Quick recap of what we have covered so far:
All 7 Feasts are found in Leviticus Chapter 23.
We have covered 3 of the 7, and today we will learn about The Festival of Weeks.
For each of these Feasts we have been taking into consideration these 5 things:
Understand the Hebrew calendar
Historical significance
Scripture that guides us through this journey
How each feast leads us to Jesus
What it means to us as Christians
The key passage for this study is:
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.”
As we are connecting the dots from the OT to NT, we should keep in mind that the whole bible is the unified story that leads to Christ.
7 Feasts as laid out in
Leviticus Chapter 23:
Passover
Feast of Unleavened bread
Feast of First fruits
Feast of Weeks / Day of Pentecost
Feast of Trumpets
Day of Atonement
Feast of Tabernacles
BODY
When we looked at Passover, we examined:
When it was established
Why it was established
Who established it
All these are found in Exodus chapter 12.
We also examined two NT passages that tied in to Exodus Chapter 12.
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!”
Just as the unblemished lamb was used to mark the doors of the Jewish people, so death would passover them in Egypt and they would be delivered from slavery from Pharoah, Jesus is our Passover Lamb who delivers us from the slavery of sin.
Next, we took a closer look at:
The Feast of Unleavened Bread.
The significance of Unleavened Bread is that the Israelites had to leave in Egypt in haste and there was no time to let the bread rise, therefore they left out the leaven, or yeast.
The leaven or yeast is symbolic of the sin in our lives, and Jesus is our Unleavened Bread of Life.
Paul gives a powerful analogy in:
1 Corinthians 5:6–8 “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
We then looked how sin “puffs up” our lives, just a yeast “puffs up bread”.
The next feast we discussed was:
Feast of Firstfruits
Our key verse for these message was:
1 Corinthians 15:20 “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
We looked at:
Kinds of First Fruits
What First Fruits mean to God
How Jesus is our First Fruit
I challenged you to dig a bit and find more scripture with “first-fruits” in them.
In these first 3 Feasts, we see Jesus in all three.
Passover represents His crucifixion and death.
Unleavened Bread represents Jesus’ burial.
First Fruits represents Jesus’ resurrection.
Let’s look at the next Festival.
Feast of Weeks
Stand with me as we honor God while reading His word.
Leviticus 23:15-21 read from by bible
v15-16 reminded about Peter asking Jesus about forgiveness
Leviticus 23:15–16 “‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord.”
This have become known as Feast of Weeks.
Hebrew word: Shavout (pronounce) which means “weeks.” A week of weeks...
50 days after leaving Egypt, the Lord descended on Mt. Sinai in fire to meet with Moses and reveal the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 19:16–19 “Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice.”
Leviticus 23:17 “You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord.”
We’ll examine the significance of this verse in just a few minutes.
Leviticus 23:18 “And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, without blemish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be as a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the Lord.”
We offer a sweet aroma to the Lord through our praise, worship, and in this instance: Thanksgiving
All of these feasts are about sacrifice, obedience, and thanksgiving.
Leviticus 23:19 You are also to prepare one male goat as a sin offering, and two male lambs a year old as a fellowship offering.
I know next Sunday is Potluck Fellowship Lunch, but Johan don’t go getting any ideas!
Leviticus 23:20 “The priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest.”
As I’ve been studying these Feasts, I didn’t realize that the priests are “fed first” from the harvest. The community took care of feeding the priests first, then themselves.
So, I’m kinda thinkin’ that next Sunday, y’all can sort of…oh nevermind.
Leviticus 23:21 “And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you. You shall do no customary work on it. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.”
We see 3 different passages in these Feasts, that God tells us to “keep these statutes”.
I think God knows how soon we forget!
He delivers us and blesses us, yet sometimes we forget, even to the point of taking Him for granted!
I think these feasts were created by God, so we don’t forget His provisions as explained in Genesis.
Genesis 1:29–31 “And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
As Christians, we have come to know Feast of Weeks as Pentecost.
Pentecost is the Greek word for “fifty”.
Way back in part one of this series, we sort of dissected on section of passage.
Leviticus 23:2 “speak to the Israelites and tell them, “these are the Lord’s appointed times which you must proclaim as holy assemblies-my appointed times:
God appointed these feasts
They are Holy
His appointed times
Pentecost is the pivotal, appointed time that ushers in the Holy Spirit, so the new church (Jews and Gentiles), could come together to build God’s Kingdom.
Check this out:
Several scholar interpretations reflect that the two loaves in v.17
Leviticus 23:17 “You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord.”
One loaf is the Israelites, and the other is the Gentiles.
We are now between the Spring and Fall Festivals.
The spring festival indicates prophecy fulfilled, and the fall festivals represent prophecy yet to be fulfilled.
Pentecost is between the two festival seasons!
The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), represents the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 1:4–8 “And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.””
Acts 2:1–4 “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
As we close out this message on Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), I like us to consider this.
I believe Pentecost is NOT only about:
Speaking in tongues-although that certainly took place
It’s not about:
The church being born- but she definitely was!
Nor was is about:
a new dispensation-though it assuredly took place
I believe Pentecost is about:
The Holy Spirit coming in our lives, equipping and empowering us to fulfill the Great Commission to harvest all nations, including Jews and all Gentiles, who would accept Christ as Lord and Savior.
I hope this study of the Feasts deepens our understanding of the tying in of OT to NT.
Next week:
We begin our look into the last 3 Feasts which represent prophecy not yet fulfilled, beginning with:
Feast of Trumpets
