Updated 4/21/2025
This year, the last day of Pesach/Passover falls between the church's Good Friday and Pascha
(Easter Sunday). It is traditionally the largest feast day for Pesach that caps off a week of smaller holiday meals eaten with
unleavened, flat bread. And while the first feast of Pesach on the first day corresponds with what the church knows as the Last Supper and Good Friday, the end of Passover does not commemorate anything for most Christians.
What was happening at the end of Passover in the time of Christ? The New Testament doesn't tell us, but we know it was four days after Christ was resurrected (Wednesday) because the first day of Pesach was when the Lord had the Last Supper (a Thursday), and Christ was resurrected on the following Sunday or 4th day of Pesach (see Holy Week for details of this timeline). On the 7th or last day of Pesach, Christ was in His fourth day of resurrected form, but we do not know if He was with His disciples because after He was resurrected, He only stayed with them sporadically, appearing and disappearing at different times and places until 40 passed and He ascending back to heaven (Acts 1:3).
As far as other correlations with the fourth day, a good correlation with today is that God had placed all the stars, sun, and moon in the heavens during the six days of creation on the 4th day (Genesis/Beresheit 1:14-19). Before this, the heavens, or what most people call outer space, was more or less a foggy void, though there was light, which begun Creation, there were still no stars. This 4th day of Creation is an apt link to the 4th day of Christ's resurrection because of the acts of making things entirely new and bringing forth even greater light from what God had started.
Another 4th day correlation is when Ezra journeyed from Persia at the end of the exile with a treasure horde to furnish the second temple, rebuilt after the first temple had fallen some 70 years before. The treasures were counted and weighed in the new temple on the 4th day that Ezra's party arrived in Jerusalem (Ezra 8:33). This is another apt link to the 4th day of Christ's resurrection, because He rebuilt the new temple for His people at His resurrection. This new temple of His Body and ours replaced the temple of stone and wood in Jerusalem (see There was not enough oil but the menorah remained lit for more about Christ replacing and rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem), and so, the treasures brought to the second temple by Ezra are analogous to the many spiritual riches and gifts that God would give the church with the new spiritual temple of God - the Church or Body of Christ.
And through that Body and new Temple of God, Christ would save all of mankind, not just the original people of God, the Jews. And so another 4th day syncing with the 4th day of Christ's resurrection is when the Apostle Peter came to the Roman centurion, Cornelius, after an angel appeared to Cornelius, telling him to summon Peter for a revelation (Acts 10:1-48). When Peter arrived, Cornelius told him, "Four days ago to this hour, I was praying... and a man stood before me in shining clothes... [and told me to summon you]" (Acts 10:30-32).
And it was in that moment, Peter remembered the command Christ had just given him to eat all manner of animals and reject the ways of living by the Old Law which prohibited eating many things considered unclean (Acts 10:9-16). What was impure, God made clean, so by the revelation of the Holy Spirit in Peter, he proclaimed to Cornelius (a Gentile or "impure" non-Jew), now he knew God showed no partiality and accepted anyone from all the nations into the family of God's people (Acts 10:34-48).
God linked many inspiring 4th Day themes with our day today, the last day of Pesach and 4th Day of Christ's resurrection as counted by the Hebrew calendar, the calendar that Christ and His first disciples lived by. However, the Lord's teaching is never complete if we only include joyous revelations and instruction. When I looked at 4th Day links for today, I also noted God linked the theme of judgement which I already had in mind to speak of because of my own personal Passover story.
It was on the 4th day of the 9th month (remember
the number 9 symbolizes judgment) that God gave the prophet, Zechariah, a reminder to His people why He destroyed Jerusalem and sent them into exile for 70 years
(Zechariah/Zecharya 7:1-14). They were not righteous, nor did they pursue proper justice, but were stubborn, greedy, idolatrous, and corrupt, not accepting correction given by His anointed prophets. This 4th day link goes with my own path as the Lord's anointed to help and correct His people, in whom my mother embodied their ways and ultimately the judgment God ordains for them.
By general appearances, my mother, like the great majority of God’s people, seem to be people whom God could never let anything bad happen. They live a generally righteous life and truly feel they’ve never done anyone wrong. However, those are not the standards God judges us by. The details are important, and though I will not recount what my mother could have done wrong, I will only say that her errors in life are shared by a large majority of God’s people.
Though the Lord loves His people, as He loves my mother, giving them many blessings and joys, it is because of pride in their own knowledge and thinking that they are correct, so as to reject many corrections, they stubbornly cling to false teachings and ways that have them live in great sins, some of which they do not accept as sins. But because El Elyon, God Most High, is also HaShaphat, The Judge, who judges everyone's sins whether or not they believe they do wrong, He will surely make all accountable to their wrongs to the extent He sees fit (Colossians 3:25; Romans 2:5-16; Ephesians 6:5-8; Ezekiel/Yechezkel 33:12-20; Jeremiah/Yirmiyahu 17:10, 21:14, 25:14, 32:19; Numbers/Bamidbar 14:18; Nahum/Nachum 1:3; Proverbs/Mishlei 24:12; Hosea/Hoshea 7:2; also Hebrews 12:4-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:6; Ezekiel/Yechezkel 3:20). Even the angels are not exempt (2 Peter 2:4-9; Jude 1:6-7; Job/Iyov 4:18; Isaiah/Yeshayahu 24:21).
And so, to illustrate this reality, I will recount the grace given to my mother as she started retirement, but then also could not live in God's blessings for long because of her choices, which the Lord says reflects the attitude of most of His people today.
It was in June 2021 that we drove into Florida with my mother to finalize the purchase of her retirement home. It was a long-time dream come true for her because she had always wanted a home in Florida where the climate was warm enough to grow tropical fruit trees and plants. She was an avid gardener, but living in Minnesota at the cold border with Canada for most of our lives never gave her the opportunity to grow the kind of plants she loved from her native homeland, Vietnam.
It appeared to be a gloomy day to arrive, because it was raining heavily for hours before we got close to the new house. We had not even seen it in person yet, because the contract to purchase was made remotely. It appeared to be a poor sign to try and have a look at the house in a torrential downpour. However, as we came into town, God graced us with a huge, vibrant double rainbow that stood over the exact area of the house we were heading to (photo below). We exclaimed God is blessing the new house! And so, we arrived in very good spirits, even though, the heavy rain prevented us from seeing much of the house and grounds.
The days following were full of cheer as hot sunny weather replaced the rain and we took possession of the house, moving in what furniture we could pack in the van. And even more gladness erupted some days later, when we were sightseeing in Tarpon Springs about an hour away from the house. I found a perfect housewarming gift for my mother - a wood plaque with a quote from actress Audrey Hepburn saying, "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow." It was hidden away on the floor behind a counter (photo below), but I noticed it and quickly saw how God reserved a wonderful gift to furnish her new home and new life in retirement.
And so, the first years of gardening in Florida were God's gift to my mother despite whatever negative spiritual issues she had. Like most of the church, she knew full well that God blessed her with what she had in life and appreciated it. She also acknowledged that it was because God helped me to bless and get the right house for her that really mattered. Without my intervention and direct help, she would not have gotten a house in the right area, nor with the amount of land she wanted for her planting. It was obvious that God predestined me to help my mother get this house, because just a handful of months later for Christmas that year,
God moved me to follow His Christmas Star near her Florida house and get encouragement and revelations from it (see God's Christmas Star In 2021 for details).
The Lord's blessings were many and wonderful. How could anything go wrong?
Unfortunately, also like much of the people of God, I had tried to get my mother out of very bad focuses and ways of thinking; foremost, listening to and believing many false preachers and conspiracists on social media, especially YouTube, while she rejected my counsel to stop giving them any attention. My urgings for the actual truth and good teachings were considered untrustworthy, even nonsense, compared to the many lies she accepted as true.
If you have been with me a long time, this is how I’ve noted most believers behave with what the Lord gives me, because like my mother, they think, surely I know better and God guides me. I can decide on my own what to believe. Who are you to say what I should believe or do?
And so the great majority of God’s people go about rejecting many corrections as they did the prophets of old, who also told them they are in the wrong and need to change. My mother’s gardening – her hope in tomorrow - failed to live long, just as it fails for God’s people like her. I brought this up in a comment last month about an Israeli family that also loved planting but did not get to live out the dream with their son because he was killed in the Israel Hamas War
(see El Elyon, God Most High, Reminds To Look Further Than Sweet Sentiment for details).
Like my mother, the Israeli family planted for tomorrow, believing in God’s graces and many blessings for their future and the future of His people. Why shouldn’t they have faith and hope in it? God truly did give much blessing and help to achieve their dreams, just as He did for my mother. They were real and tangible blessings they could hold in their hands and see with their eyes.
That is where most believers end their faith. If anything bad happens, it can’t be from God, and God forbid, it can't be because they did anything wrong. It has to be the devil, evil people, anything but God or themselves, because He loves and blesses His people; He protects and guides us.
Such are the thoughts of God’s people. Very inspiring and sentimental, but utterly incomplete and incorrect, because they forget God brings both the bad and good, He creates the light and the dark, He gives life and brings down to the grave (Deuteronomy 32:39; 1 Samuel 2:5-7; Isaiah 45:7; Lamentations 3:38; Job 12:23; Jeremiah 31:28; Ecclesiastes 7:14; 2 Chronicles 25:8; Proverbs 22:2; Habakkuk 3:4-7). This oversight has put God's people in such lamentable state, for like my mother whose health quickly deteriorated in retirement, needing to abandon the home God graced her with, I’ve seen all the people go the same way, because they reject accountability and refuse to believe their doctrine is wrong.
In the comments of
El Elyon, God Most High, Reminds To Look Further Than Sweet Sentiment, I asked Israel and Judaism why they translate Proverbs/Mishlei 26:2 about proper reason for curses to instead mean people will get underserved curses or that a bad curse would backfire? Their teachers, whom they revere as their sages, were responsible for interpreting God’s words, and you’d think native Hebrew speakers would correctly interpret the original Hebrew scriptures, but the reality is, Judaism has been blind to the meaning of God’s words for many millennia. So make note of that if you think you can learn Hebrew and all of a sudden get all the correct interpretions of God's words. Things were never that easy.
And so, don’t think the church has fared much better than Judaism, though the Body of Christ has God’s Spirit within her; God’s very Mind to interpret the scriptures. She, too, has erred much
(see Ministry Warnings for a review of how much error there is in all of God's people), and so, Christian and Jew both are more alike in sins and error than either would ever acknowledge. And both share arrogance and the haughtiness of being chosen, puffed up in receiving much knowledge of God, they all claim rightful authority of God in their faith, and believe, surely, they cannot be wrong when God blesses them so.
The Lord made it plain in His Alarm, and so
the point God makes to connect Jews and Christians is that all His people in every sect of faith are the same. Their hopes and blessings will fail because of their continued sins and rejection of corrections, believing in great error that their teachers, traditions, and doctrine are good and trustworthy.
For my mother, her new house and plantings had to be abandoned because she could no longer care for herself and no one could relocate to care for her in Florida, so just before Pesach/Passover began this year, I traveled to her Florida house to retrieve whatever I could and go back to Minnesota, intending to let the house foreclose (forfeit it to the bank) because we cannot afford two mortgages and care for my mother.
We wanted to sell the house, but my mother, being stubborn, absolutely refused to let go of it even if she could not live there or pay for it. It was a dream she could not let go of. Then I considered renting it out, but being so far away, I did not want to deal with renters I could not check on or manage easily. However, before I went to Florida, I asked the Lord to somehow save the house so that we would not lose everything we put into it. Little did I know, God had a Passover salvation plan.
When I was selling off possessions at the house, I met a woman who felt an incredible peace and urging to use the house for her Christian woman’s ministry. I told her we were going to simply leave it to the bank, but soon after she left, the Lord moved me to offer a rental agreement for her. I did not want to make the offer because I had already considered renting a bad option because of distance. However, soon after I was thinking it was not a good option to rent to her, I received a text message from her stating the Lord revealed to her how she could buy the house.
When we met about it a couple days later, we worked out a plan for her to rent the house for ministry purposes with the option to buy it later. So, as Passover approached, I worked out a legal agreement that saved the house, just as I asked the Lord to do. The renters were honorable and credible, so I had no worries I needed to be close to maintain the rental. My last days in the Florida house were to pack everything up and get it ready for the new renters. I left in time to get back to Minnesota to celebrate the beginning of Pesach/Passover.
That’s my personal Passover deliverance story this year. God used trustworthy, believing women and moved them to rent my mother’s house so that we would not have to forfeit it to the bank. I never would have done it if God did not send me the right people at the right time. I simply did not want to deal with unknown and possibly unreliable renters when I was over a thousand miles away.
This Passover miracle shows how much God cares for us even though the situation is far from ideal or what we want. His love and grace surpass even His eternal promises of heaven. I thank and praise God for His many blessings and riches. But also remember that like many other believers, my mother will never get to live her hopes and dreams; she will never be able to enjoy gardening or the Florida house again, just like many who God brought out of Egypt in that very first Pesach some millennia ago did not get to see God’s promises and hopes in the future. Rebellion and grumbling against God and His anointed brought disasters upon them when the Lord grew angry.
From complaints of starving in the wilderness, to getting tired of eating manna from heaven, to refusing to take the Promised Land, to wishing they were back in the relative ease of Egypt, to presuming equality of leadership with Moses, the people often tested God’s patience. But unlike the Exodus, today, God’s anger and revelations why many judgments are upon His people are hidden to them unless they heed His voice among the flood of lies and bad teachings they’re fond of listening to.
