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Preparing for the End of Time
The Lord is Coming! Are you ready?
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This is a transcript of the first of two parts of a Ron du Preez (ThD, DMin, PhD candidate, Communication Director, Michigan Conference) presentation "Feast-keeping and the Final Crisis" which aired on the 3ABN "Today Live" program Thursday July 29, 2010. The presentation states God's command to observe the yearly Sabbaths no longer applies. The host of the program is CA Murray.
It is interesting to note, the "Today Live" programs are almost never rebroadcast. However, this particular program was rebroadcast in the "Today Live" time slot on October 7, 2010. I am impressed this program was rebroadcast when other programs of this type are not usually rebroadcast. I was shocked when I learned 3ABN was going to air this program for the third time Thursday night May 19, 2011. It is very rare for a "3ABN Today Live" program to ever be repeated. This one is being broadcast an unprecedented THIRD time! Truly the shaking of the church is in process. Ron Du Preez was interviewed AGAIN Thursday night December 8, 2011 covering essentially the SAME subject. http://video.3abn.com/Download.html?TLA011533 http://video.3abn.com/Download.html?TLB011533 This program was discussed in the 2010-08-06 newsletter titled Confrontation and the 2010-08-20 newsletter titled Final Crisis. I wrote a partial response in the 2011-05-28 newsletter titled Ceremonial Law. There have been many other responses, which can be found by a Google search. You can view or download the streaming video file of this presentation from this website. http://www.iaua.name/Archives/TLA010526.wmv Click to play or right-click the link to download the file TLA010526.wmv and select "Save target as..." (173M) to save the presentation on your computer. There are a couple of time code marks in the transcript to synchronize with the video. Additional corrections may be necessary in the future to pin down mumbled words or refine spelling of Hebrew and Greek words. |
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MURRAY>> Any statement, regardless of how profound it may be, if it is repeated often enough, has a tendency in our minds and the human mind to become somewhat shopworn, to lose its edge, perhaps even then to become trite and over rehearsed. Given that reality it is still compellingly true that the statement that I am about to make is one that should arrest each of us who name the name of Christ. And that statement is simply that 'Jesus is coming again.'
DUPREEZ>> Amen. MURRAY>> Now, we've heard that over and over again, year in and year out, decade in decade out. But if that ever was true, it certainly is true now. We need to add the exclamation point - 'He is coming again, very, very soon!' now, given that reality, there are a number of things that attend that reality – that sort of appertain to that reality. And one of the things is that our church is going to go through biblically predicted trauma and drama as we seek to walk the road that leads to glory. We shall we shaken. We shall be tested by things both without and within, by physical things, and spiritual things, and by theological things. Issues that perhaps we thought were settled will be resurfaced and re-agitated as we seek to order ourselves and get ourselves ready for the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let me welcome you to 3ABN Live, my name is C.A. Murray and allow me to thank you please once again for sharing this part of your day with us. We've got two hours to be together to wrestle with some of these things that the church is facing in these last days. We have brought in, dare I say, an expert, someone who has dedicated his life to the study of the word of God. And has brought forth from that study jewels and pearls that we will try to mine this very night as we wrestle with an issue that is one of the issues that is facing the church in these last days. Over these last several weeks, months, years we've talked about a number of things including creation. We saw a number of things happen over the General Conference. There are a number of things that the church is going to have to wrestle with yet again as we perfect ourselves, as we work on being the kind of people that God wants us to be. My guest is Dr. Ron du Preez. Ron, good to have you here. DUPREEZ>> Good to be here. MURRAY>> Well, we brought him in to talk about the feasts. We're going to be talking about feast keeping and feast days. So this is one of those kinds of programs we're going to talk about theology. It's a theologically based program no one can get away from it, so why don't you grab a pen or pencil, a typewriter, a computer, ipod, ipad, whatever you want to take notes. You will want to take notes on this particular program because this is a phenomena that the church is facing. Now, we want to sort of ease into this by saying a couple of things: one – it is not our intention to deify or demonize anyone. We are not going to lift up our friends and tear down our enemies because that is not what God asks us to do in these last days, He asks us to do everything in love and a Christ-like spirit. And yet, there are issues the church must face. When we think that something is error or mistake, we need to say that without saying that the people who hold that belief however passionately are wrong or bad or evil or malevolent. There are some very good people who have some ideas that do not totally line up with the weight of biblical evidence. So we are going to talk about the weight of biblical evidence, not attempting to demonize or destroy any person or persons, we are going to just look at the bible doctrine. I think the good Doctor agrees with me on that. DUPREEZ>> Absolutely. MURRAY>> We just want to see, "What does the bible say?" now, I need to pay you a compliment because you've been here before and whenever you talk about bible subjects your face kind of lights up. You know there is this joy that sort of emanates from your face. You really like what you do. DUPREEZ>> Absolutely, I love digging deeply into the written word. It helps me to get to see the living word of Christ and of course, He says He came to give us life more abundant. What's there not to smile about? What's there not to be joyous about? MURRAY>> Praise the Lord. DUPREEZ>> Admittedly it steps on our toes, the Word does sometimes. That helps us to develop character so we reflect the love of Jesus. MURRAY>> So, this is not going to be a sad, morose, dry theological treatise or opus not at all. We're going to open up the Word of God and let the light of Christ's love shine from that Word and illuminate our past. And we've got someone who's spent a good part of his life studying the Word of God. Were I to give you his degrees, and I will do that; he has a Th.D. a D.MIN. working on a Ph.D. So he's got, as my friend says, more degrees than a thermometer. And, dare I say, he's an African American. DUPREEZ>> Absolutely. MURRAY>> He is more African American than I am, having been born in South Africa. DUPREEZ>> That's correct. MURRAY>> Holding now dual citizenship – South Africa and the United States of America. DUPREEZ>> Sometimes I tell people three citizenships. The bible says my real citizenship is in heaven. MURRAY>> Is in heaven, amen. DUPREEZ>> So, I have these two earthly ones and then of course, the real citizenship, that's correct and of course the American citizenship through my wife who was born and raised in Texas. MURRAY>> In Texas, amen. So you have a couple African Americans sitting here, praise the Lord, who both owe their allegiance and citizenship in heaven and that's what brings us together and those are the kind of things we want to deal with and wrestle with this very evening. Before we un-package his story, and I want to talk a little bit about his personal journey because that is one of interest also. Before we sort of loose him and let him go into tonight's subject we've got some special music. Herman and Sonny Harp are standing in the wings as it were and are going to be singing "The Wayfaring Stranger" medley. |
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I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger. Just traveling through this world of woe. There is no sickness toil nor danger in that bright land to which I go. I'm going back to see my Jesus. I'm going there no more to roam, to roam. I'm just going over Jordan, I'm just a going home. I want Jesus to walk with me. I want Jesus to walk with me. All along my pilgrim journey. Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me. I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger but I'm going, I'm going home. MURRAY>> Amen, well done, Herman and Sonny Harp, "Wayfaring Stranger" medley. Very well done. Ron and I were talking during the break just before we came out and discovered that we were at the seminary at the same time at Andrew's University. DUPREEZ>> Right. MURRAY>> And, I suspect, sat in some of the same classes and may not have known that. But in the same years, we won't say precisely what years but they were indeed the same years. Just to get into a little bit of background before we get into our discussion of the feasts. We will give out some information in just a little bit because I suspect that our discussion will occasion some questions some comments some concerns from you and we will give out some information so that you can give us some questions and as time allows in the second half we'll try to address and redress some of those issues that you may have. But we're dealing with an issue, very very contemporary, is one that the church is facing and looking at today and wrestling with just a bit so we want to give you an opportunity to sort of weigh in on this subject before our night is done. Born in South Africa, Adventist home? DUPREEZ>> Yes, correct, Adventist home I tell people you are never born an Adventist, you're born in an Adventist home. MURRAY>> Precisely. DUPREEZ>> I became one by choice and thank God for parents who gave me a good direction and was just fortunate, I also had a lot of Seventh Day Adventist schooling – not all, I studied outside as well. I'm currently studying at a state university under a Dutch Reformed professor. I've had both inside and outside of the church structure. MURRAY>> Now you say you became one by choice, about what time in your life did it occur to you that you sort of needed one on one, slowly or traumatically? DUPREEZ>> Well, make a long story short, when my friends got baptized when they were about twelve I just jumped in as well, you know. But never really gave my heart to the Lord then. It was about twenty-four, twenty-five when I really actually accepted and made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as a result of an incredible series of events, long story but that's what I consider my real commitment to Jesus. And that ironically happened only after I had finished four years of theology. I tell people I was a college theology graduate who didn't know Jesus. And only subsequently did I give my heart to Him and have had a wonderful growing relationship thirty years more. MURRAY>> I think I fall into the same category. You can have a technical working knowledge of the bible and of theological concepts and really not have a working relationship with Christ. DUPREEZ>> Right. MURRAY>> Was it a dramatic incident or just a dawning upon you that you... DUPREEZ>> For me it was a dramatic incident where the Lord answered my prayer in a phenomenal way, and it takes a whole half an hour just to tell the story. But, the only time I ever talked to the Lord was at mealtimes, a short grace. This time when I was in the foxhole as they say, I turned to the Lord and said, "I need help!" the Lord just didn't answer the prayer but overwhelmed me with His grace and I knew He was trying to get through what they sometimes call a "gospel hardened birth." This is when we search week after week and maybe in the back row. God just overwhelmed me with His answer. He didn't just provide my needs, He provided beyond my wants even. And when I saw that, I said, "Okay, Lord, okay. Yes, I get it! Thank You for being so good to me!" MURRAY>> Forgive me now, because the reporter in me has turned on. Is it something you can sort of share within a broad context? I'm just curious. DUPREEZ>> Okay, I'll give it two or three minutes. I was living in South Africa as you probably would know by now. I was in my twenties, my early twenties and my Mom got very ill and we didn't have telephones, cell phones back then. And to make a long story short when she got ill and I was a thousand miles away I didn't know what happened and I didn't have any way to get home so I turned to God and I said, "God, I need to get home urgently." Because I'm very close to my Mom and I wanted to make sure I could see her before she dies because I didn't know what was happening. MURRAY>> Yes. DUPREEZ>> And that's when I ended up hitchhiking and I got a ride with my cousin for the first one third of the journey and then about 600 miles not only did a car stop, it turned out to be a Mercedes Benz. Now this was back when hitchhiking was quite safe still. It was a Mercedes Benz – a brand new Mercedes Benz! And it just, like, "Wow, Lord, You answered the prayer incredibly!" And then the guy asked me to drive! And, you know, how much better, I'm in my twenties and not only that he fed me. He just stopped and buy whatever you want I happen to have some cassette tapes of Adventist singers with me and I popped them in and I found myself driving myself in a brand new Mercedes Benz listening to Seventh Day Adventist music. That just kind of overwhelmed me and I got home that evening and I, "okay, Lord, okay. Tomorrow morning…." You know, it was around midnight, "Tomorrow morning, I will start to serve You. You're such a good God and I will tomorrow morning start spending time in Your Word." That was the key turning point that I began to read the bible and God willing by the end of this year I will have had the privilege of going through His Word thirty times, thirty different versions. MURRAY>> Praise God. DUPREEZ>> So that's what I'm just flooded with the wonders of God's grace. MURRAY>> Isn't it amazing how God will give you just what you need when you need it to sort of open your eyes and let you know of His love and His care for you… DUPREEZ>> That's right, that's right. MURRAY>> Praise God, praise God. So you finish your work in South Africa. DUPREEZ>> Yes, well, I was just doing secular work raising money to come to the states to go into school which was when I didn't meet you but we were in the seminary at the same time there. Studied there, went to Korea as a student missionary. Linda who was a student at Union College, Nebraska she went to Korea a few weeks after I did. I met her there both as missionaries. We ended up getting married and going back to Korea later on as director of language schools. And we went to Japan and Guam and later on we went to Zimbabwe as missionaries and we went to Peru. So we worked in different countries around the world as missionaries and right now in Michigan. That's where I am currently located. MURRAY>> Communications director right now in the Michigan conference. DUPREEZ>> Yea, communications director. MURRAY>> When did this hunger for biblical knowledge – you've got several degrees, you are as qualified as any communications director that I know. That THD is a tough degree to get. They don't give away a T.H.D. And the D.Min. and finishing up your Ph.D. When did this hunger for knowledge in the Word of God and understanding, where did that come from? DUPREEZ>> Well, oh, probably, I have never thought about this very much except that when I started digging into the word after that conversion experience, after the hitchhiking I began to read my bible faithfully. I began to carry little bibles with me to give away to people. Not only did I want to get to know it, I wanted to share it. And I would trace it back to the 70's when I was converted. In fact my first opportunity I had I turned around then went back down to Cape Town to see my best friend to spend a weekend with him to tell him what God has done in my life. So I made another two thousand mile round trip just to go tell him my story. And the Word became so important and ever since then I've seen the need to dig into the word. It fills my soul, it's fascinating, and of course it lifts up Jesus Christ and helps me to become a better person for His glory. |
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MURRAY>> Right, praise God.
DUPREEZ>> So I would trace it back to that conversion and that desire to know Jesus. MURRAY>> When you began was it a desire to have so you could share or a desire for just personal enrichment that sort of sent you to the Word? DUPREEZ>> I would say personal enrichment but one the personal enrichment I was so filled, I couldn't be quiet. I don't know, my best buddy, in fact I went a thousand miles down back to Cape Town from Johannesburg and spent the entire weekend with him. We went into the mountains just my best buddy and I and we just spent there and I shared with him my conversion. MURRAY>> Wow. DUPREEZ>> Just had to tell him, but again, the moment you dig into the Word you've gotta share. MURRAY>> Yes, yes, yes, yes. DUPREEZ>> And different ones share in different ways. Some are preachers, some are teachers now I became a teacher and of course I have been a Pastor for several years and some people are more quite. They'll do it in a quiet bible study. Some people will share the Word more through their life. But we all, Christians are all called upon to be missionaries. MURRAY>> Yes, yes, yes, yes. What occasioned or led you to this particular concentration on the feasts? You've delved into a number of things including Sabbath. We know you work in Colossians and a number of things you've really hit on. But this is sort of your current passion. What sort of drove you into that area? DUPREEZ>> What drove me? I'll have to give credit to this very place. Because it was here in August of 2007 when I was invited to come and do a live presentation. I was interviewed by John Lomacang and we dealt with Colossians 2:16. MURRAY>> Yes. DUPREEZ>> So I would have to go back a little bit to where that came from. Just in brief, in case people didn't see that presentation. It started in 1989 when I was doing my Ph.D. work at that time at Andrew's University digging into the topic of the Sabbath, seventh day Sabbath. And I came across Colossians 2:16 which of course, in a nutshell, in a summary statement which says let no man judge you concerning food and drink, feasts, new moons and Sabbaths. In verse 17 these are all a shadow of things to come. The reality, the bodies of Christ and just summarize briefly the main ideas and I looked into it and I began to see that within the Seventh Day Adventist Church there was a main idea but there were some people going in different directions and so that caught my attention. I decided to write a paper on it. I began in '89 and I wrote a hundred pages and out of that grew my interest in this topic. And eventually I applied for a Ph.D. on this and I'm busy working on that as we speak. Lord willing to be done next year 2011. And then 3ABN asked me to come and present on Colossians 2:16 what I have been studying. Now to make a long story short eventually Andrew's University Press asked and they came and they published this book, and I'm not advertising it but this is the book that Andrew's University did from that study here. And so this is AU Press and they asked me to write the manuscript for them so they could share it with all I shared here. Of course if people do want it, it is called JUDGING THE SABBATH. MURRAY>> JUDGING THE SABBATH, yea. 21:00 DUPREEZ>> And Andrew's University Press did this book for the topic that I presented here at 3ABN. And of course they promote the book and it's interesting. But from there … MURRAY>> Yea, what happened? DUPREEZ>> When the call in and the questions came after the presentation that second hour all kinds of questions came and we tried to stay on our topic, however afterwards because my name had been up there and my address. I got lots of material I have some with me here, that was sent by Seventh Day Adventists who disagreed because I had tangentially mentioned if my memory serves me that not only does this deal with ceremonial Sabbaths, and we will get to that later on, but also there's the feasts and the new moons and I suggested that these were all things that pointed to Christ and because He came, we don't do them anymore. And so I got lots of material from feast keepers. That's how it got me into this topic. 21:54 MURRAY>> Ah, ha, so you sort of backed into this by really an obiter dictum kind of statement, just kind of a throw away statement that was included in a broader context. 22:02 DUPREEZ>> Correct. MURRAY>> And so that sort of set you careening down this pathway as it were. DUPREEZ>> Exactly! And then I began to get cds and DVDs, and books, materials and eventually I began to study and to read it. And then I began to meet feast keepers. MURRAY>> Yes. DUPREEZ>> Some of them directly, some of them on the phone and of course, from there on I was then invited by feast keepers also. And I ended up going to what we call a feast keeping camp meeting. And I met some wonderful feast keepers. Now, the feast keepers, I want to say, those Seventh Day Adventist feast keepers I've met, they are not what we would consider liberal cultural Adventists, no, they are committed to the bible they deep students, the want to dig into the word. They are passionate, they love studying the bible. And I had had one wonderful experience out at a feast keeping camp meeting. I was blessed. There was vibrant music, it was reverent, it was alive and it was a kind of old time camp meeting. But it was a wonderful experience in meeting and spending time with them. And that's how I got into it. And I began to study, to dig into research and I'm still learning. MURRAY>> Yes, yes, yes. So when we talk we are not judging anybody's Christianity, we are not judging anybody's relationship or love for the Lord because these people as you have rightly said are not fringe, they are not wild, they're not off. They are people who believe in the Word of God. And are people who have a very strong passion for their beliefs. DUPREEZ>> Correct. MURRAY>> Having said that we need to let the weight of biblical evidence stand for itself. Which is what we are attempting to do tonight. So let's launch out into our subject. Give us if you will, good Doctor, some background on the feasts and the argument in its broadest terms as it is being postulated today. DUPREEZ>> Can I by introducing this whole issue one of the things that caught my attention was the commitment that Seventh Day Adventist feast keepers have to it. And I cannot say they all believe exactly the same, but I've seen some things that are consistent in many of the writings or their presentations. One of which is as follows: they have said that at the end of time we, as Seventh Day Adventists, must keep not only the seventh day Sabbath that's in the bible, but also all of the holy days. The ceremonial, what we sometimes call ceremonial Sabbaths, or the annual Sabbaths, the feasts, Pentecost, Passover these all need to be kept. All of these holy days must be kept and if you don't keep them, then you will be lost ultimately. So not only is salvation tied in, now they say this is not salvific, however you will be lost. MURRAY>> That makes it de-facto salvific! DUPREEZ>> If you don't keep these things. These are important, at least at the end of time. And of course, this gets my attention and I start digging into the text. Why is it so important? And I will admit that as I began to reflect on it I realized that some of my own explanation and study of the scripture had not been as careful until I got to know feast keepers. They really helped me to be a much more careful and articulate, hopefully, presenter of the word. I used to use terms loosely. The ceremonial law, the Mosaic Law, but as I talked to the feast keepers I found that I must be much more precise. And so this was helpful in my journey in understanding. Now I actually had a journey, literally, I was driving from California coming back from Michigan to work in Michigan and after having met with the feast keepers, having spent time with them many of the thoughts and questions they raised began to come to mind and so I drove from California down to Phoenix and from Phoenix all the way back to Michigan up alone in the car. My wife was already in Michigan. And that, what, two, three thousand mile journey was another journey. And since I was alone a lot of these things were going through my head. And so I had a double journey. I had a theological journey as I was having a literal journey. And so part of what I did was I reflected – I'm going to ask if we can put up our first power point presentation because there's a slide that briefly shows you the questions I had in my mind. There were five questions that I began to ask myself and dealing with four basic divine institutions. Okay, you see, I asked the when the why the how the for whom till when dealing with the seventh day Sabbath, sacrifices, circumcision, and sacred seasons. And that was my journey. As I traveled those thousands of miles those were the questions I asked. 26:35 MURRAY>> That you wrestled with. DUPREEZ>> Yes, I wrestled with and I jot down a few notes and the reason I began to think about this is because I used to just say, "Oh, the ceremonial system? That started with the Israelites." And then somebody said, you know, well what about Adam and Eve? Wasn't there a sacrifice when they sinned? Hmmmm, and I began to rethink and so as I journeyed I began to think about this. This was very helpful; five questions, right? Seven day Sabbath – when was that established? At creation. Why? As a memorial. Very clearly if you study the bible in context. By whom? By God, it's not astronomical. You know, we have the month, the year, and the day all astronomical things, but the Sabbath was set aside by divine fiat for whom? Not for the Jews but for everybody and so when? And we know it goes all the way through the new earth and so I ask those questions. You follow? And that was what was going through my mind and then I went to the next one and I began to say, what about the sacrifices? What about circumcism and then when I got to sacred seasons I asked the same five questions. So I began to reflect on it and then I began to dig into the bible to see if I could find answers for these important questions. So that was part of my journey that helped to clarify all of this. |
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MURRAY>> Okay, the feast days per se have specifics of contextual reference.
DUPREEZ>> Right. MURRAY>> Who and why and what was God trying to do in their establishment? DUPREEZ>> That is what is so important. I want to open up a bible and if anybody has their bibles where you are and you're watching, we're going to Exodus 20:12 briefly. Chapter twelve, this is just a few verses, now this is a large study as you well imagine and I've been spending quite a bit of time digging, learning, researching, but in Exodus 12 we will find, I'm reading from the NKJ version. Exodus 12:25-27 just those three versus maybe you can read it, you read it. I've got the NKJ, what are you reading from? MURRAY>> I'm reading from, what did I bring with me today this is the King James. DUPREEZ>> Okay. Those three versus Exodus12:25-27. MURRAY>> "And it shall come to pass when ye be come to the land which the Lord will give you according to He hath promised that ye shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass," I'm going to verse 26, "when your children shall say unto you, 'What mean ye by this service?'" 27 "That ye shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses,' and the people bowed the head and worshiped." DUPREEZ>> Right. You see it's when I came across that it started. I realized ah ha, this is what God is telling through Moses to tell the children of Israel that Passover started there. Very interesting, so I began to trace when it started, why it was there? Of course it was instituted by God through Moses. Who was it for? And those are the questions I would ask. It's very interesting; if you study very carefully it became more and more clear that these were for Israelites. Incidentally the Passover was not to be celebrated by anybody unless they had been circumcised. Now, it was the Israelites, obviously, and we know the Ishmaelite also. We know that circumcision started with Abraham and Ishmael and anybody else who wanted to participate had to be circumcised. MURRAY>> Yes. DUPREEZ>> So there's a restriction. And of course, as you study further you find out that all males had to go to the central temple in Jerusalem for the Passover, unleavened bread, the Pentecost, for Tabernacles, so it was also a location centered one. So as I began to study, it became more and more clear the sacred seasons were set up by God for the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. And so this became part of, "Ohhh, okay." And so until when does this go? So all of those questions came to mind as I began to delve. MURRAY>> Indeed, indeed. A term you used a couple of times in the last several moments 'sacred seasons' – define that term for me, if you will. DUPREEZ>> The word, term sacred season, I haven't found a better term myself. I'm open to one. Different people use different language for and the reason I use the words sacred season, there is a Hebrew word called mo'ed and the mo'ed or mo'edim which is the plural for mo'ed, you know, like you have cherubim which is plural for cherub you have moa deem which is plural for mo'ed. That is an interesting word, it appears about 220 times in the old testament. It's a word that sometimes only means feast or sacred season. I don't like to use the word feast because by the way the word feast in and of itself is a joyous occasion. There is a separate specific word for feast in the Hebrew language when it deals with the sacrificial system and so forth, it's the word chag, very much like the word haj. The Muslims go on a haj to Mecca. And this is the same type of thing. It's a pilgrimage feast. It's a haj, it's like the Aramaic is close to the Hebrew so it's a haj or the chag and so that's the feast. But the word mo'ed is a broader term because it not only includes Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, it also includes Trumpets, Day of Trumpets and Atonement. And the five and of course the others are included in there. But these five, Unleavened bread, but these are not called feasts. Actually, technically in the bible the Trumpets is never called the Feast of Trumpets, never, it's the Day of Trumpets. And they didn't have to go up to Jerusalem. It wasn't a pilgrimage feast. MURRAY>> Yes, you have several pilgrimage, the other ones you could correctly call … DUPREEZ>> Correct, and that's why I use the words sacred seasons in order to show I'm talking about all of them. And the term sacred seasons, I haven't found a better one sometimes in one of the bibles I have it calls appointed seasons but the word mo'ed most of the time actually means the tent of meeting, it's a congregation of meeting. Sixty seven percent of the time it's translated by the King James it's translated as something like the tent of meaning. And even the Jewish Publication Society they point out that it's a place of meeting, not the time. But about twenty five, twenty eight percent of the time it deals with these moa deem these sacred seasons. MURRAY>> Yea. DUPREEZ>> And then dozens of times the word mo'ed refers to all kinds of other things. The bird knows its appointed season when it should fly south for the winter and it's a general term dozens of time the word mo'ed so actually the word mo'ed does not mean sacred season per se. It has multiple meanings, one of which about the quarter of time means sacred season or appointed time or set time. That's why I tried to find a term but I haven't found a better one other than sacred seasons. MURRAY>> Yes, yes. DUPREEZ>> I use the words sacred seasons it works to include all of them other than the seventh day Sabbath. And the reason I use the words sacred season for the mo'ed, by the way, the word mo'ed in the Hebrew Baruk Lavene, Jewish scholar has pointed out in the Jewish Publication Society commentary that the Sabbath is not a feast. MURRAY>> Yes.. DUPREEZ>> Because you see mo'ed is a time that is set annually, the Sabbath is never set annually. A mo'ed is set by the sighting of the moon, Sabbath is not set by the sighting of the moon. MURRAY>> Ah ha. DUPREEZ>> And so actually it is incorrect to refer to the seventh day Sabbath as a feast. So Sabbath is other than the sacred seasons. MURRAY>> You are pre-supposing my next question. Because there are some who would say well, if you do away with the feasts then you really have to do away with the Sabbath because they're intimately and integrally connected and there are some who say well the Sabbath is done away also. How do you sort of wrestle or work you way through that? DUPREEZ>> Oh, that's a large question. One of the best ways is we go back to Genesis 1 and 2 just to remind the folks go back to Genesis 2 end of chapter 1:31 and then Genesis 2 talks about the umm verse 1 Genesis 2:1 "Thus the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished." This is the creation story. "and on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." We know this is the setting up of the Sabbath, now we know there is no direct command given there but we know that God set it up and how do we know for sure it was a command? Because when we get to Exodus and the Ten Commandments smack bang in the heart and literally it is actually this is a fascinating thing when you study the Hebrew the Ten Commandments are actually divided up into three sections. There are about sixty some words of the first one, two, three commandments then the fourth commandment is about sixty some words and the last commandments five through ten are sixty something words. So actually even amount of words of the fourth commandment takes about the same amount one third smack bang in the middle and you got a third here and a third there. MURRAY>> Yea, it's interesting in Hebrew the Ten Commandments are much much shorter than they are in English. DUPREEZ>> That's right, you are correct. MURRAY>> We use a lot of words to do what they do in a very few words. DUPREEZ>> That's right but you have a send of the Sabbath right in the middle and right there in the heart of the ten commands in the seventh day Sabbath God says six days you shall work verse 9, okay why, "but the seventh day resting is the Sabbath your Lord your God" and why verse 11, "for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth." So here God makes sure that people understand it's part of the creation story. And, by the way, some people say oh you Seventh Day Adventists you come up with this. What's interesting a scholar, a Lutheran scholar, Dr. Walter Kaiser, I just listened to him a few months ago he has a book out in which he says all of the ten commandments are found in Genesis. He's a Lutheran scholar. And you don't have to get to Exodus, you can find the Sabbath in Genesis. That's it! Kaiser is right that we recognize that. So once you see that the Sabbath is part of the Ten Commandments and by the way, when God establishes the Sabbath in Genesis and here in the ten commandments there's no connection between the Sabbath and sacrifices. Not at all. And in fact in Genesis when God created the earth and He created Adam and Eve there were no sacrifices because there was no sin. So that's the first thing that differentiates the seventh day Sabbath from these feast days that were set up. Completely different, now let us go to Leviticus 23 and you will see in Leviticus the importance of sacrifices attached. Leviticus 23 and we want to go to a verse there, verse 37. Leviticus 23:37, now when you read it at first. Why don't you read first while I catch my breath you read verse 37 and you won't immediately notice in the English, but I want to point something out to you and we'll dig deeper and we'll see how the feasts are different the sacred seasons. 37:16 MURRAY>> All right, we're in Leviticus 23:37, "These are the feasts of the Lord which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord a burnt offering and a meat offering a sacrifice and drink offerings, everything upon His day." DUPREEZ>> Right. Now right in the middle of the verse there's a little two letter word, a preposition, the word "to" and you read it there. "these are the feasts to be holy convocations to offer." The word 'to offer' 'for offering' the NIV puts it that way, okay? And the ESV English Standard Version 'for' it points out it's an idea of, um this is the NIV and the ESV for bringing offerings. That's interesting because when you go back to the Hebrew there's the word "to" there and in Hebrew that's the word luh, it's a preposition tied in with an infinitive, now I know it's a little grammar here but and you know what it means? "To" and the infinitive is the purpose and it's interesting because the New Jerusalem bible translates it this way now I want you to listen to this. "These are Yahweh's solemn festivals to which you will summon the Israelites. The sacred assemblies," notice, "for the purpose of offering food burnt." Now once you realize that these sacred seasons were for the purpose of – take away the purpose – have no sacrifices – then what? MURRAY>> You have no reason to be there. DUPREEZ>> Yea, you have no reason and you go to the Book of Numbers chapter 28 and 29 you will notice that virtually everything around the sacred seasons was just the offering of these sacrifices. And so there is an intimate relationship if you have no sacrifices you cannot have feasts because sacred seasons, the broader term including Atonement and Trumpets are for the purpose of. MURRAY>> Now that's a very subtle point, I want to just hold you there because it's a good point that the meeting is for the purpose of sacrifice, it's not a feast in and of itself it doesn't stand alone, we come together to do this – we come together for this purpose. So if you take away the purpose then the meeting is illegitimate. DUPREEZ>> Correct. MURRAY>> So to say that feasts, we use that term, stand for themselves, no they were called for a purpose. DUPREEZ>> Correct. MURRAY>> And you have to take that sort of whole ball of wax, you cannot tear that apart. DUPREEZ>> Absolutely right, they got intimately intertwine, for we I sometimes do you remember a few years ago this will date you the old pressure cookers. Before the days of microwaves they would take a pot that had a special lid that locked. MURRAY>> That's a little before my time. DUPREEZ>> Awwww, come on! You do remember those pressure cookers don't you? MURRAY>> Yea, I do. DUPREEZ>> It cooked the beans over night and the beans would get nice and soft but here's what I'm saying if you don't think I'm serious, man do you have a pressure cooker I want to show it to my kids. They are in the microwave era, they don't know what we had to do you know, and then you say to me I've got a pressure cooker but I broke the lid. Now here's my question – what's a pressure cooker without the lid? |
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MURRAY>> It's not a pressure cooker, it's a pot.
DUPREEZ>> It's not a pressure cooker, it's a pot, you're right. It's lost its purpose. Unless you have that lid that locks it in it cannot work. It's in the same way these two are so intertwined remove the sacrifices and there is no feast. In fact when you study them more carefully, it becomes fascinating. All of the feast days, all of the sacred seasons and I'm using I'm using the word feast interchangeably with sacred season. but the more correct term is sacred seasons. Because the Day of Atonement was not a feast day, it was a joyous celebration it was a flip your souls on that day. MURRAY>> Yes, very much so. DUPREEZ>> And so many of us use the terms interchangeably. But all of these sacred seasons, you will notice everyone of them other than the Day of Atonement, only the Day of Atonement, no work must be done. The other sacred seasons you can do no ordinary work, no servile work, and no hard work. Why? Because you were busy sacrificing. See? Whereas on the Day of Atonement no work whatsoever. So however, the point is these are so integrally intertwined and the sacrifices when did they start? They actually started after Adam and Eve sinned. We know that when God clothed them with the skin and then Abel and Cain have sacrifices this all starts after sin. And so you realize that feast days sacrifices, they came about because of sin. And ultimately who do they point to? Ah, ha, so go to John 1:29 so here's what I want to make sure we always look at all of these things lead sacrifices. MURRAY>> While we are turning you may be thinking, boy, these guys are getting into some deep water here. They're wading in kind of deep this is theology I don't know if I can follow them. Let me encourage you – jump in the water's fine. Wade in and stick with us on this because this is going to arm and fortify you. You may know someone who you want to witness to, you may have some questions of your own or someone may have said something to you that you could not answer so stay with us stay on this because this is good information and I guarantee that you will come away from this this is sort of feast 101 as it were. We're trying to equip you to show you some of the things that the church is facing and how you as a child of God can deal with this and have a reason for the hope that is in you. So if the water is deep, put on your water wings, jump in and swim, water's fine we'll hold you up and the doctor won't let you drown. This is good stuff so stay with us. DUPREEZ>> Yea, in fact I'll say this is like the Dead Sea in the sense that you won't drown even if you can't swim; yea, there's so much salt in the water ah, some years ago I had the chance to go to the Dead Sea. John 1:29 here we go, John 1:29, it's talking about Jesus and John the baptizer or Baptist as we call him and John 1:29 says, "John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 'behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.'" MURRAY>> Yes. DUPREEZ>> The whole sacrificial system which are intimately intertwined with these sacred seasons all ultimately point to Jesus Christ. There's no question about this as we study the scripture in an integrated whole and look at it very carefully. Now when I say study the scripture I was hoping we would have time to encourage people with a good methodology. Maybe there will be time to bring that in because one of the biggest challenges I found out with the issue of sacred seasons feast keepers is the method of bible study. It's picking and choosing a verse here and there and then piecing it together like a jigsaw puzzle instead of following a biblical methodology, which then will be less likely for you to go astray on this topic. MURRAY>> Now, this is important because we've been taught as students of the bible particularly in the Adventist Church that that is how one establishes a doctrinal premise. You never establish a doctrinal premise on one text; you don't pull out one text and say that is the rule for our life. We find it as it repeats itself throughout the word of God. So we do have some history, I don't want to say picking here and there, but certainly finding a doctrinal foundation in many places in the bible and bringing them together to build our platform. But you are saying you have to do that in a systematic kind of way. DUPREEZ>> Yes, yes! And right here in John 1, right? Go back two chapters which means its to Luke 23 um, let's see, Luke 24, oh no, one chapter actually, just one chapter back this is providential that we're here right now. Go back to Luke 24:27, will you read that, Luke 24:27? And this by the way is a I believe a divine methodology for studying the scriptures. MURRAY>> Yes, yea. "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the scriptures all the things concerning Himself." DUPREEZ>> Who's this talking about? MURRAY>> That's Jesus. DUPREEZ>> Jesus, that is right. And so when we look at that verse and I never really realized that before but believe it or not, you can believe this here. I lectured for eight hours on that verse. I did, I was training bible workers and showing how that one verse – you can unpack it. Okay so what we are trying to do here in about one minute instead of eight hours, if you look at that verse this is Jesus, where did he begin? With Moses and all the prophets. But first it's Jesus so all our bible study must be Christ dependent. This is very important, this is Jesus doing it and of course we can have Him walk with us, this is the road to Emmaus. He doesn't walk with us literally but He can walk spiritually when we spend time on our knees before we open the Word. Okay, this is so Christ dependent and notice it is chronological beginning with Moses and the prophets. And so when I study the whole issue of the sacred seasons feasts one of the key things we've got to start in Genesis and track it all the way through to Revelations. And we do find it here and there but we follow in chronological study instead of jumping in like most of my feast keeping friends jump right in the book of Leviticus and extrapolate from there. And that's a very dangerous methodology because I can show things in Leviticus that actually Leviticus is not the place to start. You cannot start diving off a fifty foot board before you even know how to swim. You got to start, if somebody pushes you off you got to pray and you go down and the Lord will provide. But you don't learn to swim that way and the problem is that if you dive in at Leviticus you get confused but if you follow this method beginning with Moses so chronological and all the prophets He expounded, that word expounded is from the Greek word dierimuo from hermeneutics. He so did, it is Christ dependent, chronological, careful, He expounded in all the scriptures it was comprehensive, all the scriptures it is canonical, the cannon of scripture the things concerning it was contextual, you see that? Himself, and so we look at all of them and that is Christ centered and we look at all these seven beautiful principles and when you study the bible in that way according to this method of Jesus the method of the Messiah for searching the scriptures you begin to unpack it and you don't end up as easily with some of these things that are leading people astray. MURRAY>> Yes, yes, yes, that's wonderful. Canonical, stay in the Word, contextual let the Word explain itself let it define how your going to … DUPREEZ>> Comprehensive. MURRAY>> Precisely and let sequence do that. And if you follow those thing you are going to pretty much land on your feet. DUPREEZ>> Christ centered, Christ dependent, yea. Careful study, that is what we have to do, man. MURRAY>> One of the things we have to do before we go into the second half. As a learner I want you to really wrestle with is the word perpetual. It comes up again, and again, and again, but we do have a free offer for the evening and we haven't had a chance to get to it. See this is the good stuff for me, I love this stuff, I love digging into the Word of God and that's why be bought you because you know you are an excited student of the Word. I can see it in your face, you glow, you smile, you like this stuff. DUPREEZ>> I love it. That is good. MURRAY>> Praise the Lord. Our free offer for the evening is "Why the Old Covenant Failed" it is by the venerable Joe Cruz who began Amazing Facts. "Why the Old Covenant Failed" – good little booklet, you can put it in your pocket not very thick but packed with information. If you will call us 618-627-4651 or email us at freeoffer@3abn.org we will get this right out to you. Now should you hear anything this night that you want to talk about, add light to, have questions on, want to comment on, call us, again 618-627-4651 or email us at live@3abn.org and we will as time allows get to those questions in the second half. As we alluded to before, this is a hot topic this is something that there are many people that are passionate about and should you want to sort of weigh in on this discussion send your questions in and as time allows we will get to them in the second half. Good doctor, I did say I was going to toss a word at you, I toss it to you now we hear about perpetual and there are those that use this as justification for keeping always. DUPREEZ>> Right, now before we get to perpetual let me just back up one more thing. You asked the difference between the Sabbath and these feasts. The one is the issue of when it was established – before sin it was established. The other one was sacrifices and these feast days, sacred seasons are intertwined with, the feast days and sacrifices are so closely intertwined there is no way to separate them. Impossible. And what's interesting that later on there were sacrifices on every day. There was a morning and an evening sacrifice and then on Sabbath it was essentially doubled. So there were special sacrifices on the seventh day Sabbath. But all of these things pointed to Christ. This Sabbath did not, the seventh day Sabbath points back to creation. Okay, whereas the sacred season the feast days they point to Jesus because they were directly and inexplicably intertwined with the sacrifices. And by the way when we get to Daniel I want to just mention that and then we will go to the eternal/perpetual idea. Daniel 9:27 does talk about Jesus coming, it's a prediction and evangelical Christians, bible believers believe this is talking about Jesus and you notice verse 27 says, "Then He shall confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week you shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering." Bring an end to it. So this is predicting that the sacrifices and offerings would end and when we get to 1Corinthians 5:7 we find Paul actually identifying that yes, it did come to an end. 1Corinthians 5:7. Now it starts with, "therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new one since you are truly unleavened." Now here it is, the last part of verse seven, what does it say. 5:7 MURRAY>> "even Christ our Passover is sacrificed or us." DUPREEZ>> Yes, that's right, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. So these things all for pointed for to the Christ. And when you study the bible carefully you find out that the word Passover as an example is used for what you eat. It says kill the Passover, eat the Passover, and then it says keep the Passover. The feast, in other words the terms are used interchangeably so much so that the eating, the feast, sacrifice, and the day there's no difference. Okay, see that? Whereas sacrifices that happened on the Sabbath are completely separate and distinct from it. And where as here when you go to the bible you kill, you eat, and you keep the Passover at the same time. They are part and parcel of it, so this is very clear and so 1Corinthians 5 or 7 Christ fulfilled these things. Now, true the questions comes up what do you do with the term perpetual. MURRAY>> "Now before you do that you occasioned a question of mine. DUPREEZ>> I was waiting for your next question, you want to back track? MURRAY>> "Oh, indeed, does it do violence to your thesis, am I hearing you say that if a person says we must keep the feasts then he has to be saying we must sacrifice or we cannot say the other. Are we going that far? DUPREEZ>> Essentially, absolutely. Yes, because they are so inexplicably intertwined you cannot have a sacred season, a feast day unless you have a sacrifice. But think about the implications. MURRAY>> "Precisely, yea, yea. DUPREEZ>> What are the implications? If you're going to go back to sacrificing a lamb then … MURRAY>> "Then you have nullified Christ's work, it, His work for you. You say it is not good enough for me. DUPREEZ>> Yes, you've nullified it, number one you have actually denied that Jesus is the Messiah who fulfilled these sacrifices and days that pointed to Him. Ultimately that's what, now you might not intend to do it, but ultimately that is what you do. MURRAY>> "That is a statement that is what that action makes. DUPREEZ>> Exactly. You actions make. It's an incredible thought, in fact there's a book that just came out just last month in the month of June and I could read you a statement, now this, by the way went through about forty different scholars so it's not just one persons idea. This is how that ends, that very idea, the question you just raised. Here this is how it ends, one of the important statements, "therefore for the Christian to participate in these Jewish celebrations was tantamount to a denial of Jesus' Messiah ship." Not just was, but is as well. So it's very important to realize that. This, by the way, is a fascinating book called Interpreting Scripture. It helps to answer many of these bible questions and yes, so that is what it ultimately ends at. MURRAY>> I want to go back because again to just sort of recap because we're at the close of our first hour. Feast day keeping in and of itself is not an end, it was a means to an end. The end was sacrifice. The feast just defined the season or the time that we gather for the sacrifice. DUPREEZ>> Defined it and gave you opportunity to do that . MURRAY>> Precisely, so to make feast day the end, keeping the feast day in itself, is not legitimate, is not enough because the season was called to sacrifice. So you put one foot down you gotta plant that other foot which is sacrifice. So a person says keep the feasts for only in of themselves only has one foot on the ground in his own argument. The other foot is sacrifice – they have to go together and if you're not doing one, you really can't do the other. 54:18 DUPREEZ>> That's right. In addition to that to keep three of the feasts all males have to go Jerusalem to the temple. And when the temple was destroyed there was no more place to even go. So not just was it the time but also the place. And there's no biblical justification to have feasts any other place other than at the temple for all males it was required. 54:39 MURRAY>> So you can't pick one, it's like a Chinese menu, you have to pick the whole ball of wax. It all comes together. 54:45 DUPREEZ>> Let's go to forever, go to "olan". very interesting term by the way. As in English, by the way, this is something when you go to the English language I speak to you and I say to you, "Last year I went to London and da da da da." If I say that to you what year am I talking about, you say … MURRAY>> Last year, the year before this one. DUPREEZ>> Which is? At this point in time? MURRAY>> 2009 DUPREEZ>> 2009, where we're talking right now but if I add the word "the" in front of it, "The last year I went to London and dadadada." MURRAY>> Could be any year in the past. DUPREEZ>> That's right, and notice just one word. When I add the definite article "the" it becomes indefinite because we understand the language. See, because we speak English, that's our mother tongue. When you get to the Hebrew you have to understand what these words mean in context, and it's key to understanding. If you want to dig into it you have to understand what these words mean. I've gone and done a complete study of the whole "olan" issue and this is the word for forever and then there's the word statute which is the word "choq" masculine or "choqa" feminine. And then so my feast keeping friends have saying are saying that, well, there are two kinds – the statute forever and then there is a statute that is temporary, but actually these words statute are used totally interchangeably. The masculine, the feminine, there is no difference. For the same feast you will find in Leviticus 7:34-35,36 the masculine and feminine language is used interchangeably. Deuteronomy 6:1-2, no difference. So whether it is a masculine or feminine gender for the word statute doesn't matter. But when the word statute is connected with the "olan" that is a statute forever. An eternal statute. You have to say, what does this mean? Just as much as Samuel was to be placed in the temple forever the bible says. Okay, you always have to say what is the – what does it mean? And in the bible the word forever indicates it is the nature and purpose of that institution until it meets its purpose, it is forever. And so these are forever statutes until they meet their purpose which is what? MURRAY>> Jesus Christ, correct. DUPREEZ>> So they are forever till He comes and that's why Paul can correctly say, the Jewish scholar inspired by the Lord, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. MURRAY>> Yes, praise God, praise God. Very important and perhaps a fitting point upon which to end this particular hour this discussion of forever and what does forever mean. That's a very subtle point and I hope you got that and sort of wrote that down because it's really a wonderful point and it's a lynchpin of a discussion relative to feast keeping. DUPREEZ>> If you say to your wife, "I'll love you forever." She doesn't say, "Liar, you're a Pastor." She really understands that in the context it means until you die. Not a problem. MURRAY>> Until I die, yes. You see, good stuff and I hope you're enjoying this as much as I because I'm really, really getting blessed and I trust that you are too. Stay with us because we are going to take a little break, take a sip of water, come on back we have much more to talk about. We'll be back in just two minutes. Next: Part 2: TLB010526 Transcript "Feast-Keeping and the Final Crisis" |
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