--Adam to Noah. After
that came the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Angels sinned prior to Adam's
creation.
Now notice who led angels in sin. In Isaiah 14 it speaks of a soon-coming
king of "Babylon" of whom the ancient King Nebuchadnezzar was a type. This
coming king of Babylon shall restore the gentile kingdoms that started with
Nebuchadnezzar. You find this succession of gentile world governments pictured
in Revelation 13, 17 and in Daniel 2 and 7. Following the original Babylon
emerged the Persian Empire, followed by the Greco-Macedonian Empire, and next
the Roman Empire of 31 B.C. to A.D. 476. It was restored in 554 by Justinian,
and
became known later as the Holy Roman Empire. It lasted until Napoleon's defeat
in 1814. In about 1934-36 Mussolini claimed to have restored it again. One final
resurrection of that medieval Holy Roman Empire is now forming in Europe. The
fall of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's West German government may well signal its