Sid:I have my friend Robert Heidler who is the Senior Pastor of Glory of Zion Outreach Center in Denton, Texas on the telephone. I’m talking to him about his brand new book “The Messianic Church Arising.” I’m reminded of a time Robert that you had a prophetic word from a very prominent prophet that is in your church Chuck Pierce about the festivals and I think it almost caught you by surprise, tell me about that.
Robert:Well, it was about 9 years ago now and Chuck had a prophetic word that we were supposed to celebrate the 3 Biblical feasts. And I wasn’t even sure what the 3 Biblical feasts were, I mean I know I had studied about them in seminary but I always just assumed that they did not relate to the church today. I mean I had been to some like Passover Seders so to present it from a Jewish tradition.
Sid: Wait a second, you’ve got a Doctorate in Theology and you really didn’t know much about not just the Jewish Feasts; the Biblical Feasts.
Robert:Yes.
Sid:How do you get through seminary and not know this?
Robert:That’s just not something that is focused on, it’s something that it’s sort of assumed that that was something for long ago and far away and it doesn’t really impact our lives. And it’s not something that we need to pay attention to.
Sid:Okay, so you get this prophetic word from Chuck Pierce, well what do you do with it?
Robert:Well, celebrate the three Biblical Feasts and so I have great respect for Chuck as a prophet and as Apostle and I said, “Okay,” so I began to study them and as I began to study the feasts I was amazed at what I found. And at that year for the very first time we celebrated all of the feasts.After every one people would come up and say “This is incredible, this was so good why haven’t we done this before?” Because they saw the blessing and the benefit that God had intended to give us through these feasts.
Sid:Well, I have to tell you as I read your new book, “The Messianic Church Arising” the insight you have into what God really intended with these Biblical feasts from a new covenant prospective I’ve actually never seen it put together that way. I don’t think you got this from a book did you?
Robert:Just from the Bible and I think God, it was just God’s time to begin to put a lot of these things in perspective for us.
Sid:And the way you put it it’s not a have to, it’s a want to, and if you don’t you’ve missed the very rhythm of life, the very cycles that God had to get us closer to Him, the whole deal with the feasts is intimacy with God
Robert:Amen because these feast were not, they’re not rituals, they’re not legalistic burdens, they’re resources, their blessings that God wanted to put into our lives to draw us closer to Him.
Sid: Okay, this is Passover week, perhaps you can teach on a few of the feasts so that we can get a sense of the cycle that God has the year long cycle that He has built in, that’s why he tells us to observe it forever. But not as the Orthodox Jews which mix it with scriptures and with rabbinic teaching.Not even many Messianic Jews that mix it with scriptures and some of the Jewish teaching. You can take all of these things but there is something about just having the Holy Spirit and the word of God, and having God show you how He wants to be worshipped at these set appointment, this particular year for your particular group. So tell me about these cycles.
Robert:Well let me sort of give an overview of what the cycle of God looks like in the yearly cycle. There are 3 primary feasts times, first is Passover which we are in right now, the second is in the third month which is Pentecost or Shavuot. And then in the seventh month there is the Feast of Tabernacles and all three of them have three parts. Passover is really three feasts together, it’s Passover, Unleavened bread, and First Fruits. And the main thrust of Passover is God wants to remind us and make real in our lives our redemption from sin, our cleansing from impurity that we are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb out of the hand of the enemy. And that’s something that you know we tend to need to be reminded of, that we are totally forgiven, that our sins are dealt with and that we have been redeemed out of the hand of the enemy. And so the year begins with that, that’s the foundation…
Sid:I love it in your book where you talk about the tradition of removing the leaven from the house and actually going through your house and doing a house cleaning of anything from the New Age, or the occult, or just plain idolatry.
Robert:Exactly God wanted every year for people to search their house for leaven and you know we’ve done that and it’s amazing what people find in their house. We found that’s very important in deliverance ministry that people often are under the oppression of the enemy just because they have allowed certain things into their house that has given the enemy a right to bring oppression in.So each year God says clean out the leaven, clean out anything that’s not supposed to be there, celebrate your redemption by the blood of the lamb and it lets you go into the New Year with incredible freedom in fellowship with God. And so that’s the first set of feasts, three months later you’re in Pentecost which also has 3 dimensions because Pentecost celebrates 3 things, it celebrates the harvest, God’s physical provision. It was the first fruits of the wheat harvest and that’s saying all that we have, all of our blessings come from God. And so it was a joyful celebration of God’s physical provision, but it was also a celebration of Torah because it was on Pentecost that God gave His word at Mt. Sinai.So there is not only a physical provision but there’s a provision of God’s revelation the teaching of God who He is that was given on Pentecost. And of course in Acts chapter 2 it was also on Pentecost when the RuachhaKodesh the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church. And so Pentecost celebrates God’s provision, He has poured out His blessing on us in every area of life and as we celebrate what God has given us in the past that releases faith to trust God for every kind of provision in the year ahead. And so that’s the third month; we get to the seventh month and we’re at the Feast of Tabernacles.It is also three Feasts together it’s Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah, Atonement, which is also called Yom Kippur, and Succoth which is Tabernacles and it is the celebration of the Glory of God. It’s all about how to enter into the presence of God to experience His presence, to experience His power and it’s a time when God really wants to meet with us in an incredible way. And I think to see all of these feasts in perspective I like to compare it with the Tabernacle of Moses because these 3 feasts really correspond to the 3 courts in Moses’ Tabernacle. The outer court is Passover, it’s where you begin and it’s redemption at the altar it’s cleansing at the laver. Then you go into the holy place and there it’s the celebration of God’s abundant provision, the menorah with the light of the Holy Spirit and the table of showbread and the access to God in prayer. And that pictures Pentecost, it’s a celebration of coming into all that God has for us, but then in the feast you move through the long hot summer and that’s the veil and you come in then to the Holy of Holies which is the Feast of Tabernacles when you’re actually coming in and experiencing the Glory of God.So every year as you go through the cycle it’s like a walk through the Tabernacle; your coming in dealing with everything that needs to be dealt with and you end up in the experience of the presence and the glory of God. And it’s just… it’s an incredible blessing that God has given us to draw us into His presence every year.
Sid:Now you talk about the 7 major God appointments but then you have a teaching on the Sabbath that has such freedom just briefly explain your take on the Sabbath from God’s perspective.
Robert:Well, Sabbath is another one of God’s cycles.It is God has given you know He said, “I have given you My Sabbath,” it’s a gift of God it’s not a legalistic ritual as a matter of fact the idea of Sabbath wasn’t from the law it was woven into creation. “God rested on the seventh day.” Not because He was tired but He wanted that to be part of His creation, part of the cycle that He wants us to work and be diligent, but He also wants us to take one day after 6 days of work to take a day just to enjoy Him to enjoy His goodness. And to know that if He can create the universe He can handle all of my responsibilities for one day a week when I just take time to enjoy Him. And so it’s designed to show us His goodness to let us come into that experience of the blessing.
Sid:Listen as a Jewish Believer in the Messiah I am so grateful that Gentile Christians chose Sunday to worship God so I can observe my Saturday as my Sabbath as my time for restoration and rest and just basking in the presence of God, it’s work for me on Sunday.
Robert: That is… people ask me “If you believe in the Sabbath why don’t you meet on Saturday, Sabbath didn’t have anything to do when you met for worship. You know the early church met for worship every day.
Sid:Oh I love the freedom of your book on the festivals and really the understanding of what the first church was like and what we should have today…
Tags: It’s Supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: It’s Supernatural, Sid Roth