"AND THE SUN STOOD STILL" A BIBLICAL ACCOUNT

"And the Sun Stood Still"

JOSHUA and the elders had just received men who claimed to be ambassadors from a far away land. They came to seek peace. If so, reasoned the elders, then there would be no particular harm in promising not to attack a nation that wasn't included among the enemy nations of Canaan. Although these men looked like
swarthy Canaanites, Joshua knew that some similar tribes had gone to other lands, especially North Africa, to live.


The elders of Israel were told of these things, and it was decided that it would be well to do what the strangers asked, and promise no harm to their nation. This was carried out in a solemn ceremony with Joshua, the strangers, priests and elders present. However, though there was an element of doubt present in this matter, God
wasn't consulted. (Joshua 9:3-15.) God's warning against making peace with Canaanites was temporarily neglected, and Israel's leaders paid more attention to these strangers than to God.


New clothes and provisions were supplied the strange ambassadors. After they were given food and overnight lodging with the Israelites, they thankfully and smilingly set off to the north to their mysterious nation.


"Send several armed scouts to follow them without being seen," Joshua ordered. "I am curious to know just where they came from."


It wasn't expected that the scouts would return for many days, and it was a surprise when they returned early on the third day.


"It wasn't necessary to be gone any longer," they reported. "The men we followed went north for a few miles, then turned west and went directly to the Hivite city of Gibeon about twenty miles to the west. If that is their home, then Israel has promised to spare a city or nation well within the Promised Land!" (Verse16.)


"We have been tricked!" Joshua muttered. "Get fifty thousand troops ready to move, and we'll go straighten this matter out!"

Treachery Discovered

Having been informed that the strange men claiming to have come from a distant
nation had gone to a city only about twenty miles from Gilgal, Joshua was quite
perturbed. These men had exacted a promise from Joshua that Israel would not
attack their country. Now it was quite evident that their "country" was an area well
within the bounds of Canaan, and God had instructed Israel to destroy all nations,
cities and people within those bounds. Obviously these men had tricked Israel into a
sacred promise to spare their people, which was against God's will.

The many thousands of Israel's soldiers quickly assembled at Joshua's command.
Led by scouts who had followed the men responsible for tricking Israel into a peace
pact, Joshua and his soldiers spent three days in arriving at their destination. It was
the walled city of Gibeon, the capital of a district of swarthy people called Hivites.
Four Hivite cities, including Gibeon, had joined in this strategy in seeking peace with
Israel. (Joshua 9:16-17.)

The Israelite soldiers moved boldly within the shadows of the walls of Gibeon, but
there was no sign of soldiers on the walls to protect the city.
"Send men to the gate with this message," Joshua told his officers. "Have our men
tell them that those men who came to see us in Gilgal must be sent out to speak with
us right away."

A group of soldiers went to the nearest gate and loudly repeated Joshua's request.
There was a response only a few minutes later. The gate swung open, and out
walked the men who had come to Gilgal posing as strangers from a distant nation. A
few Hivites of high rank accompanied them. Behind them was a crowd of Hivites
silently watching to see what would happen. The "ambassadors" sheepishly walked
up to Joshua and his officers.

"Why did you go to all the trouble of trying to fool us into believing that your native
land was quite distant instead of within our land only a few miles from our camp?"
Joshua asked them. (Verse 22)

The Hivites' Excuse

"We have heard about how you have wiped out your enemies," a Gibeonite officer
explained. "We didn't want to be counted among them. The city of Gibeon here, and
three other Hivite cities to the south -- Chephirah, Beeroth and Kirjathjearim --
formed a secret alliance to seek a promise from Israel's leaders that you would not
attack us. We heard that you are a fair and honest people,
and would keep any vow you might make.

"We became aware that your God commanded you to destroy all the people of this
region, and we were so alarmed that we tried to carry out the only plan we thought
might save us. But we aren't begging for freedom now. You have us in your power to
deal with as you wish." (Verses 24-25)

Joshua was in no hurry to make any decision. Yet he knew if he wiped out their
cities, he would be breaking the pledge that the leaders of Israel had made before
God as a witness. There was no other choice. Israel had made a binding agreement
and would have to pay the price of letting these Hivites remain in their land.
Joshua dismissed the Gibeonites, set up camp near Gibeon and held a conference
with the princes of Israel.

When the main body of Israel heard the decision of the elders and Joshua, many of
them were disappointed. Some were even angered, and sent spokesmen to the
elders to voice their feelings. (Joshua 9:18.)

"It is not right to allow these pagan Hivites any mercy!" shouted one of the
spokesmen. "God has commanded us to destroy them!"

"God will punish us if we fail to attack those four Hivite cities at once!" another yelled
heatedly. "Why are our leaders defying the Creator in this matter?"

There was much murmuring among the assembled thousands after these remarks,
which were not necessarily made because the speakers desired obedience. So
much wealth had already been taken from their enemies that a part of Israel had
become greedy, and those were the ones whose ire was roused because of being
deprived of the booty of the Hivite cities.

Hivites Made Perpetual Laborers

Ignoring the loud protests, the elders told the people that Israel should stick to the
agreement not to attack the Hivites, but that Israel should make the inhabitants of the
four cities bond-servants of Israel to serve in the physical needs of the Levites. This
would keep them in close contact with God so that they would never return to
idolatry. (Verses 19-21)

When the troops who had accompanied him heard what Joshua was about to do,
even some of them muttered in disappointment at being deprived of the excitingly
profitable opportunity of plundering the Hivite cities.

Joshua called the rulers and chief officers of the Hivites before him and made this
proclamation:
"Though you have sought peace and have recognized our God as great, you tricked
us. Therefore you are cursed. No longer shall your mighty men of war bear arms.
Instead, they shall become wood choppers and water bearers for us. When our
people take over this area, your people shall join us and work as bond servants.
Your tasks will be especially for those in service for our God wherever He shall have
us build His altar. You have no choice but to accept these conditions." (Verses 22-

"These are bitter terms for our warriors and the people of all four cities," the leader
of Gibeon spoke out. "However, we feel it is better than being destroyed because of
our sins. We know your greater forces and your great God are too powerful for us to
face, and we must humbly bow to your will." (Verse 25)

The Hivites should have considered themselves quite fortunate to remain alive under
the circumstances, but it is generally human nature to hope for more than is
received, and there was a tone of bitterness in the voice of the Gibeonite leader.
Having ended these matters with the Hivites for the time being, Joshua and his many
soldiers headed back toward Gilgal. They little guessed that they would very soon be
racing back toward Gibeon. We shall now see why.

For many centuries there had been a city in the land of Canaan known as Salem.
During the days of Abraham, a King was there whose name was Melchizedek, Who
visited Abraham and blessed him after he rescued Lot and other captives from a
group of marauding kings. (Genesis 14:17-20.) Melchizedek ruled from Salem as
long as the patriarchs -- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- dwelt in Canaan.
Later He ceased to rule from there when the children of Israel were in Egypt. In the
days of David, God again chose Jerusalem (another name for Salem) as the city
from which to rule His people.

The name Melchizedek means King of Righteousness. (Hebrews 7:1-3.) At the time
the Israelites entered Canaan, the ruler of Salem -- then called Jerusalem -- was a
Canaanite, Adoni-zedek, a sinful king who pretended to be "Lord of Righteousness" -
- a king who put himself in place of the true King of Righteousness.

A Plot Against the Hivites

News of the fall of Jericho and Ai brought fear to the ruler of Jerusalem, especially
when he learned of the pact between Israel and the four Hivite cities just a few miles
from Jerusalem, because Gibeon was one of the stronger cities of the area -- even
stronger than Ai. (Joshua 10:1- 2) Adoni-zedek realized that other cities of Canaan
must immediately band together to stand against the Israelites, or be defeated.
The proud king of Jerusalem sent messengers to the rulers of four neighboring
Amorite cities. These were Hebron (where the Israelite scouts went on their return
trip through Canaan about forty years before), Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon, and
were located in an area only a few miles southwest of Jerusalem. Adoni-zedek
suggested they all join forces and invade the Hivite cities to punish them for making
peace with the Israelites. (Verses 3-4)

When the kings of these cities received Adoni-zedek's plea for their armies to join his
in an attack on Gibeon, they agreed at once to send all their soldiers northward.
Their forces were united on the way to Jerusalem, where Adoni-zedek's troops were
added. Together these thousands of well-trained warriors marched onward to a spot
just south of Gibeon, where they camped and readied their equipment for an attack
on Gibeon, because the Hivites were now their
enemies along with Israel.

When the Gibeonites saw these combined armies streaming up from the south, they
sent swift messengers to race to Gilgal to ask for help from Israel.
While the messengers sped toward the Israelite camp, the armies from the south set
up powerful catapults and ramming devices with which to assault Gibeon, and
prepared long ladders and ropes for scaling the walls. Night was not far away,
however, and the Gibeonites felt certain that no attack would be made until dawn.
The messengers from Gibeon arrived at Gilgal before nightfall, and were given an
immediate audience with Joshua.

"Thousands upon thousands of Canaanite troops of the Amorite tribe were
approaching Gibeon when we left!" they excitedly told Joshua. "Perhaps by now they
have already attacked our city. As your servants, we beg you to send up at least a
part of your great army to save us!" (Joshua 10:5-6.)

Joshua Had Learned His Lesson

Joshua wasn't inclined to give the messengers a quick answer. He wondered if the
presence of so many fighting men could mean that Israel might run into deep trouble
as punishment for not consulting God in the matter of making an agreement with the
Gibeonites, or if God had forgiven him and the elders when they repented.
Not wishing another unpleasant situation, Joshua this time went into the tabernacle
and prayed to God to give him a clear picture of what should be done.
"Don't be concerned about that army preparing to attack Gibeon," came God's
answer. "Not one man of those many thousands will come out alive after I punish
them!" (Verse 8) Now Joshua knew God had forgiven him and the elders.
Thus encouraged, he was convinced that he should go at once to the aid of the
Gibeonites. He gave orders to his officers to assemble the army of Israel for
immediate action. By nightfall the troops were assembled and ready to march.
Gibeon was about twenty miles west of Gilgal, and though they had a rough, uphill
road between the two places, the Israelite army picked its way to the hill country
through the night, and arrived within sight of Gibeon at dawn. (Verses 7, 9)
Coming over a rise at the head of Israel's troops, Joshua and his officers saw that
the Canaanite troops from the south were just starting to move closer to Gibeon for
their assault on the walls. Catapults were being pushed forward, scores of men
were carrying metal-nosed logs with which to batter the gates, and thousands of
archers, swordsmen and spear-bearers were marching within
striking range of the walls.

"Draw up our troops to attack the invaders of Gibeon at once!" Joshua told his
officers. "Keep the troops out of sight behind this rise, move north of Gibeon so that
we can't be seen, and then divide up and swing around the east and west walls to
surprise them!"

Minutes later hordes of Israelite soldiers raced around the walls of Gibeon to rush in
among the troops moving against the Hivite city. The attackers were so surprised by
this sudden onslaught by the Israelites that they halted in their tracks, then turned
and fled in the opposite direction. The Israelites pressed in against them. So great
was the slaughter that bodies were strewn for miles along paths that led
northwestward, southward and southwestward from Gibeon.

All this didn't happen in just a short while. Many of the enemy soldiers tried to hide in
ravines and among the rocks, and time was required in searching them out. The
Israelites had orders to let no enemy fighters escape, regardless of how far they had
to be pursued.

In fact, the main part of the enemy troops to escape the first attack had to be
pursued as much as thirty miles to the southwest. (Joshua 10:10-11.) Part of the way
was through a long, deep ravine. Then there was a steep ridge to go over, and next
a rocky, rugged road so precipitous in places that steps had already been cut in the
rocks.

By the time the enemy had been pursued even part of that distance, however, the
morning was half spent. Joshua became concerned about being successful in
destroying all the enemy troops before dark, after which any who were left would
surely succeed in escaping. Already exceptionally heavy clouds were moving over
the sky, which meant that darkness would come on even sooner than usual.

A Mighty Miracle

"Cause the sun and moon to stand still so that the day here will be made long enough for us to overcome our enemies," Joshua prayed to God. (Verse 12)

The battle continued. It was no small matter to flush out enemy troops from their hiding places as the area of fighting moved steadily southward. Meanwhile, the sky became darker, and it appeared that an unusually strong storm was likely to break in the region just south of Gibeon. Between thick clouds, the pale sun showed through at times. There was nothing unusual about that, but two or three hours after Joshua's unusual request of God the Israelites began to be aware that the sun was still in a
morning position!

As the afternoon wore on while Israel kept up the bloody pursuit, it was noted with
increasing awe that the sun still had not moved. In fact, it stayed in the midst of the sky for so long that daylight was extended by about twelve hours! (Verse 13)

Did God actually stop the Earth from rotating for twelve hours? We are not told. With
God all things are possible. If this planet in a few minutes ceased turning, God must
have performed a miracle much like the braking of a modern jet airplane upon
landing. Remember, the Earth's surface is turning at a speed of one thousand miles
an hour at the equator and more slowly as one approaches the poles. There was never another day like this one. Many religious leaders have argued that time was lost back at the battle near Gibeon, and that as a result the Sabbath was moved from Saturday to Sunday. Not so. THAT day did not become another day. It was merely an extra-long day of 36 hours.

The lengthened day was a reason for wonderment and fear among both Israelites
and Canaanites. Even Joshua was awed by what happened. God honored an outstanding prayer in an outstanding way because He was fighting Israel's battles. (Verse 14)

Even so, Joshua was concerned about conquering all the enemy troops, many
thousands of whom were well ahead of the Israelites. It appeared that they would
escape while Israel was being delayed in sending out small groups in every direction to overtake enemy soldiers who had fled to the sides of the retreat paths to the south.

Then came another miracle from God. The sky grew increasingly darker. Lightning flashed above the Canaanite retreaters. Ear-splitting thunder reverberated between the mountains and through the deep ravines.

From the black clouds came a strange, hissing sound. The fleeing Canaanites looked up in inquisitive terror, and it was then that the power of God descended from the sky on them with deadly force!

Few Escape

The hissing sound from the sky was short warning to the Canaanites as to what was
about to happen. Suddenly there was stinging pain from sharp blows on their heads
and shoulders. Many were killed outright by falling objects. Others were beaten to
the ground to quickly die as their prone bodies were exposed to more blows.
Some were able to reach the shelter of protruding rock ledges, and from there
witness that they had been caught in a terrible shower of giant hailstones!
Within a few minutes almost all the Canaanite soldiers and their animals were
battered to death. Then the tremendous shower of heavy hailstones miraculously
stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Some of those who had been spared
managed to escape and take refuge in nearby cities, but most of them either died of
their wounds or were later caught and slain by Israelite soldiers.
(Joshua 10:8-11.)

Shortly before this event produced by God, the five kings of the five Canaanite cities,
fleeing southward near Makkedah with their troops, held a hasty conference.
"There is no hope of holding out against the Israelites," the king of Jerusalem
remarked fearfully. "Our men have no more desire to fight. They're frightened
because it is still daylight, whereas the sun should have gone down hours ago.
Israel's God has something to do with this awesome thing. I propose that the five of
us hide in one of the caves in this area, and let Israel pursue our troops. Then
perhaps we can return later to safety."

The other four leaders quickly agreed. They gave orders to their officers to proceed
without them. Taking scant provisions, they hurried away from their men and sought
out an insignificant cave some distance up the side of the ravine through which they
had been moving. (Verses 16- 17)

They had been in hiding only a short while when the storm of giant hailstones struck.
They realized that their remaining troops would hardly survive such an onslaught
from the sky, but they were more concerned about themselves than about their men.
What they didn't realize was that God had no intention of allowing them to escape.
When the pursuing Israelites arrived to find dead Canaanites scattered throughout
the ravine, a search was made for possible survivors in the rocks, defiles and caves.
One soldier was as startled as were the five kings when he walked into the cave
where they were hiding. He ran to notify Joshua at once, who gave orders to deal
with them immediately. (Verse 18)

Trapped!

A short while later, as the occupants of the cave peered out at the main body of
Israelite soldiers moving on to the south, they were surprised by large stones
rumbling down from above and thudding in a growing heap on the ledge at the
mouth of the cave. Almost before they realized that many men must be rolling the
rocks from overhead, they found themselves trapped by a solid bank of stones much
too great to be removed from the inside!

Meanwhile, at Joshua's command, the Israelites moved southward to seek out and
slay most of the few enemy troops not killed by the storm of gigantic hailstones. They
pursued them as far south as the city of Makkedah, where they temporarily camped.
Then Joshua sent men to the cave where the five kings were trapped. The men
removed the stones piled there, seized the prisoners and took them to a spot part
way between the cave and the city of Makkedah. There were a number of trees
there, and five of them were chosen for a grisly purpose. The five kings were killed
and their bodies hanged on the trees till sundown. Then they were cut down and
taken back into the cave where they had tried to conceal themselves. For the second
time great stones were piled against the mouth of the cave, this time to form an
infamous burial crypt for the five men who had tried to lead their armies against
Israel. (Verses 19-27)

While the five kings were still hanging on the five trees, Joshua and his troops
rushed into Makkedah and slew all the people and disposed of the king of that city in
the same manner accorded to the ruler of Jericho. (Verse 28; 6:21)
In the days that followed, Joshua and his troops stormed over the southern region of
Canaan to attack and overthrow a number of cities. The idol-worshipping inhabitants
were slain and the leaders killed and hanged -- all according to God's instructions.
God wanted idolatry and child sacrifice completely eliminated throughout Israel's
land. Included in these cities was Hebron, the place Israelite scouts had passed
through four decades previously.

The campaign that had started out as a move to defend the Gibeonites turned into a
tremendous victory for Israel. Successful because of God's help, the soldiers
returned to Gilgal with a great wealth of the spoils of war -- household goods, tools,
implements, livestock and farm produce. (Joshua 10:29-43; Joshua 11:14, 16)
The defeat of the armies of these cities didn't mean that all of the southern part of
Canaan was conquered. There were still more cities and tribes to take over in that
region. Even after many more military operations by Israel's army during the next
year or two there were still a few fortresses and armed areas to subdue.

GOD'S WORD MISUNDERSTOOD AND MISTAUGHT: ANOTHER LOOK AT COLOSSIANS CHPT 2

Some claim that Colossians 2:16-17 does away with the Sabbath and Holy Days. (We will see later that it does not.) Others claim that the annual Sabbaths were part of Moses’ law. They were not, because they were observed before Moses’ law of ritualistic orders had been given. Others claim that sacrifices were performed on these days—but Numbers 28:3 shows that sacrifices took place on every day of the year.


In Colossians 2:14, the apostle Paul wrote, speaking of Christ, “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.”

Ephesians 2:15 states, “Having abolished in His [Christ’s] flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of two one new man, so making peace.”

These verses do not do away with God’s Laws. The term “ordinances” is translated from the Greek word dogma, referring to human laws and decrees—“the commandments and doctrines of men” (Col. 2:22).

Christ referred to such humanly-devised ordinances in Mark 7:6-9, when He stated, “Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors Me with their lips (WORDS, SONGS, THOUGHTS FROM DECEIVED HEART), but their heart is far from Me. Howbeit in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things you do…Full well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition.” In verse 13, He stated, “Making the Word of God of none effect through your tradition, which you have delivered: and many such like things do you.”


While Christ’s sacrifice did do away with the need for animal sacrifices, as well as eliminating other physical, priestly duties and various other physical requirements (Heb. 7:12; also again notice Gal. 3:10-13), the “ordinances” referred to pharisaical decrees that restricted and burdened the Jews and certain ascetic, oppressive ordinances of “touch not, taste not, handle not” (vs. 21) that had been bound on the Colossian Gentiles. (Notice I Corinthians 8:4-10.)

They became a “middle wall of partition” (Eph. 2:14) between Jews and Gentiles being called into God’s Church. They resulted in prejudice, animosity, suspicion and separation. But Christ demolished that barrier by His supreme sacrifice: “For He [Christ] is our peace, who has made both [Jews and Gentiles] one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us” (Eph. 2:14).

Many newly begotten Christians in Paul’s time continued to be burdened by their former beliefs. For instance, at the Temple, there was a literal wall separating the court of the Gentiles from that of the Jews. Gentiles dared not pass it, under the penalty of death.

It was hard for some Jewish converts to leave in the past such a deeply ingrained aspect of their lives. The apostle Peter himself was even affected by it (Gal. 2:11-12), and was reprimanded by Paul, who also showed that physical circumcision (to which the Jews expected Gentile converts to adhere), “is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God” (I Cor. 7:19).

The Gentiles were influenced by pagan philosophy, with its restraints and regulations. The city of Colossae was renowned for its asceticism. The pagans passed judgment on Christians for the freedom they enjoyed—eating meats (again notice I Cor. 8:4-10), drinking wine, and observing God’s weekly and annual Sabbaths in the joyous manner He intended.

Also, asceticism taught that by doing penance (abstinence, fasting, and even self-inflicted pain and suffering), one could receive release from the guilt of sin. Speaking against such human standards and judgments, Paul wrote, “Beware lest any man spoil you through [human] philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8). In other words, all such practices had no spiritual power and reaped no spiritual benefit.

Christ did not do away with any part of God’s Law (Matt. 5:17). He offered Himself as the sacrifice for our sins (paying the death penalty in our stead and cleansing our conscience of guilt). What He abolished were the ascetic ordinances and Talmudic traditions (“heavy burdens and grievous to be borne”-Matt. 23:4). Peter wrote, “…Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps” (I Pet. 2:21). Christians are those who “walk, even as He walked” (I John 2:6).

Through His sacrifice, Christ made it possible for all (Jews and Gentiles) to become spiritual Israelites, the children of God (Gal. 3:26-29), living together within the framework of His perfect Law (Jms. 1:25). In Matthew 5:17-18, He stated, “Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill…Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled.” Christ stressed the importance of keeping the spirit of the Law, as well as the letter (Matt. 5), stating, “If you know these things, happy are you if you do them” (John 13:17).

Christ did away with the ordinances of men, not God’s Law. Paul calls this Law “holy, just and good” (Rom. 7:12). God’s Law was given for our benefit and is more binding than ever. Notice Deuteronomy 4:40: “You shall keep therefore His statutes, and His commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days upon the earth, which the Lord your God gives you, for ever.”


 DID GOD INSTRUCT US NOT TO JUDGE ONE ANOTHER?


In the world today, the admonition not to "judge" is frequently used to place a virtual gag order over those who would speak up against popular and accepted world practices. Even some Christians will use a "don't judge" stance when erroneous teachings and ministries in the church are examined. In fact, many false prophets are using Scripture references like "touch not my anointed" and "do my prophets no harm" in order to protect their doctrines and actions from exposure. The word judge has been so perverted that to judge anything is now considered by many to be anti-Christian behavior, and anyone who does so is likely to be labeled as an "accuser of the brethren."


Well, what does God have to say on this subject? Is it true that Christians are told not to judge? The simple answer is no. In fact, according to Scripture those who do not judge are more likely to be led astray by false doctrines and are less effective witnesses for Christ.


Webster's defines the act of judging as "to form an opinion about through careful weighing of evidence and testing of premises." Simply stated, judging is simply the process of evaluation that people naturally employ everyday to make determinations of what is true: we judge when we need to leave to arrive on time to a particular destination; we judge what we should wear based on what the weather is for the day; we judge the credibility of others, etc.


The problem arises because judging can be subjective. In other words, your judgments are based on your perceptions, motives, and understandings. This is why two people can judge the exact same situation and come up with different determinations. Since the judgments of man are therefore rooted in the "opinions" of man, no man's judgments can be taken as absolute or complete truth. This is the implied accusation behind every admonition not to judge. "Who are YOU to judge? What makes you think YOUR judgments are sure?"


"...Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the LORD, who is with you in the judgment." (II Chronicles 19:6)




Galatians 4:9-10


Some opponents of the Holy Days cite this scripture to prove that the Holy Days were condemned by Paul. Here is what he wrote to the Galatians: “But now, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days, and months, and times, and years.”

Does this passage really condemn keeping the Holy Days and the Sabbath? Many deceived ministers teach that the Galatians were returning to Holy Day and Sabbath observance.


This is impossible!



The Galatians were Gentiles and had never kept any of God’s days, or even heard of the true God before their calling. They could not return to what they had never known or practiced in the first place!

Also, read Leviticus 19:26 and Deuteronomy 18:9-10 to see that God strongly condemned keeping days, times, etc! These were humanly devised “sabbaths” and “holy days.” In Leviticus 23 and Ezekiel 20, God speaks of “My Sabbaths” and “My Feasts.” At the same time, throughout the Old Testament, He consistently condemns Israel for rebellion and for observing “your days,” “your sabbaths” and “your feasts” instead (Isa. 1:13-14; Hos. 2:11; Amos 8:10, etc.).


Nowhere does God command the observance of months. Colossians 2:8 and 20-22 show that the “weak and beggarly elements” (also referenced there) are philosophical forms of will-worship and self-denial commonly found in certain parts of the world. The word “rudiments” (Col. 2:8) is the same word translated “elements” here in Galatians, and has nothing to do with God’s Sabbath or Holy Days.

Throughout the world, almost all Gentile cultures observe numerous heathen days and times, etc. For example, in Paul’s time, one-third of all Greek and Roman days were designated as “unlawful for judicial and…business [matters]…on which the state expected the citizenry to abstain, as far as possible, from their private business and labor.”


They also set aside specific days and months for the purpose of honoring their many gods: April and October were dedicated to Apollo; February and June were dedicated to Zeus; Artemis was also worshipped in April; Bacchus in January. Upon conversion, the Galatians forsook these many festivals, in order to worship the true God “in Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).


In conclusion, the Galatians were forsaking Sabbath and Holy Day keeping and turning back—returning—to pagan festivals, commonly observed in ancient Greece and Rome, where many Gentile converts lived, not the other way around.


What About Colossians 2:16-17?


Opponents of the Holy Days invariably justify their position by citing Colossians 2:16-17, which states, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”

Does this state that no one can tell Christians whether they are right or wrong regarding clean and unclean meats, Holy Day observance, Sabbath-keeping, etc.? This scripture is quoted by nearly all “churchianity” in an attempt to prove this.

But the real meaning of these verses is that Christians should not let people arbitrarily judge their conduct. Only the Church (Col. 1:18)—“the body of Christ” (2:17)—can do this. Notice that the word “is” is italicized. This means that it was not in the original Greek text. By adding it, translators blurred the true meaning of this passage.

The phrase “in meat, or in drink” (vs. 16), translated from the Greek phrase en broosei ay en posei, meaning “in eating or in drinking.” Some ascetics in Colosse were teaching that self-denial and will-worship (vs. 20-22) were God’s Way. (See Galatians 4:9-10 inset.)

Notice that the first phrase in verse 17 uses the present tense in reference to the Sabbath, Holy Days, etc. It says, in effect, “these days are [not were] a [fore]shadow of things to come.” Christians know that the Sabbath and Holy Days picture the Plan of God, which certainly involves many “things to come.” Verse 18 is a final warning to Christians not to let anyone trick them about these important issues—because it is only the Church that was to judge them (vs. 17, end).

Like the Galatians, the Colossians were Gentiles. They had never known God’s Way, and had not previously kept His Holy Days or Sabbath.

In no way do these scriptures do away with God’s laws, Sabbaths or Holy Days! In fact, the Colossians were being criticized by unconverted Gentiles because they were keeping His laws—because they were observing God’s Sabbath and Holy Days!


Here is what Christ said about the popular customs and traditions of this world: “In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men…full well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition” (Mark 7:7, 9).

The Bible does, in fact, mention Christmas and Easter—and certain other familiar holidays—but it bluntly condemns them as heathen customs. The proof is overwhelming that these days are “traditions” and “commandments of men.” But vast multitudes keep them anyway, seemingly content to worship Christ in vain!


II Timothy 2:15 commands, “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” God expects us to know His Word so that we can act on it.

Proper Bible study leads to approval from God. Both the Old and New Testaments state, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; Deut. 8:3).

Paul explained that people are the servants of whatever and whoever they obey: “Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Rom. 6:16). People either serve and obey God, and are given eternal life (vs. 23)—or they serve and obey sin, and earn eternal death!

If God once commanded that certain Holy Days be kept, then should you not be certain why you choose not to observe them? No matter how comfortable a lifelong practice may be, should you not base your decision to continue doing it on proof—hard evidence—instead of assumptions?

God says, “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My word” (Isa. 66:2) and “Prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:2).

Will you sincerely, with an open mind, seek and tremble before the truth of God’s Word about His Holy Days—or will you go along with the masses and their traditions of men’s heathen holidays?


Israel Continually Disobeyed

Israel refused to remain faithful to God’s Sabbaths—annual or weekly—for any extended time. They had periods when they did observe them, before disobeying God and falling back into the practices of the nations around them.

In Ezekiel, God describes how He gave all of His Sabbaths to Israel—and what they did with them. Notice: “Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. But the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness: they walked not in My statutes, and they despised My judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and My sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out My fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them” (20:12-13).

A sign signifies. The Sabbaths signify who God’s people are and that He is the true Creator God. Israel was unwilling to carry God’s “signature” upon them, and rebelled so they could follow the customs and practices of other gods. All who observe the weekly Sabbath are compelled to remember (through a memorial) the Creation week of Genesis 1:1 to 2:7. Creation identifies God and proves His existence—and Sabbath observance forces people every seven days to remember who the true God is. Those who keep it could not stray into the worship of other gods.

Notice also that God said, “I gave them My Sabbaths.” He called them “My Sabbaths” because He never intended that they be thought of as “Israel’s Sabbaths.” The word Sabbaths is plural because the weekly Sabbath is not the only Sabbath that God said was a sign forever between Him and His people.

Though mankind has been rebelling against God’s Sabbaths ever since, they still remain the sign—the proof of identity—between God and His true people today (vs. 20).

If the New Testament Church is still commanded to keep these days, we must understand what the Church is—and when God first used the term.

What is the Church?

In Matthew 16:18, Christ promised to build His Church. Matthew is in the New Testament. But what record, if any, does the Old Testament contain of God beginning His Church?

Speaking of Moses, Luke wrote, “This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness…and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us” (Acts 7:38).

Throughout the Old Testament, the word “congregation” is used to refer to the Old Testament church. It is virtually identical in meaning to the word “church” when it is used in the New Testament, which comes from the Greek word ekklesia. And it is this same word ekklesia that is rendered “church” in Acts 7:38, when referencing the Old Testament congregation of Israel.

Ancient Israel was a sovereign nation—but it was both church and state in one. Its first leader was Moses, followed by Joshua and others. While it had different kinds of rulers (prophets, judges, kings, priests), the laws of God were also civil laws—they had to be kept as national law. Many ritual and ceremonial laws—part of the law of Moses—were, because of Israel’s transgressions, added to teach the habit of obeying God’s laws. The ritual laws—intended to be kept until the time of Christ—primarily involved physical ordinances, washings of various kinds, a designation of “uncleanness” for various reasons and several types of meat and drink offerings.

The Sabbath and Holy Days were never part of Moses’ law of rituals, washings and offerings. The Sabbath began at creation and the Holy Days were given well before God commanded burnt offerings and sacrifices (Jer. 7:22-23). The laws of Moses were added because people would not keep the already-established laws of God. This is the critical point to understand. They were not the same. The Holy Days were to be kept forever, but sacrifices were only to be offered until Christ—God’s greatest sacrifice—died on the stake and nullified the need for them.

The New Testament Church is also referred to as “an holy nation” (I Pet. 2:9). But it is a spiritual and not a civil nation. The laws of God that were given to ancient Israel—the church in the wilderness—must still be obeyed by spiritual Israel—the New Testament Church. This is the primary difference between Old and New Testament Israel.

Everything God does is for a purpose—it has been carefully planned toward and for a specific reason or reasons. This is the case with the Holy Days. God gave them for a reason—a supreme purpose!

The purpose of God’s Holy Days is that they reflect and explain the entirety of God’s Plan for mankind! As they are kept each year in sequence, the seven annual Sabbaths or Feast Days are a kind of rehearsal of events God does not want His people to ever forget. They are a memorial in advance of things that God intends to do throughout the various ages and dispensations of His 6,000-year purpose for humanity.

By keeping these days continually—every year—those who do this are automatically kept in remembrance of what God is doing. They understand that these days symbolize and depict very specific events, timing of events and periods of time within God’s Plan.

None of the nations of the world keep God’s Sabbath or Holy Days. As a result, none of the nations of the world understand God’s purpose—or that He even has a purpose. This has been true throughout history. None of the nations of the world know who the true God is—and the result has been that they all serve false gods and idols.

Except that they once did have knowledge of God’s Sabbaths, the modern nations populated by the descendants of ancient Israel are no different. They have fallen into idolatry and pagan practices along with the rest of the nations—because they have forgotten God’s Sabbath and Holy Days. They have also lost the understanding of their true identity. Losing God’s sign ensured that this would happen.

The churches of this world are ignorant of the most fundamental aspects of God’s Plan and teachings. They do not understand the receiving of God’s Holy Spirit, the conversion process, what it means to be born again, the true gospel of the kingdom of God, what happens at death, the Bible definition of sin, that heaven is not the reward of the saved, that salvation has to do with rulership (which one qualifies for after a lifetime of overcoming sin and the flesh), the purpose of the Church, the commission of the Church, how world peace will come, the origin of human nature, the origin of the devil, the Bible definition of faith, that the immortal soul doctrine is fiction, etc. Most do not even understand or truly believe that Christ is going to return—or what this means for the entirety of civilization! These same millions believe Christ’s crucifixion finished—ended—the plan of redemption. (Actually, we will learn that Christ’s sacrifice merely began this plan.)

If ancient Israel had remained faithful to God’s Sabbaths, they would understand the truth of all these doctrines. And if the world would suddenly begin to keep these days, they would come into this knowledge. But God is not calling the world now. He is calling individuals. Any individual who is willing to investigate and prove God’s truth can see unlocked the greatest mysteries now unknown to a deceived, confused, blinded world.

Israel Had Forgotten the True God

Almost everyone understands that “God led Israel out of Egypt.” But almost no one understands that Egypt was a type of sin—and that Israel was in bondage to it. God had to deliver Israel from this bondage—and this took a series of miracles. All those called out of this world are in a modern “Egypt”—a Babylon—of sin, confusion and rejection of the true God. Remember. God poured His plagues on Egypt before delivering His people. The book of Revelation reveals that God will do this again just prior to Christ’s Return.

Hollywood has depicted the Exodus in an embellished and sometimes very inaccurate way. But most are at least vaguely familiar with how God established His power—and identity—through miracles. God used them to reintroduce Himself to Israel.

Consider. God gave the Sabbath to ancient Israel through Moses. Why did God do this? He had to! Israel had just spent about 200 years of slavery in Egypt. They had not been permitted to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—their forefathers—for all those years. At the time God liberated them, they had forgotten the identity of the true God and His Sabbath. They did not have access to the Scriptures and were required to worship the false gods of Egypt. Therefore, God had to reveal Himself to them a second time.

This is one reason that the Sabbath command begins with the words “Remember the Sabbath day”—Israel had forgotten it. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had kept God’s Law (Gen. 26:5; Deut. 30:20), but the knowledge of the Sabbath had become lost through the centuries in Egypt.

God decided to make the Sabbath command clear to Israel while they were in the Wilderness of Sin (Zin). Israel had left the “flesh pots” of Egypt behind and grumbled to Moses because they lacked food. God had to test whether they would obey His Law. He created a specific test, through manna, that was designed to teach Israel the uniqueness of the Sabbath’s holy time. The account is found in Exodus 16. (It illustrates that people will almost eagerly believe that time or God’s laws can change.)

A Prophesied “Little Horn” Changed Time

Daniel 7 contains an extraordinary prophecy. When correctly understood, it reveals exactly how the professing Christian world came to celebrate “Christianized” pagan holidays in place of the annual days that God made holy and gave to ancient Israel.

When carefully examined and compared to other scriptures, it becomes clear that this chapter pictures four world-ruling Gentile empires, described as four beasts. Beginning with Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire, they would span the last 2,500 years preceding Christ’s Return.

Virtually all serious students of Bible prophecy recognize that the ten-horned fourth beast is the Roman Empire (vs. 23)—and the ten horns are its ten historic resurrections (or revivals). Verse 8 introduces a “little horn” that arises among the ten horns of the Roman Empire.


Here is what Daniel records: “I considered the [ten] horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.” Verse 20 describes this little horn as one “whose look was more stout than his fellows.”


Once again, those who understand even the most basic elements of Bible prophecy know that a “horn,” in prophecy, refers to a kingdom or government. Therefore, they recognize that this little horn is a small kingdom or government that took a prominent position in history within the ten successive resurrections of the Roman Empire. It is also obvious from the description of this “little horn” that it is a small but powerful religious hierarchy and government associated with and controlling Rome.


Now read Daniel’s additional description of what this religious kingdom would do: “And he shall speak great words against the most High [God], and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws” (Dan. 7:25).


For those with eyes to see, God gives tremendous insight into the work of this little religious kingdom. Daniel 7 is a remarkable statement about how this “little horn” church sought to alter God’s laws as they have to do with time!


It can be proven that the Daniel 7 “little horn,” who “wears out the saints,” is the same as the Revelation 17 “woman,” who is “drunken with the blood of the saints.” This woman is described as fornicating with and ruling over the kings (and kingdoms) of earth.


Over the last 2,000 years, only one church fits Daniel’s description. Only one church has continually spoken “against the most High [God]” by trying to change the laws and the times that He has made holy! Only one church has continually persecuted the true Church and saints of God, who have not been willing to compromise His Law and time.

God’s Times and Laws


The churches of this world will often admit to making a half-hearted effort at keeping nine of the Ten Commandments. Typically, they will acknowledge that it is wrong to steal, kill, covet, bear false witness, and commit adultery. They will also acknowledge that honoring one’s father and mother, avoiding idolatry and taking God’s name in vain—while claiming to follow the God described in the first Commandment—are basically good things to do. However, most do a poor job of actually keeping these nine commandments, and teach that Christ officially did away with them and “kept them for us.” But most will agree, at least tacitly, that these nine commandments are “nice principles.”


Consider. Exodus 20:8-11 reveals that Sabbath-keeping is the Fourth Commandment—and a fundamental law of God! The Sabbath was hallowed—made into holy time—by God at creation. God never authorized or hallowed Sunday, the first day of the week. Christ kept the Sabbath (Luke 4:16; Mark 2:27-28). So did Paul (Acts 13:42, 44; 17:2; 18:4)—as did the New Testament Church. In Exodus 31, it was ordained “forever” and to be kept “perpetually” by all “generations” of God’s people.


Theologians and religionists have long taught that the true Sabbath of the Bible is the seventh day. Saturday, not Sunday, is the seventh day of the week. A good dictionary reveals this. And the weekly cycle has never been changed. However, the ministers of this world have had to carefully devise “explanations” that dismiss many clear scriptures about God’s plain command to keep His Sabbath. Instead of letting God’s Word change their beliefs to conform with His truths, they change the words or their meanings to make them fit their beliefs! They justify Sunday-keeping—even though God’s Word has never justified Sunday-keeping! The same is true of the annual Holy Days.


God has always said, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex. 20:8). He has never said, “Remember the first day (the pagan sun’s day) to keep it holy,” or authorized His Church or mankind to do this. Nor did He ever command or allow His people to keep numerous other pagan festivals and days of worship. He has always commanded against their observance, and the early New Testament Church kept God’s Holy Days for over four centuries—with its remnant still doing so today!


Christmas and Easter have nothing to do with God and are both condemned in scripture in the strongest possible terms.

Many pagan festivals, including Christmas (Saturnalia), Easter (the festival of Ishtar), Halloween, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day and worship on the day of the Sun, were observed throughout the Roman Empire long before Christ’s First Coming. The apostate false church simply adopted them into practice, and enforced them on all citizens in the empire through the vehicle of the civil government.


The most obvious ways that the little horn has “thought” to change—and counterfeit—God’s holy times and laws has been by replacing His Sabbath with the pagan sun’s day, thus altering His fourth great law (many speak of Sunday as their “sabbath”)—and by replacing His annual Holy Days with numerous pagan holidays practiced for centuries by the Romans and Greeks.


But there are other ways that the “little horn” has changed God’s way of marking time. It starts the year in the dead of winter, while God starts His year in the spring, when nature is springing to life. The “woman” begins her days in the middle of the night, while God marks days from sunset to sunset. The Roman church begins the workweek on the second day, Monday, while God begins the weekly work cycle on the first day of the week, Sunday. Pagan Rome has devised an unnatural calendar based solely on the sun, thus having varying lengths for its months, while God bases His calendar on the moon and starts months with each new moon.


God’s sacred calendar—generally referred to as the Hebrew calendar—has never been recognized by religionists, scientists, historians and educators as the way God intended to mark and measure time. The Jews did not invent this calendar or contrive it from imagination. Its principles go back to the first chapter of the Bible, where the sun and the moon were appointed “…for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years” (Gen 1:14). No other calendar harmonizes the solar and lunar cycles. Only the Hebrew calendar sanctioned by God does this!


The whole world has been deceived into accepting these and other “changes” and been led away from the plain, clear commands of God’s Word. Billions have carelessly remained ignorant of God’s instructions, content to believe heathen customs, practices, days and times that have been spoon-fed to them.


We will learn that obedience to God’s weekly and annual Sabbaths is intertwined—they cannot be separated. Though they stand or fall together. The arguments and suppositions of those who claim God’s plain commands are no longer in effect are equally applied to the issue of weekly Sabbath-keeping and annual Sabbath observance.

Some claim that Colossians 2:16-17 does away with the Sabbath and Holy Days. (We will see later that it does not.) Others claim that the annual Sabbaths were part of Moses’ law. They were not, because they were observed before Moses’ law of ritualistic orders had been given. Others claim that sacrifices were performed on these days—but Numbers 28:3 shows that sacrifices took place on every day of the year.


So then, this all-important question now arises: What were the days that God made holy and commanded ancient Israel to observe? Some important background is essential to properly approach the subject of God’s seven annual Feast Days as they were taught in the Old Testament.


They are introduced in Leviticus 23.

The Holy Day Chapter


Leviticus 23 is best described as, and is often called, the “Holy Day Chapter.” It contains a brief description of each of God’s seven annual Holy Days—also called Feasts or Sabbaths, which we will see are interchangeable terms throughout the chapter. We will later examine the meaning of these days.


Notice: “And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations [commanded assemblies], even these are My feasts” (vs. 1-2). Verse 3 introduces the weekly Sabbath as one of God’s Feasts: “Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; you shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.” Verse 4 introduces the rest of God’s Feasts: “These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which you shall proclaim in their seasons.”


With one exception, Feasts and Sabbaths are the same thing.


Verse 5 reveals the first of God’s Feasts: “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s passover.”


Next, we see that the seven Days of Unleavened Bread are introduced. On these days, beginning the day after the Passover, the Israelites were required to eat unleavened bread: “And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days you must eat unleavened bread…in the seventh day is an holy convocation: you shall do no servile work therein” (vs. 6, 8). The first and seventh days are both Holy Days.


Verses 9-22 give a more detailed description of the next Feast Day, called Firstfruits—or Pentecost, because one must count fifty days from the weekly Sabbath during Unleavened Bread to determine when it should be kept. This day was observed in the late spring. Now read: “…it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. And you shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall you number fifty days…You shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord” (vs. 14-17).


Verse 21 explains that the Feast of Firstfruits is a commanded assembly and repeats for emphasis that it was ordained by God forever: “And you shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: you shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.”


This passage includes a second emphasis by God about the permanent establishment of these days so that none can misunderstand what “forever” means. Notice that Israel was to keep these days “throughout your generations” (also repeated twice). There are still generations of Israel alive on earth today.


The fall season includes the last four annual Holy Days, beginning with the Feast of Trumpets: “In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall you have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no servile work therein” (vs. 24-25).


Next comes the Day of Atonement, which is an annual Sabbath, but not a Feast Day. This was because no food or drink was permitted: “Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and you shall afflict your souls [go without food or drink]…you shall do no work…for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God…it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall you celebrate your Sabbath” (vs. 27-28, 31-32). Once again, the Day of Atonement was commanded to be observed “forever” and “throughout your generations.”


Five days after the Day of Atonement is the Feast of Tabernacles, which lasts seven days and is followed by the Last Great Day, referred to here as “the eighth day.”


Verses 34-36 describe these Feasts: “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord. On the first day shall be an holy convocation: you shall do no servile work therein…on the eighth day shall be a holy convocation unto you…it is a solemn assembly; and you shall do no servile work therein.”


This chapter describes seven Feasts and seven annual Holy Days. Passover is a Feast but not a Holy Day. Atonement is a Holy Day but obviously not a Feast Day, because no food or drink is permitted.


Verses 40-43 further describe the Feast of Tabernacles and what God intended Israel to learn from observing it: “And you shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. And you shall keep it a Feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations: you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths [temporary dwellings] seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths: That your generations may know that I [God] made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”


Let’s take a moment to summarize. Including verse 41, God states four times that His Feasts were ordained forever! Twice He declares they were to be observed throughout Israel’s generations. God is most serious about obedience to them, because verses 29-30 state that anyone who did not obey them would be “cut off”—“destroyed”—put to death!


Verses 37-38, 44 reiterate, “These are the feasts of the Lord” and are “the sabbaths of the Lord.” (Verse 39 explains that the first day of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day are also “Sabbaths.”) These are not the “Jew’s feasts” or “Israel’s feasts,” as some who are dishonest with the Scriptures assert.


Get this firmly in your mind. These Holy Days are God’s Sabbaths—they are Feasts of the Lord!

















First, consider the Sabbath, which was created over 2,500 years before God gave the law of sacrifices to Israel. It was kept by His faithful servants without sacrifices all through this time! Yet, God later added sacrifices to the weekly Sabbath (Num. 28:9-10). It is impossible that the Sabbath stands or falls with sacrifices that came over two-and-a-half millennia later!


Do you see this point? For the same principle applies to the Holy Days, which appeared before sacrifices were commanded.


Second, the meat and drink sacrifices were added to every day of the week (Num. 28:3-8). They were to be done “day by day, for a continual burnt offering” (vs. 3). Surely no one will argue that “days” came into existence 2,500 years after the creation week of Genesis 1. (God also commanded sacrifices on new moons–verses 11-15.)


The Sabbath and Holy Days are memorials. This explains why they are commanded to be kept forever, while physical sacrifices—and ritual washings (replaced by the “washing of water in the [God’s] Word”–Eph. 5:26)—were not.

Kept by the New Testament Church


We have already examined I Corinthians 5:7-8 and Paul’s command to “keep the Feast.” But are there other places in the New Testament, which reinforce and make this command absolutely unmistakable? Is there evidence that Paul himself kept them?


Let’s review. The Passover lamb was killed and eaten on the 14th and the Feast was kept on the 15th (Num. 28:16-17). Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54 and John 19:14 show that the daylight portion of the 14th was used to prepare for the Feast. Note that the tradition of the elders instructed the Jews to observe their Passover one day later than God instructed.


By comparing Matthew 26:5, Mark 14:2 and John 13:29, which all discuss the timing of Christ’s crucifixion on the Passover before the Feast Day following it, it becomes apparent that at the time of the New Testament period it was still understood that the Passover and the Feast Day were separate days.


The book of Acts reveals that the early New Testament Church kept the Days of Unleavened Bread. This included Paul. Notice: “And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days” (Acts 20:6).


Why would God inspire Luke to record this if Paul and those with him had not just kept these days?


And why would Luke further record, “Then were the days of unleavened bread” (Acts 12:3), if God did not want the New Testament record to show that these days were being kept by His Church? If God no longer wanted these days kept, why would the Holy Spirit inspire these words? What would be the point except that God wanted to inject confusion into the Bible?


All who sincerely want to seek and please God recognize that these references exist because the Old Testament established their observance forever.


The world’s churches profess to observe “the death and Resurrection of Christ” in their Good Friday-Easter Sunday tradition. Their tradition is actually deeply rooted in paganism. These were instituted by mainstream Christianity to counterfeit and replace the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread. Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread were observed by Christ, the original apostles and the New Testament Church—including Gentiles. God commands His people to observe them today (I Cor. 5:6-8).


God ordained the Passover as a permanent ordinance—forever (Ex. 12:17, 24)! Just as Romans 2:29 explains a change in circumcision—in the New Testament it was to be of the heart and not the flesh—Christ altered the way Passover was to be kept. Christ, the Lamb of God, was slain for us, thus doing away with the need for a literal young lamb to any longer be sacrificed. As Christ explained, taking the bread and wine, symbolizing His broken body and shed blood, was to be an annual “look back” to His death—on our behalf!


Jesus kept the Passover once a year at an established—a set—time (Luke 2:42), and true Christians follow His example (I Peter 2:21). In fact, Christ Himself was following the example of Exodus 13:10, which explained that the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread were to be kept annually. It instructs there, “You shall therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year.”


Do you see these two phrases? This scripture does not say “week to week” or “month to month”—or “pick any season you wish.” All humanly-devised traditions of time violate this basic instruction!


For the Israelites to have kept this at any other time would have literally jeopardized their firstborn from protection from the death angel. There was no room for miscalculation on their part or they could not have expected to be “passed over”—protected!


What the Wave Sheaf Pictures


The portion of Pentecost called the Wave Sheaf offering begins in Leviticus 23:10. The day after the weekly Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread was the first day that Israelites were permitted to harvest any of their grain crop. In a special ceremony, the Levitical priesthood “waved” (vs. 11) “before the Lord” the very first sheaf of grain that was cut. Verse 11 adds that it was waved “to be accepted for you”—the Israelites. (This is no longer done today because this ritual was a shadow of a far greater offering, which came later and fulfilled it.)


What did the Wave Sheaf offering actually mean? What did it symbolize or picture?


After Christ’s Resurrection, He met Mary Magdalene in the garden. This account reveals how Christ had to be accepted by God on behalf of mankind. Notice: “Jesus said unto her, Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father: but go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God” (John 20:17; also Matt. 28:9).


Christ was a holy sacrifice, the first human being to be resurrected to eternal life. His death (as the sacrifice for our sins) was the fulfillment of the Wave Sheaf offering. This duty was to be carried out only by the high priest. If it were handled by anyone other than the high priest, the offering would have been defiled (impure), rendered unacceptable to God.


At the time Mary Magdalene saw Christ, He had not yet ascended to Heaven to be accepted by the Father as the first person to be born again from the dead (Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:15, 18; I Cor. 15:20, 23). Since Christ was the Wave Sheaf offering and is our New Testament High Priest (Heb. 9:11-12), no one could touch Him before He ascended and God had accepted His sacrifice.


THE ONLY SIGN CHRIST GAVE WAS THE SIGN OF JONAH, JONAS, BEING IN THE BELLY OF THE WELL FOR THREE NIGHTS AND THREE DAYS: CHRIST SAID THAT HE TOO WOULD BE IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH FOR THREE NIGHTS AND THREE DAYS.....THREE FULL DAYS (THE RESURRECTIONS OF CHRIST). It occurred on the weekly Sabbath (Saturday) after a Wednesday Passover crucifixion. Therefore, after Christ had offered Himself, He presented Himself before the Father on Sunday exactly as Leviticus 23 instructs.


 What Days Are Referenced in Romans 14:5-6?

Some conclude that Romans 14:5-6 authorizes people to observe any days they choose. By taking these verses out of context, and applying their own meaning, they assert that it makes no difference to God which days we keep.

In order to grasp the true intent of this passage, we must start reading where the context of the subject begins. Verses 1-4 identify the subject in context as vegetarianism—not which days should be kept.

Notice: “One man esteems one day above another: another esteems every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regards the day, regards it unto the Lord; and he that regards not the day, to the Lord he does not regard it. He that eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he that eats not, to the Lord he eats not, and gives God thanks” (Rom. 14:5-6).

Does Paul state here that Jesus, by His death, did away with the very days He kept during His entire life? No! Does he say, “GOD esteems one day above another” and “GOD esteems every day alike?” Again, no! The verse says, “One MAN esteems one day above another.” This is telling us that it was what men were teaching, not what God instructs.

Christ is not going to judge us by what any man believes. He will judge us by His Word, the Bible: “…the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).

Notice that the saints at Rome were forbidden to judge one another: “Who are you that judges another man’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Yes, he shall be helped up: for God is able to make him stand” (Rom. 14:4).

Paul is not condemning or endorsing a particular period of time for Sabbath observance or worship, but he is warning the saints not to judge one another and cause strife by having differing opinions about when people choose to semi-fast. Those in Rome were weak in the faith. They had not yet matured spiritually. Paul says, “For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end that you may be established” (Rom. 1:11).

This scripture in no way gives license to believe whatever you want. God commands, “…and lean not unto your own understanding” (Prov. 3:5). Until you know what God says in His word, how can you be fully assured in your own mind what is right? Paul stated, “the holy scriptures…are able to make you wise unto salvation” (II Tim. 3:15).

Paul is writing to both Jewish and Gentile converts at Rome. He advised them to accept those who were “weak in the faith” (Rom. 14:1), and to not “dispute” insignificant matters with them, nor sit in judgment of them. Some of these newly converted Gentiles, being weak, were still vegetarians and refused to eat meats.

The reason they did not eat meat is explained in I Corinthians 8. Most meat available for purchase at the market had been previously offered to idols at pagan temples. Therefore, some, with conscience of the idol, ate it “as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. But meat commends us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse” (vs. 7-8). Some of the converts at Rome, who had given up idolatry, were Gentiles. Still being superstitious, they thought the idol had defiled the meat.

What were these days Paul was referring to? Why did Paul break into this thought—about eating meat—and mention “days”? The answer is found in the Moffatt translation: “Then again, this man rates one day above another, while that man rates all days alike. Well, everyone must be convinced in his own mind; the man who values a particular day does so to the Lord. The eater eats to the Lord, since he thanks God for his food; the non-eater abstains to the Lord, and he too thanks God” (Rom. 14:5-6).

Notice! Not only were there weak converts who avoided eating meat offered to idols, but others customarily abstained from particular foods. They semi-fasted on certain particular days. Still others refused to practice a semi-fast or abstain from foods, but regarded every day in the same way!

A number of Jews of that time held semi-fasts twice in the week (Luke 18:12). Some would also fast during the fifth and seventh months (Zech. 7:4-7). They were divided as to exactly when to fast. The Gentile converts were also divided as to what days to abstain from certain foods. Because of the differing backgrounds of these people, they could not agree on which days to do this. There were divisions in the congregation. Jesus taught us that fasting is something that is done without making it obvious to others (Matt. 6:16). It is a personal matter—between an individual and God.

The subject of this question surrounded the matter of abstinence on particular days—upon which days many voluntarily abstained from certain foods. It did not involve whether or not to keep pagan holidays or God’s Holy Days.

Nowhere in this passage is there any reference to “Sabbaths,” “Holy Days” or “Feasts”!

 A Serious Matter

In the Old Testament, ignoring the Holy Days was punishable by death (Lev. 23:29-30). So was Sabbath-breaking (Ex. 31:14-15; 35:2). II Corinthians 3:7-8 describes the Old Testament administration of a civil death penalty, which is no longer applicable. This is because God is now building the nation of spiritual Israel (Rom. 2:28-29; 8:9; 11:24-26; Gal. 3:29; Eph. 2:11-13, 19; I Pet. 2:5, 9).

The Holy Days were to be kept perpetually, forever and throughout the generations of Israel. There are still generations of Israel today—and there is spiritual Israel (the Church) today, which also keeps the rest of the commandments of God (Matt. 19:16-17; Rom. 2:13; Jms. 1:8-12; Rev. 12:17).

It would be terribly inconsistent of God to require the death penalty for those who ignored the Holy Days in ancient Israel, and to severely punish entire nations for disobeying them during the Millennium—yet declare that He does not care whether His people keep them during the Christian era!

Christ observed the Holy Days—and Paul wrote, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). In Malachi 3:6, God [actually Christ, the God of the Old Testament] says, “I am the Lord, I CHANGE NOT”! Powerful words!

Take heed whether and how you will obey God. For “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:28-29).

The seriousness of this warning cannot be overstated!

A GLIMPSE INTO HISTORY-WHAT JOHN ADAMS SAID TO THOMAS JEFFERSION ( ABOUT ROME & THE BEAST)

THIS IS A SPECIAL EDITION, TO SHOW HOW MAN WILL HOLD TO MAN. THINK OF THE MILLIONS WHO HOLD TO THE 4TH DAY OF THE 7TH MONTH ON MAN'S ROMAN CALENDAR, CALLED THE DAY OF INDEPENDENCE OR LIBERTY. YET THESE SAME MILLIONS WILL NOT KEEP THE 4TH COMMANDMENT-- THE 7TH DAY [ON GOD'S SACRED 'HOLY' CALENDAR] AS GOD HAS SAID TO BREAK THE BONDS OF EVIL, FOR ONLY GOD, THROUGH HIS TRUTH MAKES ONE FREE (THE SMALL AND THE GREAT). THESE SAME PEOPLE WOULD NOT SAY LET US KEEP "THE DAY OF INDEPENDENCE ON JUST ANY 4TH OF THE YEAR, YET THEY SAY "LET'S KEEP THE SABBATH-THAT COMMANDED BY GOD ALMIGHTY HIMSELF (SINCE CREATION WEEK AND WHEN HE WROTE IT WITH HIS VERY OWN FINGER IN STONE--2500 YEARS LATER, AND AFTER HE MADE IT AN EVERLASTING SIGN BETWEEN HIM AND HIS PEOPLE)....THEY SAY LET US KEEP THE SABBATH ON ANY OF THE DAYS OF THE WEEK 'NOT THE 7TH AS GOD COMMANDED, BUT THE 1ST AS THE PAGANS HAVE ALWAYS DONE IN WORSHIPPING SATAN-AND HIS DEMONS-THROUGH IDOLIZING THE SUN (INSTEAD OF HOLDING TO THE SON OF GOD). FOR GOD 1ST KEPT THE 7TH DAY SABBATH WHEN HE RESTED AND MADE IT HOLY--"BLESSED AND HALLOWED OUT"(MAN CAN MAKE NO THING HOLY) AND CHRIST ALSO DID THAT WHICH PLEASED THE FATHER AT ALL TIMES AND HE TOO KEPT THE 7TH DAY SABBATH. TRADITIONS ARE NOTHING, THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD ARE EVERYTHING. WE CAN SINCERELY BELIEVE SOMETHING IN OUR HEARTS BUT THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT, GOD'S WORD IS THE ONLY TRUTH. (AT ONE TIME HUMAN BEINGS SINCERELY BELIEVED THAT THE EARTH WAS "SQUARE" BUT THAT DID NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT IT IN FACT IS ROUND--SOMETHING GOD, THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE--ALWAYS KNEW.

THOMAS JEFFERSON AND JOHN ADAMS, TWO OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND WRITERS OF INDEPENDENCE, YET, HOW MANY "SLAVES" DID JEFFERSON ALONE HAVE. THE ABOLISHING OF SLAVERY CAME 100 YRS AFTER THIS DAY MILLIONS KEEP (AS A MEMORIAL) AND ANOTHER 100 YEARS AFTER THAT BEFORE "CIVIL-HUMAN" RIGHTS WERE GIVEN TO ALL. YET PEOPLE HOLD ON TO IF FOR IT IS "A TRADITION", GOD SAYS HIS PEOPLE LOVE LIES, BUT NONE WHO LOVETH A LIE SHALL ENTER HIS GATES (SEE REVELATION).

ANOTHER 'EXAMPLE' OF HOW PEOPLE HOLD ON TO TRADITIONS (LIKE PAGAN HOLIDAYS). IN THE OLD TESTAMENT GOD TOLD MOSES TO HAVE THE PEOPLE LOOK UP TO THE BRONZE SNAKE ON THE POLE (THAT WHICH PICTURED JESUS CHRIST ON THE POLE) WHEN THEY WERE BITTEN BY THE POISONOUS SNAKE (SATAN-IN THIS WORLD, THROUGH FLESHY SIN).

NOW INSTEAD OF THE PEOPLE LOOKING TO GOD THEY LOOK TO THE "SYMBOL" AND THAT SNAKE ON THE POLE SYMBOL (FROM OLD TESTAMENT, ANCIENT ISRAEL) IS SEEN ON OUR HEALTHCARE TO, HOSPITALS, AMBULANCES, ETC. YET, THIS IS WHERE THAT SYMBOL CAME FROM, LITERALLY HANDED DOWN, GENERATION AFTER GENERATION. WE CAN'T JUST MAKE ASSUMPTIONS, GOD CALLS US "TO SEEK" AND "TO PROVE ALL THINGS". 

WHAT JAMES ADAMS SAID TO THOMAS JEFFERSON (AND OTHERS) ABOUT IT:


As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?
-- John Adams, letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.
-- John Adams, letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, August 29, 1756, explaining how his independent opinions would create much difficulty in the ministry, in Edwin S Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation (1987) p. 88, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.
-- John Adams, from Rufus K Noyes, Views of Religion, quoted from from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents.
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1813, quoted from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

Cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1814, from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821, from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because of suspected heresy? Remember the Index Expurgato-rius, the Inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter, and the guillotine; and, oh! horrible, the rack! This is as bad, if not worse, than a slow fire. Nor should the Lion's Mouth be forgotten. Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years.
-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814

Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....

     Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers.
-- John Adams, August 1765


Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826)[2]  was the third President of the United States  (1801–1809)

John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American politician and political philosopher and the second President of the United States  (1797–1801),



John Adams, after being the first Vice President of the United States (1789–1797) for two terms. He was one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States.

Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the American Revolution. As a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, he played a leading role in persuading Congress to declare independence, and assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. As a representative of Congress in Europe, he was a major negotiator of the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and chiefly responsible for obtaining important loans from Amsterdam bankers. A political theorist and historian, Adams largely wrote the Massachusetts state constitution in 1780, but was in Europe when the federal Constitution was drafted on similar principles later in the decade. One of his greatest roles was as a judge of character: in 1775, he nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief, and twenty-five years later nominated John Marshall to be Chief Justice of the United States.

Adams' revolutionary credentials secured him two terms as George Washington's vice president and his own election in 1796 as the second president. During his one term, he encountered ferocious attacks by the Jeffersonian Republicans, as well as the dominant faction in his own Federalist Party led by his bitter enemy Alexander Hamilton. Adams signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, and built up the army and navy especially in the face of an undeclared naval war (called the "Quasi War") with France, 1798-1800. The major accomplishment of his presidency was his peaceful resolution of the Quasi-War in the face of Hamiltonian opposition.

In 1800 Adams was defeated for reelection by Thomas Jefferson and retired to Massachusetts. He later resumed his friendship with Jefferson. He and his wife, Abigail Adams, founded an accomplished family line of politicians, diplomats, and historians now referred to as the Adams political family. Adams was the father of John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States. His achievements have received greater recognition in modern times, though his contributions were not initially as celebrated as those of other Founders.

Religious views

Adams was raised a Congregationalist, becoming a Unitarian at a time when most of the Congregational churches around Boston were turning to Unitarianism. Adams was educated at Harvard when the influence of deism was growing there, and used deistic terms in his speeches and writing. He believed in the essential goodness of the creation, but did not believe that God intervened in the affairs of individuals, and, being a Unitarian, his beliefs excluded the divinity of Christ. He also believed that regular church service was beneficial to man's moral sense. Everett (1966) concludes that "Adams strove for a religion based on a common sense sort of reasonableness" and maintained that religion must change and evolve toward perfection. Fielding (1940) shows Adams synthesized his beliefs as a Puritan, a deist, and a humanist. Adams thought Christianity had originally been revelatory, but was being misinterpreted and misused in the service of superstition, fraud, and unscrupulous power.
A tall, grey brick building with four columns before the entrance. In the foreground, a black lightpost is seen with a banner featuring a version of the flag of the United States.
United First Parish Church

In common with many of his contemporaries, Adams criticized the claims to universal authority made by the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1796, Adams denounced political opponent Thomas Paine's criticisms of Christianity, saying, "The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity, let the Blackguard Paine say what he will."

The Unitarian Universalist Historical Society provides information about Adams’s religious beliefs. They quote from his letter to Benjamin Rush, an early promoter of Universalist thought, “I have attended public worship in all countries and with all sects and believe them all much better than no religion, though I have not thought myself obliged to believe all I heard.” The Society also relates how Rush reconciled Adams to his former friend Thomas Jefferson in 1812, after many bitter political battles. This resulted in correspondence between Adams and Jefferson about many topics, including philosophy and religion. In one of these communications, Adams told Jefferson, "The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion." In another letter, Adams reveals his sincere devotion to God, “My Adoration of the Author of the Universe is too profound and too sincere. The Love of God and his Creation; delight, Joy, Tryumph, Exaltation in my own existence, tho' but an Atom [Adam-'means man in Hebrew], a molecule Organique, in the Universe, are my religion.” He continues by revealing his Universalist sympathies, rejection of orthodox Christian dogma, and his personal belief that he was a true Christian for not accepting such dogma, “Howl, Snarl, bite, Ye Calvinistick! Ye Athanasian Divines, if You will. Ye will say, I am no Christian: I say Ye are no Christians: and there the Account is ballanced. Yet I believe all the honest men among you, are Christians in my Sense of the Word." The Society also demonstrates that Adams rejected orthodox Christian doctrines of the trinity, predestination, yet equated human understanding and the human conscience to “celestial communication” or personal revelation from God.

Midnight Judges

The lame-duck session of Congress enacted the Judiciary Act of 1801, which created a set of federal appeals courts between the district courts and the Supreme Court. As his term was expiring, Adams filled the vacancies created by this statute by appointing a series of judges, called the "Midnight Judges" because most of them were formally appointed days before the presidential term expired. Most of the judges were eventually unseated when the Jeffersonians enacted the Judiciary Act of 1802, abolishing the courts created by the Judiciary Act of 1801 and returning the structure of the federal courts to what it had been before the 1801 statute. Adams's greatest legacy was his naming of John Marshall as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States to succeed Oliver Ellsworth, who had retired due to ill health. Marshall's long tenure represents the most lasting influence of the Federalists, as Marshall infused the Constitution with a judicious and carefully reasoned nationalistic interpretation and established the Judicial Branch as the equal of the Executive and Legislative branches.


The implications of Adams's actions in appointing Federalists to the Supreme Court led to one of the most important decisions in American judicial history. Marbury v. Madison solidified the United States' system of checks and balances and gave the judicial branch equal power with the executive and legislative branches.”  This controversial case began with Adams’s appointment of Federalist William Marbury. When the newly appointed Secretary of State James Madison refused to process Marbury’s selection, Marbury requested a writ of mandamus, which would force Madison to make his appointment official.”  Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the Supreme Court did not have the authority to force Madison to make the appointment official.” This statement actually challenged the Judiciary Act of 1789, which stated that the Supreme Court did, in fact, have the right to issue those writs. Marshall, therefore, ruled that part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 unconstitutional because the Constitution did not expressly grant this power to the judiciary.”  In deciding the constitutionality of an act of Congress, Marshall established judicial review, the most significant development in the history of the Supreme Court.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) is a landmark case in United States law. It formed the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the United States under Article III  of the Constitution.

This case resulted from a petition to the Supreme Court by William Marbury, who had been appointed by President John Adams as Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia but whose commission was not subsequently delivered. Marbury petitioned the Supreme Court to force Secretary of State James Madison to deliver the documents, but the court, with John Marshall as Chief Justice, denied Marbury's petition, holding that the part of the statute upon which he based his claim, the Judiciary Act of 1789, was unconstitutional.

Marbury v. Madison was the first time the Supreme Court declared something "unconstitutional," and established the concept of judicial review in the U.S. (the idea that courts may oversee and nullify the actions of another branch of government). The landmark decision helped define the "checks and balances" of the American form of government.

 John Adam's Major presidential actions

    * Built up the U.S. Navy
    * Fought the Quasi War with France
    * Signed Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798
    * Ended war with France through diplomacy
    * Appointed John Marshall to Supreme Court

Adams never bought a slave and declined on principle to employ slave labor.  Abigail Adams opposed slavery and employed free blacks in preference to her father's two domestic slaves. John Adams spoke out in 1777 against a bill to emancipate slaves in Massachusetts, saying that the issue was presently too divisive, and so the legislation should "sleep for a time." He also was against use of black soldiers in the Revolution, due to opposition from southerners.  Adams generally tried to keep the issue out of national politics, because of the anticipated southern response.  Though it is difficult to pinpoint the exact date on which slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, a common view is that it was abolished no later than 1780, when it was forbidden by implication in the Declaration of Rights that John Adams wrote into the Massachusetts Constitution.

Jefferson was the first President to propose the idea of a formal Indian Removal plan.

Andrew Jackson is often erroneously credited with initiating Indian Removal, because Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, during his presidency, and also because of his personal involvement in the forceful extermination and removal of many Eastern tribes. But Jackson was merely legalizing and implementing a plan laid out by Jefferson in a series of private letters that began in 1803 (for example, see letter to William Henry Harrison below).

Jefferson's first promotions of Indian Removal were between 1776 and 1779, when he recommended forcing the Cherokee and Shawnee tribes to be driven out of their ancestral homelands to lands west of the Mississippi River.

His first such act as president, was to make a deal with the state of Georgia that if Georgia were to release its legal claims to discovery in lands to the west, then the U.S. military would help forcefully expel the Cherokee people from Georgia. At the time, the Cherokee had a treaty with the United States government which guaranteed them the right to their lands, which was violated in Jefferson's deal with Georgia.

The religious views of Thomas Jefferson diverged widely from the orthodox Christianity of his day. Throughout his life Jefferson was intensely interested in theology, biblical study, and morality. He is most closely connected with the religious philosophy of Deism, and Unitarianism. He is reported to have said, "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."


In 1768 Thomas Jefferson started the construction of Monticello, a neoclassical mansion. Starting in childhood, Jefferson had always wanted to build a beautiful mountaintop home within sight of Shadwell. Jefferson went greatly in debt on Monticello by spending lavishly to create a neoclassical environment, based on his study of the architect Andrea Palladio and The Orders.

Monticello was also Thomas Jefferson's slave plantation. Throughout a period lasting seventy years, Thomas Jefferson owned over 600 slaves. Many of the slaves at the Monticello plantation intermarried amongst each other and produced children. Jefferson only paid a few of his trusted slaves in important positions for work done or for performing difficult tasks like cleaning chimneys or privies. Although there are no direct workday references, Jefferson’s slaves probably worked from dawn to dusk, with shorter or longer days according to the season. Fragmentary records indicate a rich spiritual life at Monticello slave quarters, incorporating both Christian and African traditions. Although there is no record that Jefferson instructed slaves in grammar education, several enslaved men at Monticello could read and write.

Jefferson was not an abolitionist, and he owned many slaves over his lifetime. Biographers point out that Jefferson was deeply in debt and had encumbered his slaves by notes and mortgages; he could not free them until he was free of debt, which never happened. As a result, Jefferson seems to have suffered pangs and trials of conscience. His claimed ambivalence was also reflected in his treatment of those slaves who worked most closely with him and his family at Monticello and in other locations. He invested in having them trained and schooled in high quality skills. He wrote about slavery, "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."

He sponsored and encouraged Free-State advocates like James Lemen. According to a biographer, Jefferson "believed that it was the responsibility of the state and society to free all slaves." In 1769, as a member of the House of Burgesses, Jefferson proposed for that body to emancipate slaves in Virginia, but he was unsuccessful. In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson condemned the British crown for sponsoring the importation of slavery to the colonies, charging that the crown "has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere." However, this language was dropped from the Declaration at the request of delegates from South Carolina and Georgia because it was obvious that these slave owners did not oppose slavery; neither did Jefferson, Washington or the dozens of other slave owners.

In 1778 the legislature passed a bill he proposed to ban further importation of slaves into Virginia, and he said it "stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication." Many slave owners opposed the slave trade, while supporting slavery. The two were distinct institutions.

Though Jefferson supported the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, it was not an anti-slavery law; it was supported by slave owners because it contained a fugitive slave clause (they could recover runaway slaves), and it would not affect the number of slave to free state House Representatives in the Congress because they knew that the Southwest Ordinance of 1790 would guarantee slavery south of the river Ohio.


In 1807, as President, he signed a bill abolishing the slave trade. This was not a form of abolition. The slave trade was an embarassment and and other nations like Great Britian were doing the same, whilst maintaing slave plantations and slavery.

Jefferson seems to attack the institution of slavery in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1784):

    There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.

In this same work, Jefferson advanced his suspicion that black people were inferior to white people "in the endowments both of body and mind." However, he also wrote in the same work that black people could have the right to live free in any country where people judge them by their nature, and not as just being good for labor. He also wrote, "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. [But] the two races...cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them." According to historian Stephen Ambrose: "Jefferson, like all slaveholders and many other white members of American society, regarded Negroes as inferior, childlike, untrustworthy and, of course, as property. Jefferson, the genius of politics, could see no way for African Americans to live in society as free people." At the same time he trusted them with his children, with preparation of his food and entertainment of high-ranking guests. So clearly he believed that some were trustworthy. For a long-term solution Jefferson believed that slaves should be freed then deported peacefully to African colonies. Otherwise, he feared war and that in his words, "human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall far short of our case."

But on February 25, 1809, Jefferson repudiated his earlier view, writing in a letter to Abbé Grégoire:

    Sir,—I have received the favor of your letter of August 17th, and with it the volume you were so kind to send me on the "Literature of Negroes." Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunity for the development of their genius were not favorable and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed them therefore with great hesitation; but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making toward their re-establishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family. I pray you therefore to accept my thanks for the many instances you have enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that race of men, which cannot fail to have effect in hastening the day of their relief; and to be assured of the sentiments of high and just esteem and consideration which I tender to yourself with all sincerity.

In August 1814 Edward Coles and Jefferson corresponded about Coles' ideas on emancipation: "Your solitary but welcome voice is the first which has brought this to my ear, and I have considered the general silence which prevails on this subject as indicating an apathy unfavorable to every hope.

In 1817, as Polish general and American war of independence rebel Tadeusz Kos'ciuszko died, Jefferson was named by Kos'ciuszko as the executor of his will, in which the Pole asked that the proceeds from the sale of his assets be used to free, among others, Jefferson's slaves. Jefferson, 75 at the time, did not free his slaves and pleaded that he was too old to take on the duties of executor; at the same time energetically throwing himself into the creation of the University of Virginia. Some historians have speculated that he had qualms about freeing slaves.

The downturn in land prices after 1819 pushed Jefferson further into debt. Jefferson finally emancipated his five most trusted slaves (two, his mixed-race sons through Sally Hemings confirmed 1998 DNA tests) and petitioned the legislature to allow them to stay in Virginia. After his death, his family sold the remainder of the slaves by auction on the lawn of his estate to settle his high debts.

Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. He died a few hours before John Adams, his compatriot in their quest for independence, then great political rival, and later friend and correspondent. Adams is often rumored to have referenced Jefferson in his last words, unaware of his passing. Jefferson is considered to have died from a number of conditions in his old age: toxins in his blood and uremia from nephropathy, severe diarrhea, and pneumonia. Problems urinating from a urinary tract infection, while a symptom of kidney disease, have made some consider that Jefferson died from undiagnosed prostate cancer.

Although he was born into one of the wealthiest families in North America, Thomas Jefferson was deeply in debt when he died. Jefferson's trouble began when his father-in-law died, and he and his brothers-in-law quickly divided the estate before its debts were settled. It made each of them liable for the whole amount due – which turned out to be more than they expected.

Jefferson sold land before the American Revolution to pay off the debts, but by the time he received payment, the paper money was worthless amid the skyrocketing inflation of the war years. Cornwallis ravaged Jefferson's plantation during the war, and British creditors resumed their collection efforts when the conflict ended. Jefferson suffered another financial setback when he cosigned notes for a relative who reneged on debts in the financial Panic of 1819. Only Jefferson's public stature prevented creditors from seizing Monticello and selling it out from under him during his lifetime.

After his death, his possessions were sold at auction. In 1831, Jefferson's 552 acres (223 hectares) were sold to James T. Barclay for $7,000, equivalent to $143 thousand today.[41] Thomas Jefferson is buried on his Monticello estate, in Charlottesville, Virginia. In his will, he left Monticello to the United States to be used as a school for orphans of navy officers. His epitaph, written by him with an insistence that only his words and "not a word more" be inscribed (notably omitting his service as Governor of Virginia, Vice-President and President), reads:

    "HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON
    AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
    OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
    AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA."

Below the epitaph, on a separate panel, is written

    BORN APRIL 2. 1743. O.S.
    DIED JULY 4. 1826.

The initials O.S. are a notation for Old Style and that is a reference to the change of dating that occurred during Jefferson's lifetime from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar under the British Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.

Jefferson has been memorialized in many ways, including buildings, sculptures, and currency. The Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. on April 13, 1943, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. The interior of the memorial includes a 19-foot (6 m) statue of Jefferson and engravings of passages from his writings. Most prominent are the words which are inscribed around the monument near the roof: "I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man".

[1943 right in the middle]: World War II, or the Second World War[1]  (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict  lasting from 1939 to 1945 which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilised. In a state of "total war," the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant action against civilians, including the Holocaust  and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict  in history.


Jefferson's portrait appears on the U.S. $2 bill, nickel, and the $100 Series EE Savings Bond.

Recent memorials to Jefferson include the commissioning of the NOAA ship Thomas Jefferson in Norfolk, Virginia on July 8, 2003, in commemoration of his establishment of a Survey of the Coast, the predecessor to NOAA's National Ocean Service; and the placement of a bronze monument in Jefferson Park, Chicago at the entrance to the Jefferson Park Transit Center along Milwaukee Avenue in 2005.


Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell.
-- John Adams, quoted from Charles Francis Adams, ed, Works of John Adams (1856), vol. X, p. 254


THEY SAY JOHN ADAMS WAS AN 'ATHEIST' ONLY GOD REALLY KNOWS: BUT HISTORY SHOWS THAT HE WAS AGAINST ALL THE FALSE HOOD, THE WORLD WAS FLOODED WITH IT AND HE SAW NO WAY OUT YET ONLY ONE WAY IN. BECAUSE OF LIES HE COULD NOT RECEIVE THE TRUTH OF CHRIST, BECAUSE 'CHRISTIANITY' HAD BECOME SO 'PERVERSE' JUST AS WHEN BOTH THE LAW OF GOD AND THE LAW OF MOSES WAS PERVERTED BY THE PHARISEES AND SADUECESS IN JESUS' DAY AND BEFORE...[ONLY GOD KNOWS 'THE HEART' AND THIS IS WHY GOD IS THE ONLY JUDGE OF MAN, AND HE'S GIVEN ALL AUTHORITY TO HIS SON, HIS FAITHFUL AND TRUE WITNESS, JESUS CHRIST (Y'SHUA THE MESSIAH)].



John Adams is here describing to Thomas Jefferson what he sees as an emotion-based ejaculatory thought that keeps coming to him. This was not his reasoned opinion. Although John Adams often felt an urge to advocate atheism as a popular world view (because of the sheer abuses perpetrated by religious charlatans), he was of the firm and reasoned opinion (basically undisputed in his day) that religion is essential to the goal of keeping the masses in line.

Knowing what we know today, to say this is pure slander against atheists. And yet it is still quite popular, especially among the uneducated, the widespread acknowledgment of its falsehood notwithstanding.

Thus, Adams was not above presenting such travesties as his National Day of Prayer and Fasting proclamation. These acts reflected his view that the masses needed religion to keep this world from becoming a bedlam. However, Adams, like Washington and Jefferson, did not apply this reasoning to himself -- as we can plainly see from the quotations in the main section: religion was good for the masses but not for John Adams (for the most part), who was above all that and needed no piety in order to maintain his own sense of civility.


Main Entry: bed·lam
Pronunciation: \?bed-l?m\
Function: noun
Etymology: Bedlam, popular name for the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, London, an insane asylum, from Middle English Bedlem Bethlehem
Date: 1522

1 obsolete : madman, lunatic
2 often capitalized : a lunatic asylum
3 : a place, scene, or state of uproar and confusion

— bedlam adjective


If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.-- Winston Churchill

We don't need a constitutional amendment for kids to pray.-- Bill Clinton, at the 1996 presidential debate in San Diego, responding to minister Ron Kite, who falsely spoke of "founding fathers who possessed very strong Christian beliefs and godly principles," quoted by Cliff Walker


To give oneself earnestly to securing righteousness and justice among the people, and while respecting the gods and demons, to keep aloof from them, that may be called wisdom.-- Confucius, expressing agnosticism and urging the avoidance of religious matters nonetheless, quoted from Jim Herrick, Against the Faith (1985), p. 20

In the United States, Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, political speeches and ceremonies, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the national day of the United States.

Abolitionism was a movement in western Europe and the Americas to end the slave trade and set slaves free. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical religious groups condemned it as un-Christian. Though anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, they had little immediate effect on the centers of slavery: the West Indies, South America, and the Southern United States. The Somersett's case in 1772 that emancipated slaves in England, helped launch the movement to abolish slavery. Pennsylvania passed An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in 1780. Britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807, and the United States followed in 1808. The British West Indies abolished slavery in 1827 and the French colonies abolished it 15 years later.

In Britain, William Wilberforce took on the cause of abolition in 1787 after the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in which he led the parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire with the Slave Trade Act 1807. He continued to campaign for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he lived to see in the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

In eleven States constituting the American South, slavery was a social and powerful economic institution, integral to the agricultural economy. By the 1860 United States Census, the slave population in the United States had grown to four million. American abolitionism labored under the handicap that it was accused of threatening the harmony of North and South in the Union.

On April 11, 1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, or as CRA '68), which was meant as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited discrimination in housing, there were no federal enforcement provisions. The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and as of 1974, gender; as of 1988, the act protects the disabled and families with children. It also provided protection for civil rights workers.