GOD'S FINAL SECRET CHAPTER TWO by Stephen Benton

GOD'S FINAL SECRET  by Stephen Benton

CHAPTER TWO

THE BIRTH OF THE CHURCH

THE FEAST OF WEEKS: PENTECOST

(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 heaven 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 69^th 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 69^th and 70^th weeks.  Prophecy students and scholars refer to that period of time between the 69^th and 70^th weeks as a gap in time; a gap filled in with the Church Age.  Had the prophecy of Daniel gone uninterrupted, the 70^th week, consisting of the tribulation, the great, would have ended   before 39 AD.  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 Daniel'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.  It 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.   

SUMMARY OF THE (Spring)FEASTS

            The two feasts that we have examined, Passover and Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, the Greek name meaning fifty, occurred in the spring of the sacred year, the time when new life comes into existence.  Passover was celebrated in the first month on the fourteenth day.  On the fifteenth day of the same month was the Feast of Unleavened Bread, lasting until the 21^st day of the month.  In the same month, the Feast of Firstfruits and its associated Wave Offering was on the day following the Sabbath after Passover.  The Feast of Weeks, actually the completion of the Feast of Firstfruits, was fifty days after the Waving of the Sheaf of Firstfruits.

            All of these feast days were fulfilled at the end of the era of Law.  Pentecost was the final feast day of the Spring festivals and was fulfilled when the day of Pentecost was fully come.  Because God ordained a special day on his calendar of events, wouldn’t it seem likely that he has also ordained a special day which will have its fulfillment with the ending of that same Church, the day when we will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air?

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