Fifty Days to Pentecost 4

Pastor Sam Chess

Grace Emmanuel Church

 (Formalizing the Feasts)

Introduction:

Let me give you some perspective. Moses is giving Israel the Law. He starts with the Ten Commandments that he brings down from Mt. Sinai and then spend a long time filling in the surrounding details. It fills your Old Testament Books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Understand the huge task God was undertaking. He was taking a group of people who had spent their lives among barbaric, pagan, idol worshipping Egyptians and to be quite honest, as much as we might like to think differently, the Hebrews weren’t a whole lot different than their pagan neighbors. They had not yet really been taught that there was just one God and they weren’t supposed to add into their worship and idol for this and that. They, in some part, worshiped the God of their Fathers; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they added in an idol for fertility, and an idol for good crops and an idol for good health and occasionally they watched “American Idol” on the telly.

In order for God to set apart a pure people he had to wrench them away from all the evil that infested them and he did so by, first delivering them from Egyptian bondage and then using Moses, the deliverer, to deliver His system of Laws to them. They would spend years trying to learn how to adjust their lives to what God expected of them.

Many of the laws they fought against were restricting their former ‘do what feels good freedom” so they often rebelled…but a few of God’s laws were very pleasant…in fact down right enjoyable. God demanded, of them, that they set aside seven times out of the year to enjoy themselves. They were feast times….In fact, during three of those times they were required to hang up there work tools, pack up the Chevy and head for Jerusalem with the wife and all the chillins’. Now they had to take sacrifices along, for worship, and food along to eat but for the most part, these Feasts were times of celebration when every Hebrew literally came from whatever country they were living in and a week or more was spent in just partying.

To be very honest we think we live in a much more advanced society then they did 3500 years ago but I’m not so sure we’re better off. These people understood “community”. They knew what it meant to take time off and just chill out with old friends and make new friends by the hundreds. ( I’ll meet you over on the south side of the temple next Feast”)

God was very, very specific about these feasts including exactly what they were required to do at the feast and exactly what day the feast was to take place on. When we plan the schedule around here, we are constantly juggling one event to make sure it doesn’t overlap another. They didn’t have that luxury… God said, you must start the feasts on exactly the day I tell you…If there is any schedule juggling to be done it’s going to be you juggling your other activities around my set days…..Does everyone understand????

Now, if we had been around to look at God’s schedule we would have said, that’s one odd schedule. There’s no rhyme or reason. It looked like God just picked days out of thin air and declared them Feasts. They weren’t evenly spaced, sometimes they fell just hours apart and sometimes there were months between them.

I would imagine some bright Hebrew somewhere along the line thought, “There has to be some pattern for the way these Feasts are set up. Everything else in the Law makes logical sense…. Often when you look at the Law God not only gives a command but explains why it is so important to keep. Not so with the Feasts, He just gives the dates, says don’t fail to keep them exactly as I have ordered and that’s all there was to it. (Or so it seemed)

I. Formalizing the Feasts

First of all God said: I’m going to set your calendar. As I explained already they all moved on a lunar calendar, 28 days in each month, based on the phases of the moon, but said: God said I’m going to declare Nisan, (Abib) the first month of your year. Your leaving Egyptian bondage is the beginning of the rest of your life so I want you to take the time of year you left Egypt and build your yearly calendar around that. The first month of your year will be Nisan (March/April).

On the 14^{th day of Nisan you will celebrated Passover….where did God come up with that date?….. That was the exact day the angel passed over Egypt taking the life of all the Egyptian firstborn.}

Then God said; One day later I want you to celebrate another Feast: look at the handout in your bulletin:

________________________________________________________________________

1) Passover

(Leviticus 23:5) The LORD's Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. (NIV)

2) Unleavened Bread

(Leviticus 23:6) On the fifteenth day of that month the LORD's Feast of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. (NIV)

3) Feast of First-fruits

(Leviticus 23:10-11) " bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain your harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the LORD so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath. (N 4) Feast of Weeks/Pentecost

(Leviticus 23:15-16) "'From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD. (NIV)

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Now we look back and realize that not one piece of God’s intricate puzzle was random.

All those date set 1500 years before the time of Jesus were established to prepare the Hebrews (and everyone else for that matter) for what was coming.

For 1500 years they needed to practice going to these feast; remembering their meaning;

Passover; The possibility of deliverance from bondage

Unleavened Bread; Sorrow over presence of sin in our lives

First-fruits; The importance of bringing first gifts in consecration to God

Seven Weeks; Remembering God’s deliverances and joyfully celebrating

Pentecost; Setting the stage for the harvest of God’s blessing

II. Fulfilling the Feasts

Why does any of this matter to us today?… Because, in God’s great plan of the ages, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, God’s Son, came to this earth to take away the sin of the world!

1) Jesus died on the afternoon of Passover (death of God’s firstborn)

2) Was buried on the evening of Unleavened Bread (buried in sin)

3) Rose victorious over sin, and satan, death, and hell on the morning of the Feast of First-fruits. (Jesus; the first fruits of all who will live eternally)

4) Ascended back to heaven 40 days into the Feast of Weeks telling the disciples to wait until his Spirit came to infill them.

5) They waited exactly 10 days until the Feast of Pentecost when the Spirit of God came and filled them with spiritual power. (Setting the stage for the harvest of all first-fruits)

Don’t you think this is really cool that God spent all the those centuries setting up the entire culture of an entire race of people just to make a point when his Son incarnated in to this world to deliver mankind from sin, to take the sins of all humanity on himself, and to become the first fruits of those who would taste death, take on the grave and defeat the hold of satan, providing eternal life to all who would believe.

If you think that’s neat watch this….. (Let’s review)….

Passover; 14 days of first month of First Month (Nisan)

Unleavened Bread; 15 day of First Month (Nisan)

First-Fruits; First Sunday following Passover (Nisan 15- 21)

Is there anything even more significant about these dates?……………..

1) Queen Esther saved the Hebrews from elimination on?_______________

(Esther 3:12) Then on the thirteenth day of the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province…. King Xerxes himself…sealed with his own ring. (NIV)

2) The cleansing of the temple by Hezekiah took place when ?____________

(2 Chronicles 29:17-20) They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and by the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of the LORD. For eight more days they consecrated the temple of the LORD itself, finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month…. Early the next morning King Hezekiah gathered the city officials together and went up to the temple of the LORD…

3) Israel first entered the Promised land and ate its fruit on what day?___________

(Joshua 5:10-15) On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan. Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand… (Walls of Jericho fell) ….(Exactly 800 years to the day before Hezekiah above)

4) Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt on what fateful day?__________

(Exodus 23:15) "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib (Nisan) , for in that month you came out of Egypt. (NIV)

5) On what day did the Israelites first enter Egypt?__________

(Exodus 12:40-41) Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the LORD's divisions left Egypt. (NIV)

The odds of two of these events happening on the Day of Firstfruits are 1/ 129,000

The odds of all these events happening on Firstfruits are 1/ 783,864,876,960,000,000

(Fraie 1993)

III. Fulfilling the Feast of Firstfruits

As God had commanded the Jewish people took the Feast of First-fruits very seriously. Somehow they understood that this bringing of the first sheaves of barley was very important in their relationship to God. Each person would carefully go into their field as the grain was ripening and mark out the very best. They would tie a red cord around the “set aside” grain. Nothing must happen to the consecrated grain. In Jerusalem an entire field of barley was planted just up the hill from the temple. It was carefully cultivated and guarded against all negative elements to produce only the finest grain. Then the Sanhedrin would chose out of that perfect field the very finest of the grain and mark it with a red cord. They would cut the rest of the field making sure that not one kernel was consumed before the consecrated grain was offered to God.

Three prominent members of the Sanhedrin would approach the field with all the rest of Judaism looking on. A hush would fill over the crowd. They would repeat a ritual then cut enough grain for one “ephah” (2/3 bushel) Then they would go though an intricate process to extract and winnow the grain so that no heads were damaged. They would then mix the grain with ¾ pint of olive oil and some frankincense and make up exactly an “omer”. That would then be waved before the Lord in an offering to God….then each man would line up to bring the first fruits of his barley harvest along with the prescribed sacrifice which would be offered in the exact place Abraham had almost offered his son Isaac. Meanwhile, the people sang Psalms joyfully outside the temple. Each of the Men would faithfully quote Deut. 26,9-10 as he presented his offering.

(Deuteronomy 26:9-10) He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the first-fruits of the soil that you, O LORD, have given me…. (NIV)

One of the things the Hebrews thoroughly understood was that the barley grain they were giving to God was a symbol of the fact that all of what they had came from him. God had clearly told them repeatedly all of their first fruits…grain, wine, oil, fleece, …all of their grapes and figs and pomegranates, and olives, and dates…even the firstborn of all their animals and the first born of their children belonged to him.

(Exodus 22:29-31) "You shall not delay to offer the first of your ripe produce and your juices. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me. "Likewise you shall do with your oxen and your sheep…. (NKJV)

The Jewish people had to take their first born to the temple and either offer them to God’s service or “redeem them” back in order to keep them at home. Mary and Joseph had Jesus at the temple for that reason when Simeon and Anna prophesied that he was the Messiah.

What is so amazing in God’s great plan is that while thousands of people were lining up to give their first fruits back to him….He gave the first fruits of all first fruits to them! (It certainly proves: You can’t out-give God!)

I think the early Jews understood so much more of the significance of all of this than we do. They were an agrarian society. When Jesus talked about a kernel of wheat falling into the ground and dying, it meant something to them. When he called himself the Bread of Life they understood he meant more than a plastic wrapper full of enriched wheat flour.

To a society who built there whole year around growing and protecting the best grains of their barley harvest to offer back to God….it meant so much when Jesus chose the morning of Firstfruits to rise from the dead. All of a sudden, the significance of all of the feasts slammed into their understanding and made so, so much sense to them.

When the apostle Paul said these words they perfectly understood what he was talking about:

(1 Corinthians 15:20) But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. (NIV)

They understood that Jesus first fruit offering to us was going to have a lasting impact on all mankind:

(1 Corinthians 15:21-23) For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the first- fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. (NIV)

Here’s an important piece of theology to put in your little black book. What ever you have brought to God in your life as a symbol of your first fruits…it is important to remember that it is just a symbol…

Your actually first fruit is…..Jesus Himself!

Jesus is your first fruits!

His gift to you is far more important and lasting than anything you will ever give back to

Him.

(Colossians 1:18) And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. (NIV)

But because of what happened on the Day of Firstfruits 2000 plus years ago:

Just as the Hebrews offering of first fruit meant that their was a harvest coming….so Jesus offering of first fruits means there is a harvest coming!

A harvest of what?….What ever the first fruit was! What was the first fruits?______

(1 Corinthians 15:20-23) But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the first-fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. (NIV)

There is a period of time between the offering of Christ as the first fruits and the harvest of all the fruit that will include you and me. There is a huge distance between the fourth feast of Pentecost and the fifth feast of Trumpets.

The last feast to be fulfilled in the Bible was the Feast of Pentecost. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was designed to prepare the world to reap the harvest after the offering of the Divine First fruits.

The next Feast to be fulfilled is the Feast of Trumpets….the description of that fulfillment is found in the Bible:

(1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (NIV)