This has been on my heart for a long while.
Many of you know, I’m a little unorthodoxed in how I preach.
This message is probably more traditionally a spring season message, but for some strange reason, I have this urgency to share this now.
Let me begin by reminding you that I believe the bible is the unified story that leads us to Jesus.
As such, we can’t ignore the OT. I want us to discover together, how the 7 Feasts in the OT leads us to Christ.
My hope is that we all gain a greater appreciation of the OT and see how it really does point us towards Jesus.
I believe when we study the OT we find:
It defends the accuracy of the bible
There are no coincidences to prophecy fulfilled
God has an organized and systematic plan for all the ages
Body
Over the next few weeks, we are going to examine the 7 Levitical Feasts.
As we do so, I would like us to use Colossians 2:16–17 as our NT reference.
“So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.”
As we delve into this, I think this passage will make a tremendous amount of sense to us.
Let’s begin by reading the scripture that Moses recorded as to what God spoke to him in:
Leviticus 23:1–2 “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.”
Let’s look at a few other translations of v2:
YLT “they are my appointed seasons”
NET “my appointed times”
LSB “my appointed times are these”
I think it important to realize God assigned these feasts with deliberate and specific dates or “times” as many translations indicate.
As we examine each of these feasts, hopefully we will accomplish 5 things:
Understand the Hebrew calendar date assigned to each
Historical significance
Scripture that guides us through this journey
How each feast leads us to Jesus
What it means to us as Christians
We’ll look at these as a group, as well as individually.
The first four are feasts in the Spring.
They are also indicative of prophecy that has already been fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah.
They last 3 are Fall feasts, and are yet unfulfilled prophecy of the Messiah.
We’ll begin with Passover.
Passover is celebrated in the Hebrew month of Nisan (NY-san), which is the first month of the Hebrew calendar.
The first day is Nisan is calculated as the day after the new moon that is closest to the Spring Equinox.
What is the spring equinox? I’m glad you asked. It is the day and night are of equal length. Usually around March 20th on our calendar.
Passover for Jewish people lasts for 1 day.
As a reminder, we are going to examine 5 things about each of these feasts.
Calendar date
Historical significance
Scripture that describes the feast
How it leads to Jesus
What it means to us as Christians
So, the date of Passover begins on 14th day of (NY-san) Nisan and lasts for 1 day.
Here’s the historical significance:
The Lord was trying to convince Pharoah to let His people go
Pharoah was a bit stiff necked about this, having been accustomed to free labor (often referred to as “slavery”), he was reluctant to cooperate in the matter.
Now, it took the Lord sending down 10 plagues on Egypt, to convince Pharoah that he oughta do this!
So, we’ll pickup the story beginning in Exodus 11:1 read NLT translation v1-11 from my bible.
In this passage, we see that God is distinguishing the Egyptians from the Israelites.
Has God distinguished you from the Egyptians?
In chapter 12 we see how the Lord instituted Passover.
Exodus 12:1–3 “Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.”
Exodus 12:4–6 “And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.”
Don’t you just love the detail in God’s word?
These details establish the accuracy of God’s word.
Exodus 12:7–10 “And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire—its head with its legs and its entrails. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.”
-Sometimes the details are more than I want to hear-
you know “head, legs and entrails” and all!
—>>>Johan get children<<<---
Exodus 12:11–14 “And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. ‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.”
As I began to dig a bit, I learned that:
God is instructing the Father of the house to sacrifice a spotless lamb for his family. (let that sink in, does that ring any bells?)
Exodus 12:3 “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.”
Furthermore, the sharing of the Passover Lamb, as a remembrance of the deliverance.
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Church, at this time, I’d like us to observe the Lord’s Supper.
Luke 22:14-16 from my bible
Then read verse 19, and take bread together
Then read verse 20, and take juice together.
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>>>Dismiss children<<<
Allow me to re-read two verses:
Exodus 12:14 “‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.”
Luke 22:19 “And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.””
We see that, God passed over the Israelites from death, and delivered them out of slavery, and as Christians Jesus was the Spotless Lamb, to deliver us from the slavery of sin!
1 Peter 1:19 “but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
John 1:29 “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Closing
Through Jesus Christ, God has provided for our salvation, a lamb without blemish.
That the lamb has been provided and blood spilled, does not in itself make us saved.
We must receive the Lamb, and the blood must be applied!
As we examine these passages together, we will see that Passover, Feast of Unleavened bread, and First fruits overlap, in their appointed times.
Re-read Colossians 2:16–17 “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.”
