This Memorial day is a time of Prayer for the forgiveness of trespasses/sins against God, and a returning to Him for mercy and the restoration of the House of Israel. It is a time to “Repent and Return to the Father, to do Judgment, Justice and Righteousness.” Jesus taught this perfectly when he made the perfect atonement offering.
Forgive us our trespasses
“And when you pray, …don’t use vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Don’t you therefore be like unto them: for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him. After this manner therefore shall you pray:
“Our Father who is in Heaven, Holy is Your Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts/trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil: for Yours is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever. Amen.”
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Jesus Christ – Gospel of Matthew 6:5-15
Day of Atonement – Day of Prayer
The words ‘Yom Kippur’ (#3722 כפר kaphar) in Hebrew means the Day of Atonement or the Day of Prayer and Returning to the Father for Mercy and Forgiveness. A day to humble oneself and to do the Will of the Father and not your own. As Jesus said, “I seek not my own will but the Will of the Father which sent me.”
“Remember O Lord, the feast of mercies and the time of return teshuvah . . . You have established it for us as a feast of fasting, an everlasting precept . . . You know the hidden things and the things revealed . . .”
Prayer for the Day of Atonement
The Law requires on that day for the High Priest to enter into the inner Sanctuary of the Temple, into the veil wherein the Ark of the Covenant was placed. The Ark contained the unbroken Tablets of the Covenant.
The Atonement Offering
“And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of the altar of incense once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements: once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations: it is most holy unto the LORD.”
Exodus 30:10
“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a Day of Atonement: it shall be an holy convocation (gathering together of the assembly) unto you; and you shall afflict/humble your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. And you shall do no work in that same day: for it is a Day of Atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God.”
Leviticus 23:26-29
The Calling of the Assembly
The Day of Atonement calls for the Trumpet of the Jubilee to be blown. This verse is etched into the Liberty Bell to “proclaim liberty throughout the all the land…”
“Then shall you cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the Day of Atonement shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”
Leviticus 25:9-10
“And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his Elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
Jesus Christ – Gospel of Matthew 24:30-31
The Sacrificial Goat
“And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat… And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.”
Leviticus 16:21-22
Jesus’ Atonement Offering – The Suffering Servant
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely, he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed… Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he has poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
Isaiah 53:3-5, 12
Barnabas Explains Atonement
Barnabas explains the true meaning of the Atonement Offering for us in the Book of Hebrews.
“Then truly the first Covenant also had ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a Tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, the table, and the shewbread; which is called the Sanctuary.
And after the second veil, the Tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all (Holy of Holies); Which had the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid round about with gold, where in was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the Tablets of the Covenant; And over it the Cherubim of Glory shadowing the Mercyseat…
Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests always went into the first Tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second the High Priest went alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people.
The Holy Spirit thus signifying, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience.”
Hebrews 9:1-9
“Which stood only in meats and drinks, divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the Time of the Restoration.
But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
And for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament/Covenant, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament/Covenant, they which are Called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”
Hebrews 9:10-17
The Law is a Shadow
“For the Law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then wouldn’t they have ceased to be offered? because the worshipers, once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. For which reason, when Jesus came into the world, he said, Sacrifice and offering You want not… In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have had no pleasure.
Then I said, Lo, I come to do Your Will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin You want not, neither have pleasure therein; which are offered by the Law;
Then he said, Lo, I come to do Thy Will, O God. He takes away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which Will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Hebrews 10:1-10
“And every priest stands daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies are made his footstool. For by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Spirit also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, ‘This is the Covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My Laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Now where remission/forgiveness/pardon of these is, there is no more offering for sin.”
Hebrews 10:11-18
Prepare ye the Way of the LORD
“The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send My Messenger before your face, which shall prepare the way before Me. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.”
John did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance (a change of mind) for the remission/forgiveness of sins. And all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem went out to him and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins…
And preached, saying, ‘There comes one mightier than I after me… I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with fire and with the Holy Spirit.”
Gospel of Mark 1:1-8
Isaiah – Voice in the Wilderness
“Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare/appointed time is accomplished/fulfilled, that her iniquity is pardoned… The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the Glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.”
Isaiah 40:1-5
Malachi – Messenger of the Covenant
The Prophet Malachi, in the very last book of the Old Testament, speaks of the Messenger of the Covenant sent by God.
“Behold, I will send My Messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts…”
“You have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yes, they that work wickedness are set up; and they that tempt God are even delivered.
Then they that reverence the LORD speak often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a Book of Remembrance was written before Him for them that reverence the LORD, and that think upon His Name. And they shall be Mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him. Then you shall return and discern between the Righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves Him not.”
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful Day of the LORD…”
Malachi 3:1, 14-18, 4:5-6
Daniel – Michael the Archangel
Daniel speaks of Michael the Archangel sent by God at the Time of Tribulation.
“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which stands for the children of Your people: and there shall be a Time of Tribulation, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time Your people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the Book.
And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that are wise shall shine as the Brightness of the Firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”
Daniel 12:1-3
The Trumpet shall Sound
“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
1 Corinthians 15:50-53
The Kingdom of God is at Hand
“Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled/accomplished and the Kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the Gospel.”
Gospel of Mark 1:14-15
“Thy Kingdom come; Thy Will be done”
Jesus Christ