The Dangerous Misconception: Trading Feasts for Fables

The Error of Substitution: Why the Church Traded God’s Appointments for Man’s Traditions

A profound and dangerous error has entered the modern church: the wholesale abandonment of the Biblical Feasts (God’s appointed times) in favor of human traditions, holidays, and paganized observances. This is not a trivial matter of preference; it is a rejection of God’s divinely ordered calendar, which was established to foreshadow and illuminate the entire plan of salvation—including The Lord’s Return.

The church stands rebuked for trading prophetic clarity for cultural comfort. We have discarded God’s immutable seasonal framework for a Gregorian calendar filled with man-made celebrations.

The Prophetic Indictment: Missing the Lord’s Schedule

The Biblical Feasts, or Moadim (appointed times), are not merely “Jewish holidays”; they are “the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons,” (Leviticus 23:4, KJV). These feasts lay out the precise sequence of Christ’s work, from His First Coming (fulfilled by the Spring Feasts) to His Second Coming (promised by the Fall Feasts).

1. Rebuke by Omission (Spring Feasts): The Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits perfectly foreshadowed Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Yet, instead of observing these foundational truths in their divinely appointed season, many replaced them with the paganized customs of Lent and Easter, obscuring the precision of Christ’s fulfillment.
2. Rebuke by Blindness (Fall Feasts): The Fall Feasts—specifically the Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)—are universally seen as prophetic shadows of the Rapture (the trumpet) and the Second Coming/Judgment. By ignoring these feasts, the church voluntarily rejects the very prophetic timetable God set in place to explain the sequence of The Lord’s Return.
3. Rebuke by Confusion (The Lord’s Seasonal Pattern): By adhering to a Roman calendar, the church is operating on a man-made cycle that has no connection to the agricultural cycles, lunar cycles, or prophetic times of the Bible. This is the heart of the misconception: God operates on a seasonal, scriptural clock, but the church lives by a secular, solar clock. This shift has replaced the spirit of watchfulness with a passive, weekly routine.

The Lord’s Rebuke and the Call to Obedience

The Old Testament prophets sternly warned against substituting man’s ways for God’s appointments: “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies,” (Amos 5:21, KJV).

While the Law of Moses is fulfilled in Christ, the patterns and prophetic significance of the Feasts remain as the framework for understanding His completion of salvation. We are rebuked for discarding God’s own teaching tools.

The Return Question for Interaction

If the Biblical Feasts were shadows of Christ’s entire redemptive plan, and the Spring Feasts were fulfilled by His First Coming with absolute precision, are we in rebellion against God’s design by ignoring the Fall Feasts, which are meant to announce and define His Second Coming?

Let the Discussion Begin: Was the early church’s shift away from the Biblical Feasts an act of freedom in Christ, or a dangerous capitulation to worldly custom that has blurred the timeline of The Lord’s Return? Answer with conviction and Scripture!