Sid: We want everyone everywhere to walk in cycles of blessings. Did you know that the Biblical festivals are designed that you would have cycles of blessings? Very few people understand this. I have Pastor Robert Heidler on the telephone, I’m speaking to him at his office at Glory of Zion Outreach Center in Denton, Texas. We recently interviewed Robert on the “Messianic Church” which he did just such a marvelous job of researching the history of how we got from something so Jewish to something most Jewish people say “I don’t see anything Jewish in Christianity.” The points that you made, and the insight he has a fine background. He has a Masters from Dallas Theological Seminary filled with the Spirit of God. This new book called the “Cycles of God” this unpublished manuscript we’re making available. Robert those that did not catch the Monday broadcast; I am very intrigued by the cycles of God because these cycles what are they for and what do you call, even define a cycle to me?
Robert: Well a cycle is something that moves around and around and moves you to a destination, it’s something that you get locked into. In our fallen creation there are cycles of destruction that you can enter into and go lower and lower and lower. God has cycles of blessing, it’s like getting on an escalator just going up where He will take you to a higher and higher level in Him.
Sid: You know I believe we are in a time of history that God wants us to move into cycles of blessings.
Robert: Yes.
Sid: Somehow I believe when the church goes back to its Biblical roots in freedom it’s going to just open… for instance I believe that we’re going to see more healings than ever before as our heart is turned towards the Spirit of God, towards Israel, towards the Jew, and towards the One New Man that middle wall of separation coming down. In your book you talk about the negative. There are also cycles of destruction, and many of our listeners are not familiar with what is the 9th of Av and what happened?
Robert: The 9th of Av is one of the clearest examples of the cycle of destruction. When Israel sent Kadesh Barnea and would not choose to go into the promise land that took place on the 9th day of the month of Av. What has happened there has never been full repentance of that, so every year when the 9th of Av comes out, it’s almost like Satan lays in wait because he knows that he has an opening to try and bring destruction on the Jews. So in 587 BC Babylon destroyed the temple on the 9th of Av. In 70 AD the Romans destroyed the second temple.
Sid: Now for those that aren’t familiar, what does Av mean?
Robert: Is just the name of a Jewish month…
Sid: So that specific date every year; read the other things that have happened on the 9th of Av.
Robert: Goes down through history with the final defeat of the Jews by Rome in AD 135 was on the 9th of Av. The first crusade was launched in 1095 on the 9th of Av…
Sid: What month is usually Av.
Robert: Av is usually August.
Sid: Okay go ahead.
Robert: In 1290 the Jews were expelled from England on the 9th of Av. In 1492 they were expelled from Spain on the 9th of Av. In 1942 the Jews were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto on the 9th of Av. In 2005 the expulsion from Gaza the last day to leave before the forced expulsion was the 9th of Av. So it’s something that Satan sees there is an opening for him to attack on that day because there has never been full repentance.
Sid: Now that is your understanding from scripture, it doesn’t really say there hasn’t been repentance, but it was a sin not going into the promise land. Is that correct?
Robert: To me the thing that tells me that there has not been full repentance is the book of Hebrews that says when Messiah came, when Yeshua came, they did the same thing they repeated the same process because of unbelief not entering in to the fullness of the promise. Which means they had never really dealt with the original unbelief.
Sid: So there are cycles of destruction, but there are cycles of blessing. Tell me a few of these.
Robert: Well there are sorts of cycles that God has established, but one of the clearest in the word is that He has yearly cycles and weekly cycles built into our calendar. The weekly cycle is Shabbat there is the yearly cycle of life with the Biblical feasts. Other cycles of blessing are sowing and reaping, that’s a cycle that brings you into multiplication. God wants to put us into His cycles so that He can put us on a path where we enter more and more into the blessings He has for us.
Sid: Okay we talked yesterday about the Sabbath, or Shabbat, let’s talk about Passover.
Robert: Okay! Passover is really the beginning of the yearly cycle of feasts. It’s the start of God’s cycle of redemption. It really is a celebration of God’s love and power to deliver His people out of the hand of the enemy.
Sid: How is this played out in your church?
Robert: Well Passover has two focuses, first of all there’s the original Passover which is a celebration for Israel of being set free from Egypt by the might hand of God. We enter to that also because that was a blessing to us we’re united with Israel we share in their blessings, and it’s through Israel we receive Yeshua. So we celebrate that original Passover, but God tends to keep His own calendar so when the time came for the ultimate deliverance from the enemy, which came through Yeshua, He scheduled that to take place on Passover. So Passover is not only a celebration of deliverance from Egypt, but of the work of Yeshua and delivering us out of the hand of our enemy.
Sid: Again how do you observe it, do you have a sit down Passover Seder every year as some churches do?
Robert: We have done that sometimes, we try to do it differently every year because we don’t want it to become a ritual. Sometimes we’ll have a special service, sometimes in a Sunday morning service we will do a very abbreviated Passover meal with just the 4 basic elements.
Sid: Many people follow the ritual the same year after year saying the same things year after year, I mean believers. To me it was boring as a traditional Jew doing the Passover the same every year. Then it became double-boring as a Messianic Jew to do everything the same every year. I mean where is the yielding to God?
Robert: Amen. Well the other thing Sid I see is… I believe the Jewish traditional, I’ve been through many Seders they can beautiful it can also be boring. The Biblical instruction is it was to be a meal eaten in haste, and that does not describe the traditional celebration. So we try to keep it much shorter…
Sid: Oh let me tell you from an Orthodox Jewish background you don’t know what a long Passover Seder is.
Robert: [Laughing]
Sid: I mean I use to fall asleep before it was over [Laughing], but go ahead.
Robert: We did one in Budapest, Hungary. They did the full Seder, but they said everything in English, and in Hebrew, and in Hungarian. It was… I know what you mean. We keep it short… now included in the book I’m going to include a brief Seder, order of service, for gentile Christians that just in a few pages goes through the basic elements for someone that wants to sort of catch the flavor of a traditional celebration, but without going into all of the lengthy details.
Sid: What in your heart do you want to accomplish by someone reading this book? What would you be grateful to God that would happen to a Christian that reads this book “The Cycles of God?”
Robert: I want them to see that these are not rituals, it’s not that we’re doing this because we are trying to fulfill a ritual, but this is a time God wants to meet with us; it’s a time He wants to do something new in our lives. At Passover it’s where we come into a fresh appreciation that we are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb out of the hand of the enemy. Sid I think that is the most powerful confession we can make. Anytime we are up against the forces of darkness to realize that “I am redeemed by the blood of the Lamb out of the hand of the enemy.” That is what Passover is all about, it’s the power of the blood to set us free.
Sid: Now you point out in your book that the early church observed these Biblical festivals. Tell me a little bit about that.
Robert: Oh in the early church these were very very important times. Really until the 4th century these were not considered to be Jewish feasts, they were the feasts that God had given to all of His people. It’s interesting to study in Acts for example when Paul when on his missionary journeys. He actually scheduled the itinerary of his trips around where he wanted to celebrate the feasts sometimes. So it was a very very important thing to him to be into the cycle of blessing that God had given.
Sid: How about you Mishpochah do you want to be in the cycle of blessing, or the other? Listen I don’t understand everything, no one understands everything, but I do understand there is a freedom in the feasts and we’ve thrown the baby out with the dirty bath water, and it’s time to bring the blessings back.
