Today’s Topic: Feast of Weeks
Scripture: Leviticus 23:15-21
Greetings Kingdom Citizens
Now this is the 4th feast God ordained and established for the children of Israel to observe. Now this feast has various names but one in particular that all of us will know. These are the various names:
1. Feast of Weeks (Exodus 34:22)
2. Feast of Harvest (Exodus 23:16)
3. Pentecost (Hebrew: Shavout)
In Leviticus 23:15 and 16 we see God setting the appointed time for this feast to happen. Now when we read this we see God tells them that from the end of the Feast of Firstfruits shall be seven Sabbaths. Now that means there will be 49 days (7 days times 7 weeks) and even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath (1 day). So this feast will run 50 days. This is not some arbitrary number and you will see this later. But let’s see what is supposed to happen during this feast because it is a type and shadow of what it to happen in the fullness of time.
First, two waves loaves of two tenth deals with fine flour and baked with leaven. Now before I finish this scripture alone (Lev. 23:15) this is the first and only feast that leaven bread is used. Now we have said already that leaven in scripture symbolizes sin. So why would God tell the children of Israel to use leaven bread, which represents sin as a part of the celebration? Now that is a mystery that we will get an answer to. But then God goes on tell them how to prepare the necessary offerings and exactly how to do this in Leviticus 23:18-21. But at the end of these fifty days a new meat offering was to be made unto the Lord.
This feast is vitally important to the Jews but it is also vitally important to the saints. Now just saying the word “Pentecost” already should tell us what this is all about but I want to show you how important this is to the body of Christ and for the Jews. Now I am going to bulletpoint the meaning of this feast to the Jews and in the next message we will look at the Saints and you will see a stark and powerful correlation between the two
The Meaning of Shavout (Feast of Weeks) to the Jews
· It was 50 days from the crossing of the Red Sea to Mt. Sinai
· The Commandments were given
· The Law of God (Yahweh) was written in stone
· 3,000 people were slain for false god worship of Apis (Golden Calf)
If you haven’t figured it out it was 50 days from the crossing of the Red Sea that the children of Israel were brought to Mt. Sinai. Now it is at Mt. Sinai that two things happened: First, it was at Mt. Sinai that Israel rejected the initial offer to come up in the presence of the Lord and be changed into sons. But it is also the time that the children of Israel were made a nation to preserve them until the Messiah came. How do we know that they became a nation at Mt. Sinai? They were given The Law at Mt. Sinai. But in the midst of Moses receiving the laws, God heard singing and told Moses to get down from the mountain because they had built a false god (Apis, the golden calf) and the bottom of the mount to worship. Because of this treacherous act 3,000 of the children of Israel were slain. God was not going to put up with this after all He had done and shown. God gave them the law to keep until the law would be fulfilled by the coming of the Messiah. This kept the enemy, Satan, who accuses the brethren day and night, from killing off mankind and stopping the program of God. So at the end of the fifty days from the crossing at the Red Sea represented a new beginning for the children of Israel as a nation under God’s law.
Once again this is only a type and shadow of the truth that is to come. I do not want to overwhelm you with information so we will look at the saints and the Feast Weeks and how we can celebrate this and what it means for us.
At the Father’s Service,
Elder Calvin Calhoun Jr.
