The Weekend Bible Study - with Ronald L. Dart

In the pages of your Bible, you may find something mildly surprising. You find holidays, quite prominently, and in both Testaments. Not only that, but they are found observed by the Church in the New Testament. These festivals are called the appointed times of Jehovah and around them flow the entire history of the people of God—from the Israelites, to the Jews, to the Christians of every race and nation. And not only the history of God’s people, but their future as well.

I first began celebrating the festivals of the Bible nearly 50 years ago, but I can’t say that I really understood them in the beginning. What I did was to follow the old rule: When all else fails, do as you’re told. So, since God said to do it, and all I had to do was take off work and go to church, I thought, Let’s do that. That was a simple first step. And because it was the custom to teach and study the meaning of the days in their seasons, year by year I learned the rich history of God’s dealings with his people, especially at those pivotal points in their history, like the original Passover.

To those of us who have been keeping the holy days for years—in some cases, for all of our lives—the practice seems so natural, so right. We all know what blessings we get from it, we all know how encouraging it is to us, we know what it means to us to spend that eight days together and how uplifted we can be when we go home from the Feast of Tabernacles. The scriptures supporting the practice seem so obvious. Why doesn’t everyone see it? Why, we wonder, doesn’t everyone observe the holy days?

The most obvious reason, frankly, is that most Christians know little or nothing about the holy days. They just have never heard of them. One person will say Feast of Tabernacles, and another will say, What? They just frankly have no idea. For many of them, the Old Testament is about as uncharted as the Atlantic was for Christopher Columbus. They really don’t know where anything is if they wanted to look for it.

For those that are maybe a little more familiar with the Bible, the holy days have been dismissed as being Jewish and irrelevant to Christians. That’s part of the Old Testament religion, and we have a New Testament religion; and they just make that simple demarcation and never really inquire any further along the line.

A few people, on the other hand, have studied the subject and arrived at a conscious decision not to observe the holy days. Why? What is the rational, philosophic, theological, or scriptural basis for people to make that decision?

I found to my surprise that studying the reasons that people advance as to why they do not keep the holy days has turned out to be a very useful study. A number of very interesting things have arisen from it—things that I guess I had taken for granted, had not really looked at as carefully as I might have done; and in the process of asking myself the question that I’ve asked you—Why is it everybody doesn’t keep the holy days?—and beginning to look carefully at the reasons advanced by those who don’t, I have found some things that have turned out to be rather interesting to me.

Note: The article Ron mentions in the conclusion of this message later became an appendix in his book on the holy days, The Thread, titled In Defense of the Holydays. That appendix can be read here.

Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him, This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study. It is good to be with you and we thank you for being there and allowing us to make this weekly service possible.

Tonight we are pleased to continue our study on the book of Deuteronomy, which teaches us to know God, love God and obey God. Filling in for Ronald L. Dart, with his conclusion of this fascinating series, is our good friend, Richard Crow.

And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for you must go with this people unto the land which the Lord has sworn unto their fathers to give them; and you shall cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, he it is that does go before you; he will be with you, he will not fail you, neither forsake you: fear not, neither be dismayed.

Then Moses went out and spoke these words to all Israel: I am now a hundred and twenty years old and I am no longer able to lead you. The Lord has said to me, You shall not cross the Jordan. The Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the Lord said. And the Lord will do to them what he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, whom he destroyed along with their land. The Lord will deliver them to you, and you must do to them all that I have commanded you. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study. It is good to be with you and we thank you for being there and allowing us to make this weekly service possible.

Tonight we are pleased to continue our study on the book of Deuteronomy, which teaches us to know God, love God and obey God. Filling in for Ronald L. Dart, with part seventeen of this fascinating series, is our good friend, Richard Crow.

These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders. But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear. Yet the Lord says, During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study. It is good to be with you and we thank you for being there and allowing us to make this weekly service possible.

Tonight we are pleased to continue our study on the book of Deuteronomy, which teaches us to know God, love God and obey God. Filling in for Ronald L. Dart, with part sixteen of this fascinating series, is our good friend, Richard Crow.

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study. It is good to be with you and we thank you for being there and allowing us to make this weekly service possible.

Tonight we are pleased to continue our study on the book of Deuteronomy, which teaches us to know God, love God and obey God. Filling in for Ronald L. Dart, with part fifteen of this fascinating series, is our good friend, Richard Crow.

When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, take some of the firstfruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name and say to the priest in office at the time, I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us. The priest shall take the basket from your hands and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study. It is good to be with you and we thank you for being there and allowing us to make this weekly service possible.

Tonight we are pleased to continue our study on the book of Deuteronomy, which teaches us to know God, love God and obey God. Filling in for Ronald L. Dart, with part fourteen of this fascinating series, is our good friend, Richard Crow.

When you cut down your harvest in your field, and have forgot a sheaf in the field, you shall not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt: therefore I command you to do this thing.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study. It is good to be with you and we thank you for being there and allowing us to make this weekly service possible.

Tonight we are pleased to continue our study on the book of Deuteronomy, which teaches us to know God, love God and obey God. Filling in for Ronald L. Dart, with part thirteen of this fascinating series, is our good friend, Richard Crow.

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever, because they met you not with bread and with water in the way when ye came forth out of Egypt, and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor, of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee. Nevertheless the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam, but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study. It is good to be with you and we thank you for being there and allowing us to make this weekly service possible.

Tonight we are pleased to continue our study on the book of Deuteronomy, which teaches us to know God, love God and obey God. Filling in for Ronald L. Dart, with part twelve of this fascinating series, is our good friend, Richard Crow.