The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2020 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 78

The Christian Roman Empire

Historians and most Christians consider the reign of Constantine a turning point in the history of the Roman Empire, the world, and the Church. Constantine supposedly shifted the polytheism of paganism to the worldwide march of the Christian gospel. The Nicene Creed that came from Constantine’s Council of Nicea even today is “the only ecumenical creed because it is accepted as authoritative by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and major Protestant churches,” Encyclopedia Britannica.

What happened to this Christian empire after Constantine? He got the ball rolling – where did it roll to?

Constantine, like other Roman emperors before him, sought to unify his empire under one religion. Previous emperors tried to do that by getting rid of Christianity. Constantine, the first “Christian” emperor, did it by getting control over Christianity and then making that his state religion.

You may recall that this “Christian” emperor killed his son and wife. “By their fruits you shall know them, [Matthew 7:20]” Christ said. Constantine’s fruit was to kill the fruit of his own body, and the wife who had borne his other children.

Constantine the Christian emperor contrasted sharply with the original Christian, who said —

Matt 5
43) “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’
44) But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you,
45) that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
46) For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?

Constantine acted more like a Roman emperor than a Christian.

Constantine “proved he could act without mercy when he killed two Frankish kings by throwing them to beasts in the amphitheatre at Trier.” Also, when Constantine defeated his sister’s husband Licinius for sole control of the Roman empire, “Licinius hoped to return to life as a private citizen which Constantine initially granted, but he went back on his word, and Licinius was hanged in 325 CE, even his nine-year-old son was killed.” https://www.ancient.eu/Constantine.

In 325, the year that Constantine held his Council of Nicea, he had his brother-in-law and nephew killed.

Not a very Christian start for the Christian Roman Empire!

Rome was the fourth of the great empires seen in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.

Dan 2
38) …you [Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon] are the head of gold.
39) After you shall arise another kingdom inferior to you; and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.
40) The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, because iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things; and as iron that crushes all these, shall it break in pieces and crush.

44) In the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

The four great empires in world history from that time forward were Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece and Rome. Each of those empires ruled over the Jews. Israel had asked for a king like all the other nations. When their kings failed to obey God, Israel was ruled by the kings of those other nations. Be careful what you ask for!

Daniel said that in the days of the fourth kingdom, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. That means the fourth and last kingdom, Rome, continues to exist in some form until Christ returns.

Again, what happened in the centuries after the Roman Empire and the Roman Church joined in one unified Roman religion?

In 330, Constantine moved the center of the Roman empire from Rome to Byzantium. He renamed the city New Rome, but later it came to be known as Constantinople, and still later by the Muslims as Istanbul.

… Istanbul. In 330 A.D., it became the site of Roman Emperor Constantine’s “New Rome,” a Christian city of immense wealth and magnificent architecture. Constantinople stood as the seat of the Byzantine Empire for the next 1,100 years…
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/constantinople

Constantine enlarged and Romanized his new capital. He “transferred art and other ornaments from Rome for display in the new capital. Its wide avenues were lined by statues of great rulers like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, as well as one of Constantine himself as Apollo.”

The first Christian emperor erected a statue of himself as the sun god Apollo?

Constantine the Christian emperor had taken a giant step toward unifying the Church — and unifying it with the Empire — at the Council of Nicea in 325, yet within the next decade he also depicted himself as Apollo. Romish Christians and sun worshiping pagans had both been appeased and pleased by Constantine’s Sunday law. In the same way, the Christian emperor had no problem picturing himself as Apollo.

Remember that the old Roman religion was all in and all accepted. People could keep their own religions but everyone had to accept all other religions and all had to offer incense to the emperor as god. The important thing for Constantine was unity in the Empire, not for the cause of Christ but for the cause of the Empire.

The Roman Church followed that inclusive approach when it adopted pagan practices to “convert” the pagans. Their “statues of Apollo” still exist in their religions icons, and in their days and doctrines.

The emphasis of that religion is recruitment, not repentance. It does not emphasize personal repentance before God or individually overcoming human nature, but just joining the Church.

As with Constantine.

He is the “Christian emperor” —
-even though he wasn’t baptized until on his deathbed, meaning he lived at least 99.9% of his life as a depraved sinner;
-even though he killed his son and wife;
-and even though he depicted himself as the sun god he had worshiped his whole life.

All of that is regarded by Christians to this day as relatively irrelevant. What matters is that —

He joined the Church!

After Constantine’s death, his son Constantius split the rulership of the Christian empire with his two younger brothers. He did not kill them but he did wipe out most of his other male relatives.

Constantius was responsible for the slaughter of his cousins and uncles, of Theodora’s line during the great massacre of 337 CE. Such a slaughter within the imperial family itself was unprecedented. Murdering his relatives (such as Dalmatius, Hannibalianus and Julius Constantius), whom he saw as challengers to his and his brothers’ ascensions to the throne, Constantius secured his own position within the Empire. The only two male members of this line of the imperial family to survive were Gallus and Julian.
Ancient History Encyclopedia, Constantius II

This second Christian emperor, son of Constantine the Great, did something that had never been done by any previous Roman emperor —

He massacred his own extended family. “Such a slaughter within the imperial family itself was unprecedented.”

Previous emperors, including Constantine, had slaughtered unrelated competitors. Constantius slaughtered relatives, making this Christian emperor worse than the old pagan emperors.

When Constantius’ brothers died – and he did not kill them — he became sole emperor. Then at his death his nephew Julian, one of two male relatives he didn’t kill, became emperor.

“Julian had been baptized and raised as a Christian, but, although he outwardly conformed until he was supreme, Christianity in its official guise meant to him the religion of those who had murdered his father, his brother, and many of his relations and, as such, was hardly likely to commend itself to him.”
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julian-Roman-emperor

Roman Christianity had not been good for Julian, so he reverted to good old paganism. He is known as Julian the Apostate, and he persecuted those who were called Christians. After all, they had wiped out his family!

He was the last officially “pagan” Roman emperor and ruled for only 20 months. After him, “Christianity,” a blend of pagan practices and Christian names, was the continuous official religion of the Roman Empire.

The Roman Church, aligned with the Roman government, continued to attack the beliefs and practices of the original disciples of Christ, such as the Sabbath. We recall how Hadrian, after the Bar Kochba rebellion, had forbidden anything Jewish in Jerusalem, including the Sabbath and Feasts. In the same vein, Constantine had outlawed Passover to “separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews,” Eusebius. “Christian” Rome kept up those attacks against first flock faith, just as pagan Rome had done. All those original Pentecost Christians, including Peter and John, would have been attacked by the Roman Church, had it existed then.

However, those repeated Roman attacks through the centuries testify that a number of non-Roman Christians still sought to follow Christ the King and not the Church.

Rome and the western empire fell in 476, when Germanic armies sacked the city. The eastern part of the empire, ruled from Constantinople, lasted another millennium, until 1453 CE. “New Rome” was about 1400 miles by land from old Rome, yet —

“The Byzantines called themselves ‘Romans’, their emperor was basileon ton Rhomaion or ‘Emperor of the Romans’ and their capital was ‘New Rome’...
https://www.ancient.eu/Byzantine_Empire.

The Patriarch of Constantinople was the eastern pope or religious king, appointed and thus controlled by the emperor.

Paganism continued to be practised for centuries after the foundation of Byzantium, but it was Christianity which became the defining feature of Byzantine culture, profoundly affecting its politics, foreign relations, and art and architecture. The Church was headed by the Patriarch or bishop of Constantinople, who was appointed or removed by the emperor. Local bishops, who presided over larger towns and their surrounding territories and who represented both the church and emperor, had considerable wealth and powers in their local communities. Christianity, then, became an important common denominator which helped bind together diverse cultures into a single empire…https://www.ancient.eu/Byzantine_Empire.

You see how Constantine’s plan to unify the Empire worked. His Church helped unify his Empire.

Christ said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” yet this Church, which claimed to be the one true Church, was joined at the center to the greatest earthly kingdom.

But there was a problem.

When Rome fell, the Roman Church remained. Thus there existed an empire Church at Rome and an empire Church at Constantinople. Just as would-be Roman emperors often fought for supremacy, so the Roman Empire’s dual Churches fought for supremacy.

The greatest schism in church history occurred between the church of Constantinople and the church of Rome. While 1054 is the symbolic date of the separation, the agonizing division was six centuries in the making and the result of several different issues... When the Roman Empire was divided into two zones, Latin-speaking Rome began to claim superiority over Greek-speaking Constantinople, and disputes arose over church boundaries and control (for example, in Illyricum and Bulgaria)... Disputes over authority became even more heated in the 11th century as Rome asserted its primacy over all churches. Lesser matters related to worship and church discipline—for example, married clergy (Orthodox) versus celibacy (Roman Catholic) and rules of fasting and tonsure—strained ecclesial relations.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity/The-Schism-of-1054

Tonsure is “a part of a monk’s or priest’s head left bare on top by shaving off the hair,” Oxford dictionary. Tonsure is an intentional bald spot. Roman monks had them, Constantinople’s didn’t, and apparently the Roman monks did not want their tonsures removed.

“The tensions became a schism in 1054, when the uncompromising patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, and the uncompromising envoys of the pope St. Leo IX excommunicated each other.”

“Total alienation came a century and a half later, as a result of the Crusades, when Christian knights made military campaigns to save Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade was diverted to attack and capture Constantinople brutally. Thousands of Orthodox Christians were murdered, churches and icons were desecrated, and undying hostility developed between East and West,” ibid.

Right after Christ said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” He said, “If my Kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight,” John 18:36. Roman Empire Christians did fight — slaughtering each other. Rome prevailed, because their side slaughtered more. Did that make them better Christians?

You can see that Christian Rome, whether in Rome or Constantinople, was an awful lot like old pagan Rome.

Not only were the Churches divided between Rome and Constantinople, but two empires developed.

Several centuries after Rome fell, the Holy Roman Empire appeared in the west, as a counterpart to Constantinople in the east. It was the Holy Roman Empire because the Roman Church made it “holy.”

Charlemagne of the Franks was the first emperor. He ruled France — the name comes from the Franks – and western Germany and Belgium. When Charlemagne visited Rome in 800, the Roman Pope unexpectedly crowned him the first Holy Roman Emperor.

Suddenly, as Charlemagne rose from prayer, Leo placed a crown on his head and, while the assembled Romans acclaimed him as “Augustus and emperor,” the Pope abased himself before Charlemagne, “adoring” him “after the manner of the emperors of old.”
https://www.britannica.com/place/Holy-Roman-Empire/Coronation-of-Charlemagne-as-emperor

So there were two empires, the Holy Roman Empire in western Europe, and the Constantinople Empire. Therefore there were two emperors, and two true churches.

You can quickly deduce that two true Churches is one too many. If there are more than one, then there are none.

As discussed previously, Christ did not say, “I will build my Church,” with Church being a Roman type ecclesiastical empire. He actually said, “I will build my ekklesia,” an assembly, congregation, or flock – which is the very opposite of the Roman Church or the Constantinople Church or any other Church with a Roman type government.

After being attacked by the Crusaders in 1204, Constantinople continued a couple centuries more as a weak eastern empire. In 1453 Muslims conquered the city, and today it is Istanbul, in Muslim Turkey. The eastern Church split into other Churches, including the Eastern/Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and other less orthodox Orthodoxes.

In the west, the Roman Church was closely intertwined with the Holy Roman Empire, with popes crowning emperors. The emphasis, as in old Rome, was on keeping the state religion unified.

The most glaring example of enforced unity was the Inquisition.

Oxford Dictionary defines the Inquisition as “an ecclesiastical tribunal established by Pope Gregory IX c. 1232 for the suppression of heresy. It was active chiefly in northern Italy and southern France, becoming notorious for the use of torture. In 1542 the papal Inquisition was re-established to combat Protestantism, eventually becoming an organ of papal government.”

Should a Church be notorious for torture?

Beginning in the 12th century and continuing for hundreds of years, the Inquisition is infamous for the severity of its tortures and its persecution of Jews and Muslims. Its worst manifestation was in Spain, where the Spanish Inquisition was a dominant force for more than 200 years, resulting in some 32,000 executions.
https://www.history.com/topics/religion/inquisition

Actually, the Church also persecuted non-Roman Christians.

Such as The Waldensians –

Their views were based on a simplified biblicism, moral rigour, and criticism of abuses in the contemporary church. They accepted the Bible as the sole, total authority of all doctrine. Additionally, a formal church building was not viewed as necessary to worship God, and thus many Waldenses held services in their homes, stables, or other locations.

Their movement, often joined to and influenced by other sects, spread rapidly to Spain, northern France, Flanders, Germany, and southern Italy and even reached Poland and Hungary. Rome responded vigorously, turning from excommunication to active persecution and execution. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Waldenses

So the Roman Church turned to active persecution and execution!

This is the instruction that Christ gave His disciples.

Matt 10
16) “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
17) But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you.

Notice that Christ said the Christians were not the persecutors but the persecuted — harmless as doves.

On the other hand, this was how the Roman Church went forth, from the history.com article Inquisition.

Inquisitors would arrive in a town and announce their presence, giving citizens a chance to admit to heresy. Those who confessed received a punishment ranging from a pilgrimage to a whipping.

Those accused of heresy were forced to testify. If the heretic did not confess, torture and execution were inescapable. Heretics weren’t allowed to face accusers, received no counsel, and were often victims of false accusations…
https://www.history.com/topics/religion/inquisition

The most famous part of the Inquisition was the Spanish Inquisition, where great wealth was taken from the “heretics,” giving extra motivation to the inquisitors. The Roman Church forced Jews and Muslims to convert, who were then known as Conversos. Later the Roman Church then executed them, for being false converts.

How about that reasoning? The Church forced them to convert, then accused them of not being sincere. They thought the Conversos were Reversos.

“In 1481, 20,000 Conversos confessed to heresy, hoping to avoid execution. Inquisitors decreed that their penitence required them to name other heretics. By the year’s end, hundreds of Conversos were burned at the stake.” Ibid.

The Inquisition reached far beyond Spain.

In Portugal —

In 1580 Spain conquered Portugal and began rounding up and slaughtering Jews that had fled Spain. Philip II also renewed hostilities against the Moors, who revolted and found themselves either killed or sold into slavery. Ibid.

In France –

In 1307, Inquisitors were involved in the mass arrest and tortures of 15,000 Knights Templar in France, resulting in dozens of executions. Joan of Arc, burned at the stake in 1431, is the most famous victim of this wing of the Inquisition. Ibid.

In the Netherlands –

Netherlands, where Lutherans were hunted down and burned at the stake. Ibid.

Even in the New World –

As Spain expanded into the Americas, so did the Inquisition, established in Mexico in 1570. In 1574, Lutherans were burned at the stake there, and the Inquisition came to Peru, where Protestants were likewise tortured and burned alive. Ibid.

Martin Luther, a Roman Church priest, naively posted his 95 suggestions for improving the Roman Church in 1517. However, they actually sought to improve their Church by killing Luther and those who agreed with him.

By the mid-1600s the Inquisition and Catholic dominance had become such an oppressive fact of daily life in Spanish territories that Protestants avoided those places altogether…Ibid.

The last person to be executed by the Inquisition was Cayetano Ripoll, a Spanish schoolmaster hanged for heresy in 1826, ibid.

Senor Ripoll took his place in history as the last Inquisition execution. At least up to now. And at least they hung him instead of burning him.

The Roman Empire had perhaps ten periods of intense persecutions of Christians from 64 to 310, about two and a half centuries, for not submitting to the Roman religion. The Roman Church, on the other hand, actively persecuted those who would not submit to their Church from 1232 until the last execution in Spain in 1826. So the Roman Church persecution lasted more than twice as long as the Roman Empire’s persecution.

Further, the Christian Church’s means of torture were Satanic. There is no other way to realistically describe what they did – just demonic torture.

One of the Church’s most famous torture devices was the rack, where “heretics” were stretched into submission. Another was to hang the victim upside down by his legs, then two men with a big saw would begin to saw the heretic, beginning at the groin and going down. And of course, there was the common practice of burning the heretic at the stake, as with William Tyndale the Bible translator.

Christ said, “the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God,” John 16:2. Roman Christians burned hordes of people at the stake, in their “service” to God.

This is what the Jews did to Yahweh’s true followers.

Heb 11
37) They were stoned. They were sawn apart. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They went around in sheep skins and in goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated…

Sawn apart? That sounds a lot like what the Roman Church did.

How was it that the Jews and the Roman Church wound up acting the same way?

They could act that way because they both were the true religion.

The Roman Church, which joined the Roman Empire, wound up like the Roman Empire, with their days, their doctrines, and their titles, like Pontifex Maximus. They also wound up like the Roman Empire in their persecution of Christians who would not join their Church.

The Holy Roman Empire ended in 1806 when Napoleon took the crown from the hands of the pope and crowned himself. The Inquisition also soon ended.

So Constantine began the Christian Roman Empire. He got the ball rolling. Where did it roll to?

Right back to the persecutions of the old Roman Empire, for the same reason.

Why did the Jews turn Yeshua over to the Romans to be killed?

Because He did not submit to the official religion, which was the Jews’ religion of traditions and commandments of men.

Why did the Roman Empire periodically persecute Christians for 250 years?

Because the Christians would not submit to the official religion of the Roman government.

Why did the Roman Church persecute Jews, Muslims and Christians for six hundred years?

Because they did not submit to the Roman Church.

How did Constantine’s Christian empire do?

It unified the Empire under one religion for many centuries, just as he wanted.

Those Christians who sought to follow Christ directly and to personally go by the Bible had to reject the organized, powerful, dominant, good-looking religion. To follow the true Christ, they had to reject the true Church.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2020 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 77

Forward to the Past

Jewish history is incredible!

Full of miracles.

It’s almost like they’re God’s people or something.

After the fall of Solomon’s Temple, the Jews were deported en masse to Babylon. Seventy years after the deportation began, Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to the Holy Land and Jerusalem. Most deported Jews chose not to return. Those Jews in Israel were never again under the throne of David, which sat empty, waiting to be given to Him whose right it is.

Five centuries later, the King of the Jews was born. The Jews rejected Him and turned Him over to Rome to be killed. Forty years after that, Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the second Temple. Many Jews were killed and many were taken into slavery.

About six decades passed before the next Jewish rebellion under Bar Kochba was crushed by Rome. Jews were then forbidden to even see Jerusalem.

After all that, there were far more Jews outside of the Holy Land than in it, concentrated mainly in the Middle East and Europe. Through the centuries, they suffered repeated persecutions. Hitler’s Holocaust was only the latest in a series of persecutions, but it was surely the worst. Three years after the end of the Holocaust and World War II, the Jews again had their own nation, in the Holy Land. Nineteen years after that they recaptured Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. So in twenty-two years the Jews went from being caged and exterminated like rats, to regaining their land and their Temple area, or rather Yahweh’s land and Temple area.

For whatever reasons, Israel left the Temple area under the daily administration of the Muslims. Currently, Jews are working toward building a third Temple on the Temple Mount. This seems politically unlikely, but given the miracles that have already occurred, the miracle of a third Temple may soon come to pass.

In addition to the Jews being back in the Holy Land and controlling the Temple Mount, a number of Jews are now accepting Yeshua as the Messiah, the King of the Jews, and their personal redeemer.

For nearly two millennia Jews overwhelmingly rejected Yeshua as the Messiah. The first flock was all Hebrews, but a century later Roman led Gentiles began to take over Christianity. From that time, few Jews accepted the risen Messiah as Jews were often persecuted by the Roman Christian Church and this only cemented their opposition to Christ.

Jews returning to the Messiah, the Messianic movement, is a spontaneous movement. It is not controlled by a Roman type pope, or any one particular denomination or human government. Although they risk being cast out and shunned by their families, a steady flow of Jews continues to return to the King of the Jews. As with the return of the Jews to Israel and the Temple Mount, this is also a modern miracle.

Moreover, many who are not Jews are grafting into this movement.

Church denominations that teach the Sabbath and Feasts may spend millions of dollars trying to recruit people into their churches. However, instead of adding many members to their own groups, these denominations may just hold even or even shrink in numbers. On the other hand, the Messianic movement in its varied sub-groups, without anyone spending millions on media and promotion, without any really ‘big name’ evangelists, grows steadily. The new converts are sometimes burdened by a fascination with Judaism, trying to follow the Messiah while following the Pharisees, but as yet they have not been hamstrung by the Corinthian fleshly fad of denominationalism.

Those in the Messianic movement then begin to learn about Yahweh’s Feasts. Mainstream Christians applaud as the Jews accept Christ, but because of that Christians then become aware of the Feasts. How can they then fault the Jews for keeping the same worship times as the Pentecost Jews, like, you know, Peter, James and John? So while mainstream Christians persist in the Roman holidays, their noses are rubbed in the Bible festivals.

The Jews came back to the Holy Land, some Jews are accepting Yeshua as Messiah —

And here is another modern miracle.

Just as Yahweh brought the Jews back to the Holy Land, so He is bringing spiritual Israel, both Jews and Gentiles, back to His Feasts.

For centuries, few outside of the Jews were concerned at all about the Bible Feasts. It was impossible for Christians on the western side of the globe to know of a new moon half a world away in Israel. They certainly could have observed a new moon wherever they were and set months and Feasts by that. But the reality is that the Feasts and Sabbath were so despised by Roman Christianity that up until the twentieth century, few Christians bothered with them. In fact, most Christians, including Sabbath keepers, viewed the Feasts as tantamount to sin, like trying to earn your salvation. So it didn’t matter to them when the Feasts were, other than a few observing Passover by the Pharisee-Jewish calendar.

Now events have brought the Feasts to the attention of the world. The tiny nation of Israel is continuously in the news and the battle over Jerusalem has the attention of the whole world. People around the globe now hear of Passover every year, they know about Yom Kippur and the biggest Christian/Messianic Succoth gathering in the world is in Jerusalem.

On the other hand, almost every Christian now knows that Christmas is not really the time of Christ’s birth, they know that the name Easter is from Ishtar and they know that Halloween is not really a hallowed evening. Some few Christians are then motivated to go beyond the Roman festivals back to the Bible Feasts. With the drive to build another temple, the focus on the Feasts will increase.

Why should Yahweh pull people away from following the Romans and their holidays just to send them to the Pharisees and their feast days?

Are the Pharisees better than the Romans?

No.

The Romans and the Pharisees/Jews both tried and crucified the Messiah. Roman Christianity adopted the doctrines and practices of the Roman Empire, the Pharisees simply became Judaism, and both widespread religions continue today. Yahweh is not leading people back to either Rome or Judaism.

Rome substituted the Roman high day Sunday for the Sabbath. Rome replaced Tabernacles and Passover Feasts with Christmas and Easter. Then only one generation after Constantine’s Council of Nicea, the Pharisees officially replaced the observed Temple Feasts with their calculated days.

Both Rome and the Pharisees thought they were doing right, but they exalted their own thoughts above God’s words.

Gen 3:2-4
2) The woman said to the serpent, “Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat,
3) but of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
4) The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t surely die,

Satan said to Eve, “You won’t surely die” for disobeying God. Christ tied the Pharisees right back to that original lie of Satan.

John 8:44
44) You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father.

The idea that you can ignore, overrule or otherwise disregard God’s Word and get away with it is a lie. Both the Romans and the Pharisees bought that lie.

Overruling God’s words always seems so reasonable, right, Eve? Exalted human reason is the reason humans fall.

Amazingly, in one generation both Christians and Jews did away with Yahweh’s holy days. All that was no accident, but was part of Satan’s plan to deceive, appealing to self-exalting human reason.

And, it is no accident that today, just as Yahweh brought the Jews back to the Holy Land, so He is bringing people back to His Feasts.

Before the King of the Jews was born two millennia ago, Herod the Great beautified the Temple. Herod thought he was king of the Jews, so he tried to kill the baby Yeshua when he slaughtered all the baby boys around Bethlehem. However, this beastly man unwittingly prepared the Temple for the coming of the King by enlarging and enhancing it.

Likewise, before the King returns, the spiritual Temple — His flock — is returning to His Feasts, the times when His people are closest to Him — to beautify His spiritual Temple.

But mark this for certain.

God is not bringing people back to the Roman Christmas to prepare for His Son’s return. In the same way, He is not bringing people back to the Pharisee feasts to prepare for His Son’s return.

To prepare for His Son’s return, God is bringing people back to Him. The Feasts they learn will be Yahweh’s Feasts, as they were at the Temple. These will be the original Feast days, set by God Himself in His creation, as now admitted by the Pharisees themselves, and to some degree, also by Romish Christians.

All of this is absolutely incredible, yet this is what has happened and is happening.

At the Temple, festivals were set by observing when the new moon began a new month. Sighting of the new moon was announced by the priests to the people. With the fall of the Temple and the priesthood, self-appointed rabbis took over the function of announcing the new months. The rabbis gradually, however, switched from announcing the Feasts to setting the feasts. They switched to a calculated festival system, while still going through the pretense of observation. Finally, under Roman persecution, the Jews devolved solely to their calculated system. They actually changed the Feast days, while pretending to keep them.

In addition, over time they added their “postponements,” based on human reason. If they didn’t think a festival high day should be held next to a weekly Sabbath, they postponed it.

Why are they called “postponements?”

Because they took it upon themselves to “postpone” God’s holy days.

Just as Jeroboam “postponed” the Feast of Tabernacles by one month.

Can the Pharisees do that? Can they really change the holy day because they don’t think it’s right?

Your answer to that depends on your religion. Do you follow God, or do you follow humans who say they’re following God?

Since Yahweh gave no such commands anywhere in His Bible to postpone His holy days, the rabbis elevated themselves above El Shaddai, God Almighty. Their reason ruled over His.

All of this put the Pharisees in charge of the Feasts. “You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition,” Matthew 15:6. And they did just that when they changed the holy days from God’s days to their days. Their traditions made Yahweh’s days void.

Again, before the return of His Son, God is not bringing the flock back to Rome or Judaism, whether Christmas or the Pharisee calendar.

We can now accurately know when the months really begin in the Holy Land and this shows just how remiss the Jewish calendar is. The Pharisee-Jewish calendar often calculates a “new moon,” and people can look up and see, “Ain’t no new moon up there!” This happens repeatedly and this motivates people – including the Pharisees — to return to the Temple system, when there really is a new moon up there. Yes, even the Pharisee rabbis themselves intend to return to that system, simply because it is Biblical and their calculated calendar is not Biblical. The Jewish calendar is just Pharisaical, full of complicated, convoluted, confusing rabbi regulations.

In Temple times, the Jews made a new month known by lighting fires from hilltop to hilltop. In this age of instant communications, the festival fires can now be lit worldwide, instantly announcing electronically a new moon from the Holy Land.

A number of Christians now observe the Feasts by that knowledge.

Most do not.

When the Pharisee rabbis themselves change back to the Temple festivals, what will these Christian Feast-keepers do?

Will they follow the Pharisees back to the Temple Feast days?

Or will they only follow the Pharisees when they forsook the Temple Feast days?

Or they can decide to go ahead and follow God directly, since they are God’s Feasts and not the Jews’ feasts and not the Pharisees’ feasts. They can keep Yahweh’s Feasts that He sets by His signs, as He said in Genesis 1:14.

However, it is very hard for people to change their religious traditions. Roman Christianity was faced with pagans who wanted to be Christian without giving up their paganism. Rome gave in and renamed the pagan practices to make them “Christian.” In like manner, Christians who have long observed the festivals set by the Pharisee-Jewish calendar are loathe to leave them. They now face the same test as the early Christians who hated leaving Rome’s days.

Do we follow God directly or do we follow a religious authority?

During the 2020 China Virus Pandemic which began in the spring, the Roman Pope gave permission to Roman Christians to skip giving up meat on Fridays for the pre-Easter Lent season. How compassionate!

However —

None of that comes from the Bible. Lent is not from the Bible, Easter is not from the Bible, and the Pope is not from the Bible. That’s all just human created religion.

In the same way, the Jewish Talmud is not from the Bible and the Pharisee-Jewish calendar, just like the Talmud, is not from the Bible. That’s all just human created religion.

Following a Pope or a rabbi looks religious, sounds religious, seems religious. Halloween, Christmas, and Easter seem very religious, and most of the world follows that. Speaking of the so-called “inspired Jewish calendar” seems very religious, and most festival observers go by that. But all that is just the religion of human reason, the traditions of men put above the Word of God.

Following a human religion always seems more religious than just following God.

But —

Following any religious authority between you and God is not following God. Following a Pope or a rabbi is not following God. The only way to truly follow God is to follow God.

And that is what we are called to do.

This is what Christians and Messianics and believers in Christ look forward to.

Acts 1:9-12
9) When he had said these things, as they were looking, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10) While they were looking steadfastly into the sky as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white clothing,
11) who also said, “You men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who was received up from you into the sky will come back in the same way as you saw him going into the sky.”
12) Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.

Christ’s feet will return to the same Mount of Olives that they last touched. Many now understand that God’s Feasts outline His plan for His people. When the feet of Christ split the Mount of Olives, the flock of Christ will soon be keeping Succoth with Him.

Zech 14
4) His feet will stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in two, from east to west, making a very great valley. Half of the mountain will move toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

6) It will happen in that day, that there will not be light, cold, or frost.
7) It will be a unique day which is known to Yahweh; not day, and not night; but it will come to pass, that at evening time there will be light.
8) It will happen in that day, that living waters will go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea; in summer and in winter will it be.
9) Yahweh will be King over all the earth. In that day Yahweh will be one, and his name one.

16) It will happen that everyone who is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, Yahweh of Armies, and to keep the feast of tents.
17) It will be, that whoever of all the families of the earth doesn’t go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahweh of Armies, on them there will be no rain.
18) If the family of Egypt doesn’t go up, and doesn’t come, neither will it rain on them. This will be the plague with which Yahweh will strike the nations that don’t go up to keep the feast of tents.
19) This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations that don’t go up to keep the feast of tents.

When does all this happen? When will the nations begin to go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahweh of Hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles?

Right after the King arrives!

Why wait? The King is here! Go up to worship the King!

Ps 47
1) Oh clap your hands, all you nations. Shout to God with the voice of triumph!
2) For Yahweh Most High is awesome. He is a great King over all the earth.
3) He subdues nations under us, and peoples under our feet.
4) He chooses our inheritance for us, the glory of Jacob whom he loved. Selah.
5) God has gone up with a shout, Yahweh with the sound of a trumpet.
6) Sing praise to God, sing praises. Sing praises to our King, sing praises.
7) For God is the King of all the earth. Sing praises with understanding.
8) God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne.
9) The princes of the peoples are gathered together, the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God. He is greatly exalted!

No better time to sing praises to God than at His appointed times!

Just as the first flock waited for that Feast of Shavuoth or Pentecost in 30 CE, so the last flock waits for the first Feast of Succoth in the Kingdom of God, to worship with the returned King. And when the Messiah comes again and the world keeps the Feast of Tabernacles with Him, that Feast will not be calculated, regulated, or post-dated by the Pharisees. The Feast will be set by the King!

Isa 66:23
23) It shall happen, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me,” says Yahweh.

Again, the Feasts are Yahweh’s set times, when His people are closest to Him. His set times were kept during Temple times. Then there was a long period when most lost sight of His times, and kept the days set by Rome or Judaism. Now we are beginning to return to the way it was at the Temple, when Christians look directly to God to set the times for His people.

We are going forward to the past.

The way it will be is the way it was.

We are seeing marvelous miracles in these wretched modern times. One of these is that, just as in Temple times, we can know when Yahweh’s set times are. The whole world can know when they are, as the electronic bonfire signals fly out from the hills around Jerusalem to the farthest reaches of humanity.