LESSON 4
FEAST OF PENTECOST
| THE FEAST OF PENTECOST 50 days counted out from First-fruits is Shavuot or Pentecost. God comes down to His covenant people in an earth-shaking day of visitation. It is a betrothal leading into magnificent future glories. |
“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. From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of first-fruits to the Lord. Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and without defect, one young bull and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the Lord together with their grain offerings and drink offerings – an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord. Then sacrifice one male goat for a sin offering and two lambs, each a year old, for a fellowship offering. The priest is to wave the two lambs before the Lord as a wave offering, together with the bread of the first-fruits. They are a sacred offering to the Lord for the priest. On that same day you are to proclaim a sacred assembly and do no regular work. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.” Leviticus 23:15-21.
SINAI
“Fifty days after the first-fruits of the barley harvest were waved before the Lord as a terumah or wave offering, (fifty days from the morning after the Sabbath following Passover), was Shavuot or the Day of Pentecost. Rabbinic scholars believe that it was on this day that God came down on Mount Sinai to give His people His ketubah – 10 Word marriage covenant – and to betroth them to Him to be married. It was the day on which the nation of Israel was born. Because the people broke the covenant soon afterwards by worshipping a golden calf, 3,000 of them died at that time.
“The Old Covenant was a national covenant between YHVH-God and His covenant people. And so the nation of Israel was established. They agree to follow Him in devotion and obedience. In spite of past failures the nation of Israel will indeed be restored. The Jewish House of Judah will be saved and the throne of David in Judah will be established upon this earth under Messiah.
“But that is not all. The lost sheep of the House of Israel, the lost ten tribes of Israel, will be found and brought back home to Israel again. (See Ezekiel 37). The nation and kingdom of Israel along with Messiah’s Melchizedek priesthood will be fully restored as a single elect and chosen people.
PENTECOST
“50 days from the day the first-fruits of the barley harvest were waved before the Lord, (that is 50 days from the morning after the weekly Sabbath after Passover), in the summer of the year of Yeshua’s passion, YHVH-God visited His people by His Holy Spirit. This is another earth-shaking day of visitation and betrothal. But on this occasion God’s Presence is not as unapproachable as on the former visitation back at Sinai. Moses had ordered 12 boundary markers placed around the foot of the mountain to hold back the people lest the fire of God flash out upon them. Amidst the thundering and lightning God came down as a consuming fire and blackened the entire summit.
“Back at Sinai it was a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But this next Pentecostal visitation was quite different. God had intervened through the atoning sacrifice of His perfect Passover lamb, to remove the barrier of sin and restore His people to fellowship with Himself. The curtain of the temple that separated Him from the people had been ripped from top to bottom, indicating that the way into the Most Holy Place was open to everyone (Matthew 27:51). A new High Priest had been installed, one whose perfect and endless life meant that He was always there to make intercession for His people (Hebrews 7:23-25).
“On this Day of Pentecost, tongues of fire descended from heaven to rest upon consecrated individuals gathered to wait upon God. All of them had received Messiah and had come to know Him in a personal way in the New Covenant. Just as Moses had seen the burning bush that was not consumed, the fire came down and rested upon the 120, (probably in the temple, waiting for the high priest to fulfil the ceremony of pouring oil through the two loaves of leavened bread and declaring that the Day of Pentecost had fully come) not to consume them but to fill them with the Holy Spirit and bathe them in the glory of God.
“This day of wonder sees the Holy Spirit descend in a splendid flooding wave. This was the beginning of the Holy Spirit outpouring. And Joel saw this coming to a peak at the 6th seal at the very end of the latter days. See Joel 2:28-32. The revival spreads out from the Jerusalem epicentre as the disciples go out into the streets of the city proclaiming the Good News of salvation. Whereas 3,000 had died under the Law on the previous visitation, 3,000 are now saved by grace as the Apostle Peter preaches to the crowds coming up to the Feast. And so on this awesome day in holy history, the 7th day of Sivan on the Hebrew calendar, the Feast of Pentecost comes to its appointed New Covenant fulfilment.
THE GOD OF ISRAEL IS A GOD OF CELEBRATION AND ON HIS HOLY DAYS HE PERFORMS HIS WONDERS.
“On the Day of Pentecost the God of Israel comes down to His people. God comes down to visit His people, first nationally, (in the Old Covenant), and individually and personally, (in the New Covenant). He reveals Himself to His covenant people in power and great glory. Pentecost unfolds in the Old Covenant as YHVH-God is betrothed to a nation. And Pentecost unfolds in the New Covenant as YHVH-God is betrothed to individuals personally inside their hearts. So the overshadowing glory of God descends down Jacob’s ladder on two spectacular days of wonders. The first is at Sinai 3500 odd years ago. And the second is in Jerusalem during the Day of Pentecost 50 days after the First-fruits Resurrection of Jesus Christ/Yeshua Hamashiach in the summer of the passion year.
PENTECOST;
THE POWER OF THE GOD IN ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH;
DESTINED TO SAVE ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH, BRINGING BOTH INTO VITAL
RESTORATION AND UNION; ALL THESE WONDERS WILL GLORIOUSLY UNFOLD IN THE
LATTER DAYS.
“Pentecost in the New Covenant establishes the Congregation of Israel as an “ekklesia”, a congregation, or an “Assembly” of “called out” individuals. This was the original meaning of the word “church”.
“The Congregation of Messiah/Church has a vital unfolding Kingdom connection to Israel through Christ, the Messiah of Israel. Jesus Christ is the promised Seed of Abraham, (Gal. 3:29). The saving blood of Christ is the blood of Israel’s promised Sacrifice Lamb. This is the only atoning covering for sin this world will ever know. But because of her worldly political, commercial, and ecumenical connections the present day western Church still refuses to acknowledge her ultimate national identity in Israel through Jesus Christ/Yeshua Hamashiach the promised Seed of Abraham. He is the Seed, (singular), who gives rise to a myriad of spiritual descendants as numerous as the sand of the sea and the stars of heaven. This wonderful visitation all comes to pass by a pro-active God who comes down to His covenant people nationally and personally in a glorious wave of true and genuine Pentecostal power.
“Our God speaks to us in His Righteous Law and in His Grace and Mercy. Herein lies the two-fold witness we see in the two leavened loaves lifted up at Pentecost. These two offices of the Kingdom and the Priesthood emerge in Pentecostal power from the double anointing of the Order of Melchizedek which is found in Messiah.
“Two leavened loaves are waved before God as Pentecost is celebrated. God is lifting up, dealing with, and bringing together two entities that are not unleavened and not without sin, even Israel and the Church. What a righteous and gracious God we serve!
“The God of Israel has been making Himself known to His covenant people for a long time. The pilgrimage of the children of Abraham has always been an adventure and it has always been a romance in God. And so it continues to this day. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has chosen to communicate His divine Message through His Word under the ministrations of His Holy Spirit. We hear His voice as we read the pages of the Bible. YHVH-God ministers into the lives of His covenant people on a day by day basis by His Holy Spirit. His personal, national, and congregational dealings with His covenant people continue.
“Our God likes to celebrate. He likes to party with His people. And He parties big! (See John 2:1-11, Rev.7, and Rev.21) One of the names by which He is known is “Emmanuel”, which means, “God with us”. It is in His Spirit of fellowship that YHVH-God has set forth special times of the year for partying holidays. He marks out and sets aside special dates on the Hebrew calendar to celebrate with His nation and His covenant Congregation, even as He did with His “church in the wilderness”http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=Church+in+the+wilderness&searchtype=all&version1=9&spanbegin=1&spanend=73 gathered at Sinai. There are seven, (perhaps eventually eight), Feasts of the Lord. These holy days are celebrated in the Spring, in the Summer, and in the Fall. They are the Seven Feasts of Israel.”