by Herbert W Armstrong

Fellow Ministers, you who will speak at a Festival site, be sure to bring out the following:

The MEANING of these Festivals is of supreme importance to God’s Church, to keep reminding us, year by year, of GOD’S MASTER PLAN for the SPIRITUAL HARVEST of MAN.

God’s creation of MAN is a DUAL creation. The physical stage began with Adam – the spiritual phase with Christ.

In Adam MAN cut himself off from God – and God sentenced man to be cut off from Him for 6,000 years – except the comparative VERY few God called to special service in preparation for God’s KINGDOM.

Man, since Adam, has been CUT OFF from contact with God, who, only, has salvation and eternal life to give. Those called specially by God are, on real repentance and faith, reconciled to God by the shed blood of Christ, the Lamb of God.

God called prophets, and He called the children of Israel, under Moses, to be His separate and peculiar nation. But God gave His Holy Spirit ONLY to the prophets. God gave ancient Israel SUBSTITUTE animal sacrifices, and also, as a SUBSTITUTE for His Holy Spirit, He gave Israel physical rituals and a ceremonial law through Moses. But animal sacrifices could not pay the penalty of human sin – they were only a reminder of sin. When the Holy Spirit came, their substitute was abolished.

God’s annual Festivals are built around the physical harvest in the Holy land, as symbolic of His SPIRITUAL harvest of HUMANS.

The Passover pictures the first step in the spiritual phase of Man’s creation. Upon repentance granted by God to those He specially calls, and their faith in Jesus Christ, their sins are remitted by the blood of Christ, and they are thereby RECONCILED to God – no longer cut off! Jesus was slain on the Passover day.

The following seven days of unleavened bread – when no leaven may be eaten or found in our houses – picture the putting of sin out of our lives – keeping God’s commandments instead. There are two annual Sabbaths – on the first and seventh days of this Festival.

The Feast of First-fruits, called Pentecost in the New Testament, pictures the coming of the Holy Spirit – which came on that day in 31 A.D. – as the time – between then and Christ’s second coming – as the comparatively small FIRST HARVEST in man’s spiritual creation – as it came at the time of the first agricultural harvest in Judea.

The Feast of TRUMPETS, coming on the first day of the seventh month of God’s sacred year, reminds us yearly of the coming of Jesus Christ as KING of kings and LORD of lords, to rule and offer eternal salvation to all nations – ushering in the KINGDOM OF GOD – which is the FAMILY of God ruling the earth.

The Day of ATONEMENT pictures the event making it possible for humanity to be “AT-ONE-ment” with God, by the putting away of Satan.

Then the Feast of Tabernacles represents the glorious millennial reign of Christ and BORN saints in the Kingdom of God, ruling all nations. Satan will be gone. ALL then living will be called. The first day of this seven-day Festival is an annual Holy Day.

The very following day is a separate Holy Day, picturing the Great White Throne Judgment, after the thousand years. All who ever lived and were uncalled shall then be resurrected MORTAL. They shall then be called, with eternal salvation to those who repent, believe, and receive God’s Holy Spirit.

That COMPLETES the SPIRITUAL phase of God’s creation of MAN – reproducing Himself. After that shall come the final resurrection of the incorrigible wicked who were called, but neglected, resisted, or failed in being reconciled to God and developing the holy, righteous character from God.

After that comes the GLORIOUS ETERNITY finishing the creation of the vast UNIVERSE.

WHAT A GLORIOUS MASTER PLAN! You are here to imbibe a foretaste of the peaceful, happy WORLD TOMORROW!