(This is a continuation of The Last
Trump series)
THE FEAST OF WEEKS (PENTECOST): THE
BIRTH OF THE CHURCH/
THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST DAYS
“And ye shall count unto you from
the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the
wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete;
Even unto the morrow after the
seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat
offering unto the Lord.
Ye shall bring out of your
habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of the fine
flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the
Lord.”
Lev. 23:15-17
Again, when God ordained this feast in Israel,
he was looking ahead to the day of its fulfillment. The Church was brought into existence on the
first occurrence of that feast day after the resurrection. The Greek name for this day is called Pentecost which means, fifty.
This feast occurred fifty days after the waving of the sheaf of
firstfruits. It should be clear by now
that God is working from a detailed blueprint that has been and will continue
to be followed.
Too often I hear comments suggesting that God waits until
circumstances and conditions on earth are set before implementing his
plans. That idea is incorrect. The expression “in the fullness of time” has
to do with God’s calendar and not earthly conditions.
Some of God’s plans have their fulfillment exclusively in
the Church, and some are reserved solely for Israel. As noted, the fulfillment of the Feast of
Weeks focuses on the Church. Although
the original membership of the Church consisted entirely of Jews, the Church
was a new and separate entity altogether, distinct from the nation of Israel. Prophecy students come to erroneous
conclusions when they attempt to combine the promises made to the Church with
those made to Israel. The same error causes some to be confused
with the rapture and the second coming of Christ. The former is an air event while the latter
is a ground event. The scriptures are detailed in giving us the New Testament
time this feast day was fulfilled.
“To whom he also shewed himself
alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty
days and speaking of the things pertaining to the
kingdom of God.”
Acts1:3
God instructed Moses to number seven Sabbaths from the day
of the waving of firstfruits plus an additional day; the total being fifty
days. Jesus ascended into heave on the
fortieth day. The apostles and disciples
were commanded to wait in Jerusalem
until they received the promise of the Father which was the Holy Ghost.
“...but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the
Holy Ghost not many days hence.” Acts
2:4&5
The wait in Jerusalem
lasted ten days:
“And when the day of Pentecost
was 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 all the house where they
were sitting.
And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the
Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance.” Acts 2: 1-4
The Church was born.
The Feast of Weeks was fulfilled “when
the day of Pentecost was fully come.”
There are no variables in the fulfillment of the feast days. I realize I am bordering on redundancy in
repeating that fact but it is essential that it be understood because so many
are under the impression that the day of the Rapture is a variable day, even a
random day, one no man knoweth or can know..
We shall see that its date also, is as fixed as all of the other feast
day fulfillments.
When Jesus commanded the apostles to wait in Jerusalem,
they asked him if he would restore the kingdom to Israel
when the “promise of the Father” came.
The answer Jesus gave a this time has been taken by many to mean that we
cannot know the time of the Rapture.
“...it is not for you to know the
times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” Acts 2:7
It is incongruous for God to put lights in the heavens for
signs; to give written prophecies stating specific times; to establish the
calendar of feast days and then tell his followers that they cannot know the
times or the seasons of his return!
Jesus’ answered their question about the time of the restoration of the kingdom of Israel and that is all! Had they listened carefully to the answer to
a previous question they asked, they would not have asked the question now
before us. Before his death Jesus told
them that the Temple was going to
be destroyed.
“There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be
thrown down.”
Because that had not yet happened, it should have been clear
to the apostles that Israel’s
restoration as a kingdom would not be for quite a while. If Jesus, at that time, had told them that Israel
would not be restored as a nation for almost 2000 years, it would have
devastated them. When he referred to the
“times and seasons,” plural, Jesus
was telling them that there are some times and seasons of which they would not
be told. We already looked at one of
those events: the passing away of the heavens and the earth.
When it suits God’s purpose, he will again restore Israel
but at that moment in time, he chose to restrict the knowledge of that time and
season to himself. You can be sure that
as that time approaches, surely the Lord will not act unless he reveals his
plan to the prophets. In 1948 when Israel
was restored as a nation again, the year became very significant in marking off
the times of last days’ events.
The date of formation of the Church was one of those times
and seasons that the Father did not reveal to any of the prophets. Peter’s epistle lets us know that the
prophets searched diligently as to what would effect the work of great grace
and when it would occur but that their search was unfruitful. The revelation of their search was given to
the apostles, not to the prophets. The
Church was a new work entirely.
Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy recorded the crucifixion of Christ, occurring at the
end of the 69th week, and then moved right along into the final
seven years. What Daniel’s prophecy did not include was the insertion of the Church
between the 69th and 70th weeks. Prophecy students and scholars refer to that
period of time between the 69th and 70th weeks as a gap
in time; a gap filled in with the Church age.
Had the prophecy of Daniel gone uninterrupted, the 70th week,
consisting of the tribulation, the great, would have ended before 39 a.d.. God knew that he would interrupt the prophecy
of Daniel with the creation of the Church but he was silent on the issue. The actual period of time for the saving of
the Gentiles was another time and season that the Father kept secret.
I referred earlier to the “gap” theory. It is an interruption in the flow of
Daniels’s prophecy. Jesus highlighted
that gap when he read the scripture in the synagogue of his home town. Luke 4:16-20 records the passage that Jesus
read from the writings of Isaiah.
Comparing Luke’s text with Isaiah’s we see that Jesus stopped reading in
the middle of the sentence, “to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord...” Isaiah’s writing continued with “...and
the day of the vengeance of our God.”
Jesus would not fulfill that portion of Isaiah until his second coming,
therefore the gap in time. That gap is
filled with the birth of the Church and the “grafting
in” of the Gentiles.
The description of the event on the day of Pentecost sounds
like the noise of a very good time.
That’s exactly the way it is described in Deuteronomy:
“Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee begin to number the seven
weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn.
And thou shalt keep the feast of
weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a free will offering of thine
hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy
God hath blessed thee:
And thou shalt rejoice before the
Lord thy God, thou and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy
maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the
fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy
God hath chosen to place his name there.
And thou shalt remember that thou
was a bondman in Egypt: and
thou shalt observe and do these statutes.”
Deut. 16: 9-12
This is a time of celebration and rejoicing. The grain harvest is complete. The grace of God allowed them to bring him “a
tribute of a freewill offering” from their own hand. The offering would be in accordance with
God’s blessings to them.
It was an event open to all and as such it fully typified
what the Church of Jesus
should be. The Feast of Weeks allowed
the family, the servants, the stranger, the cast-down and the cast-away to join
in the celebration. If there is a place
where there should be no room for prejudice, bigotry, or racism, it should be
in the Church.
When the Pentecostal revival erupted in Los
Angeles in 1906, it burst upon the city without
respect for color, race, creed, education or reputation. Of course it wasn’t long, just about three
years, before Satan caused divisions along color lines. That division continues until this day and is
one of the main reasons for the multitude of Pentecostal organizations in the
world today.
Satan divided that movement initially using racism and then
created further divisions by instigating doctrinal disputes that have nothing
to do with basic salvation. The Pentecostals,
like those of every God-ordained revival that had preceded theirs, began to organize the Church by adding their own
by-laws, minute books, regulations, and traditions. History repeated itself in the Church for the
seventh time and the revival died. The
organized Church today is teaching that a great revival is about to break out
in the Church again before the Rapture---that’s
true. It will be a revival
unprecedented in the history of the Church albeit a very short one
timewise. The last great revival
occurred in 1906 which was also the beginning of the last and final Church
period, the Laodicean Age. I will
comment more on that later in the book.`
On the day of the fulfillment of the Feast of Weeks the Holy
Ghost came down from heaven and entered into the hearts of those present. We have now been born from above and are the
children of the free. Egypt,
the true type of the world, is no longer our home. We should celebrate that fact every time we
gather together.
S.H. Kellogg spoke of this day as “...the spiritual ingathering of
the firstfruits of the world’s harvest, fifty days after the presentation of
our Lord in resurrection, as the wave-sheaf of the firstfruits.”
The Feast of Weeks marked the presentation of a “new
meat (meal) offering unto the Lord.” (Lev. 23:16) As Christ presented
himself to God as a wave offering of the sheaf of firstfruits, Pentecost
presents to God the firstfruits of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Israel
was commanded to abstain from any servile work on that day. This is significant because those of us who
are presented to God in connection with Pentecost are set free from the works
of the law. On the day of Pentecost
3,000 souls were added to the Church.
This is in marked contrast to the day when the law was given from Mt.
Sinai and 3,000 souls were
destroyed (Ex.32:28.) Here is an example
that shows God’s use of numbers is not coincidental. They are used to show the vast difference
between Law and Grace. The law could
only condemn and kill. Under grace,
works do not make a person acceptable to God; he or she is admitted by faith in
the blood of Jesus. Grace is a gift of
God and its first manifestation in the New Testament Church brought new life.
“And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the
first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt
offering unto the Lord...”
Lev. 23:18
For the first time, this celebration of the Feast of Weeks
after the resurrection of Jesus Christ did not include the sacrifices listed
above because Jesus himself had already fulfilled the purpose of each of those
offerings. Rather than presenting the
blood of animals, we are now instructed to present our bodies to God as a
living sacrifice.
(Ro. 12:1)
“Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and
two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings.” Lev. 23: 19
Again, Jesus met all of those requirements. The result of his offering of himself on the
cross is remission of sin and peace with God.
It is no wonder that Paul opened and closed his epistles with the
expression, “grace and peace be unto you.”
God can extend full grace to the Church because Christ
fulfilled the purpose of the offering of goats and lambs. We can live in a relationship of peace with
God because Christ himself was sacrificed for our peace. It must never be forgotten that the Church stands on the merits of a blood
sacrifice presented as a burnt offering to God.
Jesus not only fulfilled the requirements of the animal
sacrifices, he also fulfilled the wave loaves that were baked of fine
flour. He represents the best of that
which is harvested from the earth. His
righteous refinement was actually enhanced after his resurrection. Andrew Bonar states: “Even as Jesus, when raised from the tomb, was henceforth no more under
the curse of sin, but was blessed in body, for his body was no longer numbered
among transgressors; and blessed in all his inheritance, for all power was
given to him in heaven and in earth.”
There is one important aspect of this Feast of Weeks that
has a special fulfillment in the Church.
In connection with the loaves of fine flour we are told, “they shall be baken with leaven.”
Throughout Leviticus leaven was prohibited in offerings made to God by fire but
here we find a notable exception. Though
Jesus fulfilled all of the offerings and ingredients associated with this feast
day, the final fulfillment of that
day centered upon born-again
believers. We are not free from sin
while we are in these bodies of flesh upon the earth. Sin still dwells in our members. Because of that fact, God graciously allowed
leaven to be included in the offering on the day of Pentecost. The leaven still has its same significance,
evil and corruption. But when Jesus
comes to receive us to himself, he will then purge out every trace of leaven as
he clothes us with our heavenly bodies.
A note about keeping the sabbath or worshipping on Saturday
is in order here. Christ is our
Sabbath. The church was not born on a Saturday
but on Sunday. Although Sunday is the
first day of the week, with regards to the birth of the Church the day should
not be looked upon as the first day, but the eighth day, the number
representing new beginnings. The Church
was a brand new, distinct creation of God.
I was separated from Judaism in all aspects of time and place and for
that reason God ordained a new day for its worshippers. The handwriting of ordinances was blotted
out, being nailed to the cross of Christ. Paul’s words regarding the keeping of
days let us know that he that keeps a day keeps it as unto the Lord and he who
doesn’t keep a day does so as unto the Lord.
Rather than strive about the keeping of days, let’s just celebrate on
the day inaugurated for Pentecost.
