Yom Kippur - The Day of Five Prayers*
The month of Elul plus the ten days up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement totals forty days. Moses interceded several times for forty days for Israel and for Aaron. One of those occasions was after the Israelites had demanded that Aaron create a golden calf for them to worship. Despite witnessing many miracles of God, His people still sinned and rejected the LORD. Do we have golden calves?
The LORD still kept His promise to Israel, but made this clear to them: "Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that He may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...for thou art a stiffnecked people...ye have been rebellious against the LORD." (Deut. 9:5-7, excerpt). The LORD told Moses that He would destroy His stiffnecked people "and blot our their name from under heaven." He told Moses that He would make another mightier and greater nation from Moses. Moses came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the Commandments of God, saw the sins of the golden calf, and broke the tablets. Then Moses fell down before the LORD and interceded for Israel and fasted for forty days and nights.
Moses prayed to the LORD: "O LORD God, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember thy servants Abraham, Issaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, not to their wickedness, nor to their sin...they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm." (v. 25-29, excerpt).
It was not for their own righteousness, which they lacked, but because of His promise, the same promise with which Moses interceded with God, that Gods spared His people. It is vital for the Body of Christ to understand the need for repentance.
Leviticus 23 and Leviticus 16 gave God's commands for the observance of the Day of Atonement Feast. It was to be a sabbath on which no work was to be done: "For it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God." Each person was to afflict their souls, which according to Jewish custom means to fast, not to anoint themselves with oil, not to wash the body, to wear no leather shoes upon their feet, and to abstain from marital relations. This was to take place on the tenth day of the seventh month. In the tabernacle on this Day of Atonement, the priest is to make "an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD. The priest shall wear linen clothes, the holy garments. He shall make atonement for the holy sanctuary, the tabernacle of the congregation, for the altar, for the priests and for all of the people of the congregation."
When Jesus, our High Priest forever, died on the cross, the veil of separation in the temple was rent and the way into the Holy of Holies was made open. Atonement ends the separation between God and man that had been caused because of the sins of men.
Other Jewish traditions connected with the Day of Atonement includes the saying of five prayers and then a beginning prayer. This prayer blessing is said before the observances of the Day of Atonement begin. It is the prayer blessing to be said over the children of Israel as commanded by God in Num. 6:22-27. The prayer was given to the priest to say, and we have all been called to be priests before the Lord. We also have always said this same prayer blessing over the children of our congregation: "The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.' And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them."
Three of the prayers on the Day of Atonement are the prayers that are said at morning, noon, and evening which are calls to be saved. (see Ps. 55:16-18). The fourth prayer, Musaf, is added for this special day only, blessing the holiness of the day, and calling for the confession of all sins. The final or fifth prayer is the Ne'ilah, which means "the closing of the gates", and the sealing of the verdict of God for the coming year. Then the final shofar is blown, which may also announce the Jubilee Year if that applies for the freeing of slaves, the cancelling of debt, and "going into God" or being shut in with God, as Noah and his family were shut in the ark by God.
There are five levels of the soul to be awakened through these Day of Atonement prayers: nefesh - the soul; ruach - the spirit; neshama - the breath; chaya - the life; yechidah - singularity, or the soul at unity with God. Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement has the final purpose of joining the soul of man with God.
On the Day of Atonement, the Book of Jonah is read. Jesus referred to Jonah as a sign after the religious leaders demanded a sign from Him to prove who He was. He had already performed many miracles publicly. Jesus answered them: "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall be no sign given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold, a greater than Jonas is here..." (Mt. 12:38-42, excerpt). The LORD was looking for repentance, not arrogance, in their hearts.
The Book of Jonah that the Jewish people read on Yom Kippur is considered by them to be an allegory concerning the human soul. However, the Book of Jonah makes it plain that Jonah died in the fish, and later praised God for raising him up from death, saying, "You brought my soul up from Hell." Jesus made it clear that the story of Jonah is about the coming back from the dead, as He was also prophesying concerning Himself.
It is also the Jewish tradition to wear a white linen Kittel symbolizing purity and the cleansing of sin on the Day of Atonement. They are also buried in this garment. We read in the Book of Revelation that the Bride of the Lamb is given white linen to wear which represents the righteousness of saints. We will be clothed in God's righteousness for the marriage supper in heaven. (Rev. 19:7-9). Angels also appear in scripture as being clothed in white apparel.
Even though His people had rebelled against Him, the LORD promised to establish a new covenant with Judah and Israel. It would not be like the covenant they had broken even though the LORD was a husband to them. This covenant would involve an internal work of the Word and knowledge of God within each of His people: "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (see Jer. 31:31-34). The LORD then goes on to promise that there are no circumstances that will cause the seed of Israel to cease or to be cast off by Him, but shall be holy unto the LORD; "It shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever." (see v. 35-40). The LORD is not finished with Israel and will never be finished with them. Replacement Theology, that says the Church has replaced Israel, is a lie.
Hebrews 8:6-12 mentions the new covenant that Jeremiah prophesied above as being "a better covenant" than the first also because of the High Priest and Mediator of that new covenant. As the first covenant was dedicated with the blood of sacrifice, for "without shedding of blood is no remission," so the new covenant was accomplished through a better sacrifice - the blood not of animals, but of Christ Himself. The covenant, like the tabernacle, was a pattern or shadow of the heavenly things, "but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us....now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." (Heb. 9:18-28, excerpt). Christ made Himself the atonement for our sins. He has sprinkled His own blood, a better sacrifice than any other, on the Mercy Seat in heaven. His blood covers the Law of Moses. (see also Heb. 12:22-24).
Moses taught Joshua and the children of Israel a song that declared the wonderful works that the LORD has done: "For the LORD's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his (God's) inheritance. He found him (Jacob/Israel) in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye...He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made them to suck honey out of the rock, and out of the flinty rock." (Deut. 32:9-13, excerpt).
This is a song that would also remind Israel of the many times that they had forgotten God and sinned against Him: "...he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation." (v. 15), so that they would find the spirit of repentance in future years, which years, Moses prophesied, would be filled with tribulation and troubles because of their sins.
The song lamented the lack of understanding among the people of God: "For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!...For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps." (v. 28-33).
Moses gave his final words to Israel and to us, saying: "Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it." (v. 45-47).
To the nation and the Church: Have we provoked God and forgotten the Rock of our Salvation? This is the time and this is the day of repentance before the LORD, that our sins are covered by the atoning blood of Jesus. Are our lamps lit, and is the new covenant, the word in our hearts, which we confess and believe, part of our lives?
*Based upon Dr. Kenneth E. Stevenson, Jr.'s 9/28/25 message to the church. If you would like to hear the complete message, you can find it on the Facebook page of Kenneth E. Stevenson Jr. Dr. Stevenson's video messages are also found on You Tube at the Kenneth Stevenson channel. To contact or support this ministry, or to request prayer, you can write to PO Box 154221, Waco, TX, 76705. To find out more about the Shroud of Turin, and to receive a free e-book now available in several languages, go to http://www.theshroudofturin.org/freebook. Also the book NAZAH: White Linen and the Blood of Sprinkling is available on Amazon.
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