God’s Plan Revealed Through the Holy Days.

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God devised a means whereby His people would never forget or misunderstand the truth of His Master Plan to save mankind. Starting with ancient Israel, He ordained that SEVEN FESTIVALS, or annual Sabbaths, be kept each year as a kind of rehearsal of this overall purpose.

The first festival, which introduces Christ’s role as Saviour and High Priest, is the PASSOVER. This is kept each year to commemorate His sacrifice and shed blood for the forgiveness of sins. Then comes the second festival, the seven DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, depicting the putting away of sin and the process of overcoming.

Next, the third festival, called the FEAST OF PENTECOST (“Firstfruits” in the Old Testament), is kept fifty days (Pentecost means count fifty) after the wave sheaf is cut during the Days of Unleavened Bread. Acts 2:1 shows that the New Testament Church began on this day. The entire New Testament Church to the present, with a few from the Old Testament, comprise the firstfruits of God’s plan of salvation (James. 1:18).

In the early fall of the year come the last four festivals, each depicting additional important events in God’s Plan. The FEAST OF TRUMPETS is the fourth festival, and the central event that it pictures is the Second Coming of Christ. Next, the fifth festival is the DAY OF ATONEMENT and it pictures a time when the whole world will be “at one” with God and Christ because Satan will have been bound. And the sixth festival, the FEAST OF TABERNACLES (also lasting seven days), pictures the last 1,000 years of God’s Plan, when Christ and the resurrected saints will reign on the earth. It is during this time that the Tree of Life will be made available to all who seek and obey God.

Finally, the seventh festival is the LAST GREAT DAY. It pictures the Great White Throne Judgment, when the Book of Life (Rev. 20:12) will be opened to all human beings who have ever lived—from the time of Adam to the present—so that everyone will eventually receive an opportunity for salvation.

Armed with this overview of knowledge, Christians are not activists (politically, socially or spiritually) as so many professing Christians are taught, then thinking they can and should “fix the world”—“make the world a better place.” True Christians do not try to “bring the kingdom” through human effort. They have their “…feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15). They walk through life having their feet covered with the knowledge of how the true gospel of the kingdom of God spells the way to ultimate world peace, happiness, health and universal prosperity. They understand the certainty that the kingdom of God is coming to solve ALL the world’s most difficult problems. (Read our booklet How World Peace Will Come! to learn much more about how this will happen.)

True Christians know what lies ahead for civilization—including both the short-term bad news and the long-term GOOD NEWS. They understand prophecy and do not take matters into their own hands, thereby effectively seeking to neutralize God’s purpose, which is to show man that he is utterly incapable of governing himself or solving his problems without the Holy Spirit!

Danger of Extinction Cut Short

Unease and uncertainty are growing around the world. More and more now ask, “What’s happening? Where is everything going?” Problems will grow so severe that we will soon reach the time described in Matthew 24:21-22. Christ was describing conditions just prior to His Return when He stated: “For then shall be GREAT TRIBULATION, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved [left alive]: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”

How badly is man botching his efforts to solve his problems? So badly that, without intervention by Almighty God in the affairs of men, all human life on earth would soon be wiped out. Pollution, food and water shortages, disease and the use of weapons of mass destruction would bring mankind to extinction. Mercifully, God will not allow events to go that far. His marvellous purpose and plan is working precisely on time toward a happy and peaceful end—a solving of all humanity’s troubles!

God’s Wonderful Purpose

In his booklet NEVER BEFORE UNDERSTOOD Why Humanity Cannot Solve Its Evils, Herbert W. Armstrong wrote this wonderful summary of God’s plan for mankind under the subhead “The Incredible Human Potential”:

“What an astoundingly incredible human potential! The world little realizes what a glorious and stupendous PURPOSE God is working out in mortal human lives made from earthly ground!

“God is REPRODUCING HIMSELF through us! He is taking matter out of the ground, making it into mortal, temporarily existing humans. For those willing, God is infusing into them his Holy Spirit—imparting to them GOD-life eternal! Through his Spirit, with our assent and effort at spiritual growth and overcoming, he infuses into us HIS RIGHTEOUS SPIRITUAL CHARACTER. By a resurrection, we become BORN God personages—personages just as are God the Father and Christ the Son! We shall have the entire UNIVERSE put under our feet (Hebrews 2:8).

“In Adam all have sinned. In Christ shall all be made alive! God has called, first, HIS CHURCH! The Church is HIS BODY! The Church, resurrected at Christ’s coming, shall be MARRIED to Christ the Son. We become the children of God. After our marriage to Christ—a spiritual marriage of spiritually immortal Persons—we shall beget children into this DIVINE FAMILY!

“There is but the ONE CHURCH—ONE BODY (I Corinthians 12:13, 20) to become ONE DIVINE FAMILY. The Church is “fitly framed together” (Ephesians 2:21), joined together and compacted (welded) together (Ephesians 4:16), all speaking the SAME THINGS as CHRIST speaks (I Corinthians 1:10). God has called the Church specially out of Satan’s world to overcome Satan and his world, to be prepared and trained to become God beings in and after the Millennium, to rule with Christ as we bring to eternal LIFE all others beginning with Adam, who then shall be willing!

“WHAT A WONDERFUL PURPOSE AND MASTER PLAN!”

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