The Feasts of Israel – God's Plan of the Ages

God is infinite. I am very limited. God has all wisdom and knowledge. I am just a learner. God’s Word is Truth. I make mistakes. I define a mistake as anything at all that does not line up under the authoritative and inerrant Holy Bible, the written Word of God. It is a fearful task I have undertaken, trying to ‘rewrite’ the entire story of the Bible, while knowing of a certainty that I will introduce errors into the Holy Word of God. I am deeply sorry for them, and I apologize in advance.

On the other hand, there are many things in this study that do not line up with current religious and theological interpretations according to the doctrines of churchmen. I do not apologize for this; rather, it is intentional. My goal here is to question all the doctrines which we have received from our forefathers – not necessarily to reject them, but at least to evaluate whether they are actually Scriptural! In too many places I have found that the Reformation did not go far enough. Doctrines we hold dear are actually perversions from the early Catholic church. From the first, they deliberately twisted and paganized every Scriptural truth which could have set ‘their’ people free to walk with God by His Spirit, resulting in the ‘Dark Ages.’ Intentionally sacrificing truth for power and control, they kept the Scriptures from the common people and tortured and killed those who continued to insist upon truth. I consider myself a Protestant, and I vigorously protest any mixture of The Holy with the pagan and the profane.

‘Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies…’” (Jer 16:19) …many lies. Lies about the nature and character of God and Jesus; lies about the nature of the Holy Word of God; lies about the nature of heaven and hell, time and eternity, and even our own created purpose in life. These lies have cost us, dearly, to the point where some even refuse to study the ‘Old’ Testament, preferring the God of lovingkindness and mercy of the ‘New’ Testament as if He were a different God!

This study is not an exegesis of the Word of God. Good pastors use exegesis to bring out what is hidden within the Word, so that all may partake of its treasures. They limit themselves to what is actually there, correctly believing that God has put there all we need for salvation. But my study is an eisegesis. That means that I am reading into the Word things that are not there, things from history, from archeology, astronomy and other sciences, from legend, from ancient Jewish Talmudic tradition as recorded in their ‘Midrashim,’ and from pure speculation. Though I have bathed it in prayer and do my best to make sure it does not contradict the inerrant Word of God, this still makes it a work of fiction, a ‘hypothesis,’ if you will.

Are you at all curious? The answers to many “scientific” questions are not found in Scripture. Some Bible scholars say, “Don’t worry about it. God is all powerful; just chalk it up to another miracle,” but that seems like too much of cop out. This study attempts to find some answers, and in the process I believe it will teach us more about God’s ways, and help the Holy Word of God come alive to thinking believers.

You see, many Christians have been raised in a vacuum. The scientific world (and the rest of the world, too) looks on with a mixture of ridicule and disgust, despising us for being so narrow-minded. We need to start thinking outside the box! We need to climb out of the playpen and grow up a little. We need to come out of the Scriptural Dark Ages. Traditional interpretations of Scripture, particularly the Old Testament, do not match with science, and we need to be able to give a reason for the hope that lies within us. Scripture is actually very reasonable, and I believe that it always precisely complements good science. But we cannot afford to say, “Wherever science does not match my understanding of Scripture it must be bad science.” Consider the possibility that our understanding of the Scriptures may be at fault.

It may sound wonderfully spiritual to say “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it!” but that is the very attitude that turns away a thinking person in disgust. They believe the Bible to be a bunch of fables. If we want to reach those people, we need to be able to say, “God said it, I believe it, and this is how and why He may have done it.” God did not give the Israelites the Feasts, for example, just to keep them busy. Once you understand what they portray and why God arranged them in their precise order, the gospel starts to become real, living, and even exciting. So yes, in this study I do think outside the box – way, way outside the box! Some of you will not like that, and dis-believe what I say. That is OK, as long as it gets you to thinking, praying, and searching the Scriptures for wisdom and understanding as for hidden treasure.

I have titled this work The Feasts of Israel, God‘s Plan of the Ages, since nowhere is God‘s Plan of the Ages revealed to us more clearly than in the Feasts. Our God is a personal God. He has revealed Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ, our Friend and Brother as well as our Savior and King. He has given us His inerrant Word as our sure foundation. But more than that, He has given us His Holy Spirit to reveal His truth to our hearts so we can come to know Him intimately. His greatest desire is to have a close love relationship with us, and we with Him. That is my desire as well, and I trust that this study will be another step for each of us toward that goal. He is our Father; no matter how mature we seem to us, to Him we are like little children. As with an earthly father, I believe our heavenly Father loves to have us ask questions as a little child, and wrestle with Him for the answers. Thus we draw close, and learn to think as He thinks and act as He acts. Let’s do that together.

God’s Plan of the Ages – An Historical Fiction Epic

These four volumes are written as historical fiction, to tell the story of the Bible as if we were there with the Creator throughout all the ages of time. The perspective can become a bit confusing at times, as you must bounce back and forth between heavenly and earthly realms, and even into hell itself, to get the whole picture. This story is also exceedingly controversial, for which I do not apologize one bit. Though I am well grounded in the traditional doctrines of the church, I did not start there. Instead I started by asking, “What does the Word of God (which is inerrant in its original languages) actually say?” I used that as the foundation for my story, even though it is at times surprisingly different from what is usually preached.

The result is a remarkably fresh and radically new interpretation of the Word of God. I discovered that the traditional Bible story held many conflicts, and no one has ever really thought through the entire story before to discover those conflicts. Believing as I do that the Word of God is inerrant (because God is the author and there are no conflicts in Him) I wrestled with these discrepancies until I arrived at new ways of interpreting Scripture which (I believe) better resolves them. Yes, the result is controversial, but no more so than teaching traditional doctrines of the church which contradict the clear words of Scripture!

I don’t claim to be God, nor to have a corner on His Truth. Some of my conflict resolutions could be wrong. I think this is the best interpretation of Scripture that anyone has come up with so far, and I always pray and hope to be “inspired,” but I know it still could be improved upon. I would enjoy a few good debates with some who perhaps know the Scriptures better than I, and can point out where I have failed to line up my story foursquare on the authoritative Word of God.

However, be careful before offering to debate me! We’ve been lied to, you and I. We’ve inherited doctrines from the Catholic church of the Dark Ages which the Protestants of the Reformation never successfully protested, and they tend to color our thinking. The Catholic church is somewhat more Biblical now, but in the Dark Ages their goal was not truth; it was power and control. They deliberately tried to hide the simple truth of the gospel from their people. Some of that truth has been restored. I am trying to take a giant step forward here and restore the rest, all of it, in one story.

This is actually a five volume, 1550 page work, though the story itself is only the four volumes of God’s Plan of the Ages. Volume One is a Bible study titled, The Feasts of Israel. I wrote it first, to clarify the doctrines of the Scriptures that the church messed up so badly when they turned virulently anti-Semetic after the time of Constantine. You cannot hate the Jews and still be a Christian! We have a “Jewish” Messiah and must be adopted into the Family of Israel to be saved. Once I wrote The Feasts of Israel, I found that it changes the whole story of the Gospel! That is when I knew I needed to rewrite the Bible story, leaving out all the perversions from the Dark Ages to just tell it like the Bible says.

So my story may be provocative. It may make you think. You may be delighted or angry with me, or even awed at how it all really fits together. I’ve tried to make it entertaining as well as educational. But most of you will probably not understand it completely until you also read The Feasts of Israel and rediscover the doctrines behind it – doctrines which the leaders of the first century church understood, but which were almost completely lost during the Dark Ages and only partly recovered by the Protestant Reformation and the Great Awakenings.

Darwin’s theory of Evolution of the Species is not just a side issue with me. With its need for billions of years of stability on a placid planet, it is the single most destructive lie ever successfully foisted upon any people. So I counter with a major study on the catastrophic nature of the Bible story, at least up until the times of King Hezekiah. My story of these cataclysms is carefully thought out, but it still involves a lot of guesswork and will probably cause even more controversy. So be it.

I have fun with my story; I hope you do too. I make up characters where I need them, and sometimes you may not realize they are made up until you try to find them in the Bible. (Though I’ll often give them modern names as a clue.) Some of my made-up characters are even among our animal friends, such as the great red dragons. I probably use animals more than I ought, as I love them and hope to find them in heaven someday. But most of my made up characters are wives of the great men of old, whom I have named and given places of honor along with their husbands. I love being married, and can hardly conceive of a man becoming great without a great wife supporting him. So here’s to my beloved wife of 40+ years!

The Bible tells a true historical story. Any historical fiction writer must at least attempt to line up his story with actual history, and I am no exception. At first, nothing lined up, so I continued juggling my chronology until it did. Then suddenly, everything lined up! Dramatically so! Dates and events fell into place, often with startling relationships between secular history and the Bible story. I have probably spent more time on secular history than I ought, just because once everything lined up it was so fun exploring the historical settings of the Bible.

This is an adult work. I use big words, huge paragraphs, complex thoughts, run-on sentences, and way too many adjectives and adverbs. If you have been raised on that pathetic “fund raiser letter” English (one-sentence paragraphs using a fourth grade vocabulary) you will have trouble with my story. I also tell details that should be left out of a children’s book, with violence, depravity, and sexuality that a child should not have to bear, as well as deeper doctrines of the faith that go far beyond a child’s understanding. I’m in good company; so does the Bible. So do not be shocked when I say the same things that the Bible says, except say it in such a way that it seems to jump out and slap you. Sometimes I think we all need our faces slapped once in a while to wake up and see what the Bible really says.

 My Bible story is not written in the ”King James“ English. I use the common modern vernacular and current American idioms throughout. I do show reverence to “The Holy,” but I portray Him as a real Person. He is “the One Who Laughs,” who enjoys a good joke, who loves to feast and dance, and who is startlingly emotional both in His love and compassion, and in His hatred of evil and grief for those trapped in it. God is known by many names. Three primary ones I use are “Logos” (in the heavenlies), “YHWH” (from the Father), and “Yashua” (the Redeemer).

 My editors have criticized my “overcapitalization,” and rightly so. In the first writing of this work I capitalized nearly everything that referred to the divine, His ways, His nature, and His character. For example, His Wisdom is much higher than our wisdom. But since I talk a lot about God, all the capitols became rather distracting. So in this later re-write I have softened up a bit. I still capitalize the personal pronouns and proper names of God (including the “I AM,” “The Holy,” the “Light of the World,” the “Lamb of God,” the “Living Word,” the “Word of Truth,” and the “Spirit of Truth”). But most of the attributes of God I changed to lower case, such as His eternal nature, wisdom, righteousness, peace, joy, justice, goodness, love, and so on. I still capitalize the Bride of Christ (being many-membered, she has no one unique name), but no longer capitalize pronouns referring to her.

There are some notable exceptions, for which I will explain. Divine attributes are always higher than the human equivalent, but if it is just a matter of degree, I usually use lower case. However, if the divine essence is inherently different from ours, I sometimes continue to use capitols. For example, the divine Word is what framed the universe; it is inherently different from our words. The divine Law is woven integrally into our universe, providing structure, holding it all together. It is inherently different from written laws. Divine Life, that Spirit Life from above, is very different from human life; different in its essence as well as its length! Divine Truth is not just getting your factual ducks in line; it is inherently different. Real Truth with a capitol “T” always rests upon the One who is Truth. God is the King; His rule is inherently different from human kings. The Kingdom of Heaven / Kingdom of God is not people-control, forced servitude, or ownership, it is a heart-rule willingly given out of love; as such it is inherently different from the kingdoms of men.

I tell the story of the ”Old Testament“ in Volumes Two through Four. Volume Five was written to stand alone, in case someone wants to start with the “New Testament.” It covers the four Gospels and the first two chapters of Acts, then skips the entire Church Age and continues with the story of the Revelation. It‘s all chronological. A student of the Bible should be able to start anywhere in my story and pick it up easily, as I generally follow the Bible stories pretty rigorously (though adding the historical context). Simply look at the Table of Contents (or the index) for each volume and pick out what you want to read. I cover nearly every story in the Bible (though I don’t elaborate much on a few that are already well-explained.) For example, if in your daily devotions you’ve reached the book of Daniel, you may want to open Volume Four and scan the Table of Contents down to Daniel, or look in the “Index of First Mention” for where I first begin his story. I fit Daniel right in there with all his contemporary kings and prophets.

 Though most of my story is laid out pretty much as it appears in Scripture, the last half of Volume Five is radically different. The story of the End Times is not really laid out in Scripture, so I just let my imagination run free and wild. I trust it still lines up with the inerrant Word of God, but the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, the Apostles John and Peter, and others are too vast and far-reaching to distill down into a simple well-defined story. So I closed my Bible and just started writing, trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me and to remind me of these many prophecies whenever they came up. I am awed at what came out! Though clearly fiction, yet it seems (to me) to line up with Scriptural prophecies of the End Times and the ages to come better than anything else I’ve seen.

 Yet I am human. I know there are mistakes. I challenge you, dear Reader, to find them and get back to me. This is still a “work-in-progress,” and I will be delighted to correct anything where you can show me a Scripture that I have violated.

 But to do that, you need to read it. Please don’t just listen to some religious leader’s rant on how stupid and heretical I am. Don’t forget, they have a kingdom to protect, and their kingdom just may be more from tradition than from Scripture. Read it yourself, in prayer that the Holy Spirit Himself will show you what is true and where I have missed it.

In the process, I believe you’ll discover the Good News of the Kingdom of God as revealed throughout the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments. This is ”God‘s Plan of the Ages,“ and it‘s a mighty big plan, far, far bigger than we‘ve been told. The Gospel has always been above and beyond anything we could ever ask or imagine.  In a nutshell (if such stupendous news can fit into a nutshell) it is this. Almighty God is our Father, of whom the best earthly father is only a dim picture. Father God in Christ Jesus made us all, every single one. He loves us all, with a love far beyond our comprehension. In His love He violently hates our sin, for He knows it will destroy us. But He will neither force us nor block us from our own foolish choices, for He wants, not robots, but sons in His image who choose to love Him unconditionally as He loves us.

Instead, He allows us to choose, the narrow way or the broad way or any way in between, and lovingly grants us the consequences of our choices, even if it means discipline and suffering. Hopefully we learn wisdom to eventually choose Him and His ways. But if not, He still will not force us, but rather lovingly grants us a just punishment in hell for every evil deed strictly according to His Law, until that bent evil nature is destroyed in the lake of fire. Then, once again (for He is merciful and longsuffering, and His infinite grace endures forever) God offers us the opportunity to choose, in full knowledge of the consequences of our choices. After a time in hell, it’s pretty certain that some wisdom will emerge!

 Ultimately, all will be reconciled. Ultimately, all will bow and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the eternal Father. Ultimately, all will join the family of God, that God may be all and in all. Ultimately, Jesus will have His pure, perfected, many-membered Bride, along with an uncountable multitude of His brothers, the sons of the eternal Father (all Israel, including those adopted into His family) and an even greater multitude who were punished in the fires of hell and thus finally purified to be His faithful servants.

That this will happen someday is certain, for we have the sure Word of Scripture, and we know that Jesus Christ is the almighty King, with all power and authority over His Kingdom. Ultimately, every knee will bow and every tongue will swear allegiance to this almighty King. Ultimately sin and its wage, death, will be abolished, along with “all rule and all authority and power.” (1 Cor 15:24-26) Ultimately, all false gods will be vanquished and there will be only “…one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph 4:6) That is the good news of the Kingdom of God. I call it ultimate reconciliation.

 We serve a very big God indeed. From eternity His Plan of the Ages is flawless and complete, with not one mistake or lost soul. Even granting us total free-will choices, each one of us will become exactly what God created us to be. He provides gifts along the way, whether teaching, discipline, or torment, “…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” (Eph 4:13) “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” (Col 1:19-20) That is the ”good news“ – the Gospel of the Kingdom. God grant you grace to receive it.