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  "Therefore impress these words of Mine upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead...." Deuteronomy 11:18

What is it that God wants to impress on our hearts and put as a seal on our hands and foreheads? Firstly, we need to identify what a seal is. According to the dictionary, a seal is a piece of wax or other material impressed on a document as a guarantee of authenticity. The word `seal' in this context is synonymous with the owner's name, his signature, his sign, his stamp, his brand or identification mark. God's Seal, in other words, represents His name, His signature, His stamp of ownership, the ratifying sign He seeks to place on the foreheads of His followers.

The forehead represents the mind, the seat of a person's intellect, allegiance and faith. This means that YHVH's followers will willingly accept His ratifying sign in their minds; they will believe it, bear it in mind and be willing to live by it. Obviously they will be moved to this degree of acceptance by yielding to His Spirit. However, the Holy Spirit is not God's Seal, but rather it is by the Spirit that we are sealed. Before we go any further, it is important we read what the Scriptures say concerning this:

Isaiah 8:16: "Bind up the testimony and seal the law among my disciples."

Exodus 13:9:"This observance (Passover) will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that the law of the LORD is to be on your lips."

Deuteronomy 6:1& 8: "These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you.... Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads..."

Hebrews 8:10: "I will put my laws in their minds, and write them on their hearts."

Exodus 31:13: "Say to the Israelites, `You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so that you may know that I am the LORD who makes you holy.'"

Numbers 15:15,16: "The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner living among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the foreigner shall be the same before the LORD: the same laws and regulations will apply both to you and the foreigner living among you."

These texts prove beyond any doubt that God's law, and especially His Sabbaths (plural - meaning His `Appointed Times') constitute the identifying sign that He places in the minds of His followers, both Jew and Gentile. Consequently, when a person bears them in mind and keeps God's Sabbaths, they are in effect declaring to the universe that YHVH, the Almighty God of Israel, is their Father. The only sanctified days mentioned in the Holy Scriptures are the ones listed in Leviticus chapter 23. Together with the true weekly Sabbath of Saturday, these constitute the Seal of YHVH, the Creator of the universe.

It is important to mention that the Sabbath, the Law and the Festivals are not only `Jewish Feasts' or the `Jewish Sabbath', but God's Laws and Appointed Times. It is God's framework, His Calendar, which He gave to the Jewish people as a sign that they belong to Him. In Isaiah 56:6, God welcomes the "foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love his name and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant...."

Revelation 22:4 says that God's servants will have His name on their foreheads. Revelation 14:1 also speaks of those who have the Father's name and the Name of the Messiah written on their foreheads. "And I looked, and there before me was the lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his father's name written on their foreheads." God has given His mark, representing His Laws and His Sacred Calendar, to be a sign on our hands and foreheads. Those who have set themselves apart, sanctified unto the Lord, will have the Name of YHVH and the name of Yeshua on their foreheads.

Now that we have established this, the obvious question is, "What then is the mark of the anti-Messiah? Most people are familiar with Revelation 13:16: "He forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his hand or on his forehead..." Could this be a coincidence? No. If God's mark is His Law and ordinances, then the mark of the deceiver must be a counterfeit of what God has given. Just as God's mark represents His Name, so will the mark of the anti-Messiah represent his name, which is associated with the harlot religious system:

"Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries... There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name." Revelation 14:8 & 11.

According to the wording used here, people won't necessarily have to worship the beast; it will be enough to receive the mark of his name. In this same chapter we read about TWO groups of people: those with God's name and the name of His image (Yeshua) on their foreheads, and those who receive Satan's name and the name of his image (the anti-Messiah) on their foreheads.

The scriptures tell us that the last great beast will oppose God by trying to change the set times and the laws (Daniel 7:25). This already happened back in the fourth century with the establishment of another calendar which introduced new laws and sabbaths, a calendar which the whole world lives by - except Israel. According to Daniel, the anti-Messiah will try and enforce this calendar on God's people in the last days. I realize there is not a great deal we can do about living according to the days and months of the recognized calendar, but God said that His `Seal' represented the Laws and Sabbaths. It is the counterfeit of these which we must reject. Since God is not a mixture, we can't have `a bit of both'. I do believe that there will eventually be a physical mark which people will receive, but how easy will that be, if they have already accepted the spiritual one and continue to live by it? I don't know about you, but I've only just realized these things. Maybe it has to do with God's final words to Daniel,

"Go your way, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end. Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand." Daniel 12:9,10.

Maybe its time to `get wise' and purify ourselves. Revelation 19:7,8 says that the Bride makes herself ready for the Marriage of the Lamb. The Biblical Feasts speak to us of times that have come and are yet to come. At the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) service, the Rabbi prays that "we may be sealed", for at the close of Yom Kippur the door of heaven is shut. Only those who stand clean before the Lord are sealed and therefore able to enter into Tabernacles (Sukkot). The Feast of Tabernacles speaks of the Bridegroom and Bride and we find the reference of going from the Day of Atonement up to (Aliya) Tabernacles in Joel 2:15,16:

"Blow a trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber."

In this verse we find reference to two events: a day of fasting and the blowing of the shofar, which takes place at the end of Yom Kippur, and also to the bride and groom going into the Tabernacle Chamber, after the shofar is sounded. What drew my attention to this `time of sealing', which I believe has already begun, was a short message I received from an Orthodox Rabbi. I had asked him a question concerning Yom Kippur and at the end of his reply he said, " May you be sealed for the new year" (meaning Rosh HaShannah). The words hit my spirit although I wasn't quite sure what he meant. So I searched the Bible for the meaning of the Seal of God. As I read about God's seal on our hands and foreheads, I also began to recognize the counterfeit mark which is taken on exactly the same parts of the body. This tells us that Satan's mark must be a counterfeit of what God's mark represents.

Replacing God's Festivals with man-made ones is not a new thing. Jeroboam, king of Israel, did exactly this. At the time, the land was divided in two - Israel and Judah. Jeroboam led Israel into rebellion toward God and established `alternate' feasts. This is what the scripture says in 1 Kings 12:16b:"What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse's son? To your tents O Israel! Look after your own house, O David!" The people here are deliberately cutting themselves off from the House of David and for this, God punished them. Further on we read that Jeroboam made two Golden calves and instituted festivals similar to God's festivals, in a month of his own choosing (read verses 26-33). Unfortunately, the fourth century Church did the same thing.

The Lord's Calendar is a diary of His Appointments. These are specific times on which He wants to meet with us. The word `set time' in Hebrew is moed. It means an appointment and a rehearsal. These are appointments set in eternity as rehearsals for what is to come. Again and again God emphasises that we are to keep the Feasts at their `appointed time'. Numbers 9:2 says: "Make the Israelites celebrate the Passover at the appointed time." In verse 14 we read, "A foreigner living among you who wants to celebrate the LORD's Passover must do so in accordance with its rules and regulations. You must have the same regulations for the foreigner and the native-born." There aren't different sets of rules and observances for Jews and Gentiles. God's Laws are the same for all who call themselves by His Name.

The parable of the `ten virgins' in Matthew 25 often bothered me. What was it that the five foolish didn't have? The Bible tells us they didn't have the extra oil. Actually, in verse 4 it says that "the wise took oil in jars along with their lamps." They had their normal lamps, but also jars with extra oil. It also amazed me that the five foolish thought they were virgins and were waiting for the Bridegroom. However, when they finally got there after trying to buy more oil, they found the door shut. Asking to be let in to the `Wedding Feast', the Bridegroom said to them, "I don't know you."

Sometime ago I was at a function where a certain person was talking to me like we knew each other well. After a while I said to him, "Excuse me, but have we met?" Maybe that's what the Bridegroom said to the five foolish virgins: "Have we met?" No, they hadn't met. They claimed to be virgins, but not once had they officially met with the Bridegroom at his appointed times. Instead they had met at the appointed times of pagan gods, customized to suit themselves. The festivals the `church' officially keeps today and has done for 1600 years are not God's appointed times, nor were they kept by the early believers in Yeshua and they won't be kept or even acknowledged when Yeshua returns to establish his Kingdom. Their origins and roots are in paganism. They are festivals of `other gods' and they can never be made holy because the LORD God of Israel did not institute them. For as long as we keep them, we are meeting with `somebody else' and are therefore no longer `virgins'.

Recently, a jar was discovered in Israel. On the jar is written the word 'Shabbat'. According to the article, this jar contained the extra oil needed to keep the lamp burning on God's Sabbaths. The small, everyday lamp, only contained enough oil for ONE day. Because adding oil to a lamp was forbidden on the Sabbath, this jar with extra oil was used. The lamp was placed in the centre piece and the wick hung down into the jar thus feeding the burning wick in the lamp, even after the oil in the lamp itself was used up. With this extra oil, the lamps continued to burn right into the Sabbath. It was this jar the five foolish virgins did not have - the jar that represented God's Sabbaths! Keeping God's appointed times are a rehearsal for when the Bridegroom comes to take his virgin Bride into his Sabbath rest.

God set a period of time aside for "the full number of Gentiles to come in." (Romans 11:25) So what are we supposed to come in to? Into the Biblical framework God has given His people. The Apostle Paul refers to it as the Commonwealth of Israel: "...remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise without hope and without God in the world." Ephesians 2:12

The `Olive Tree' is going through a time of shaking. Isaiah 17:6 says that the Olive Tree will be beaten, leaving only a few olives, even on the fruitful boughs. The Olive Tree represents Jews and Gentiles who believe in Yeshua and keep the Commandments of YHVH. God has to shake this tree so that all that doesn't belong to Him will fall off. The final result will be a virgin Bride, set apart for His beloved Son.

"Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God." Revelation 7:3