Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 24, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 9: Holiness & The Law

Transcript

March 24, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 9: Holiness & The Law · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey, welcome to Crono.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Pray with me as we start.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you so much for what we are going to see, and I pray that you would work it deep into our souls so that we can have a more firm foundation and grow to love you more and more.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Out of all the peoples and nations of the earth, God chose the people of Israel to be his possession, to show his care and his concern and his protection for them.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: For us, looking back on that truth, we kind of shrug our shoulders and say, Yeah, so big deal.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: We know God chose them.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: They're his chosen people.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: And we kind of shrug it off.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: But to the men and women of Israel, this would have been extraordinary.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: And I hope that we can wrap our minds around how they would have seen this and how it would have impacted them.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: The nations, the other nations of the world had worshipped gods for thousands of years.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: As we saw in Egypt, these gods had some power.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: They were able to produce some of the same miraculous signs that God was working through Moses to accomplish.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: The gods of mythology evidently had some powers that they welded over man.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Their power was not from Yahweh, it was not from him.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: And while they had some power, it was limited power and it was limited authority.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, Israel's God, was not like the other gods.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: His power was limitless, his authority was supreme.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: For him to choose them and separate them was astounding, and they knew that.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: They knew that.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: This is their struggle.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: And we understand that struggle because too often today in our world we take things or people and we tend to make them gods or idols to us.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: The gods who were messing with Israel are still messing with us today.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: We call them demons.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh God is wholly set apart from the other gods that the people worshiped.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: God is holy, and holiness is one of his most important attributes that he possesses.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Nothing, nothing can be God does, can be done apart from his holiness.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: A.W.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Tozer has this great quote: God's holiness is not simply the best we know, infinitely bettered.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: His holiness stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible, and unattainable.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: The natural man is blind to it.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: He may fear God's power and admire his wisdom, but his holiness, he cannot even imagine.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: To be holy, he does not conform to a standard.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: He is the standard.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Because he is holy, his attributes are holy.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: That is, whatever we think of as belonging to God must be thought of as holy.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: His love is holy love.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: His justice is holy justice.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: All his attributes are holy.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: So a holy God is trying to show this group of stubborn, grumbling, stiff-necked Israelites what holiness looks like.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: And God is counting on these people to change the way the rest of the world sees him and relates to him.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Remarkable.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely remarkable.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: And evidently he will use them.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, eventually he will use them to bring redemption to the world through the Jewish Messiah, Jesus.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: How can God possibly get them to understand how important this is and how high the stakes are?
4:25
SPEAKER_00: This is what God is up against.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: It was truly an unprecedented event when God called Abraham from the pagan society that he lived in.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: He came from a family of idol worshipers.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: God makes the covenant with him and with his descendants, Isaac and Jacob.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: But after Jacob and Joseph, the people are enslaved for 400 years, which God had told Abraham 400 years before that that he would do.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: Why don't we feel so special if we're so special?
5:04
SPEAKER_00: I know my Jewish accent lacks a little bit there.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: But you get the point.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: In Exodus 19, we come to the foot of Mount Sinai, and in an effort to help the people understand and see the magnitude of his plan, God intends to speak to the people through Moses.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 19, 3 through 6.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob, and what you are to tell the people of Israel.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you will obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievable.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Before the commandments are ever given, he says, I carried you on eagle's wings.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: And he gives his vision and his mission for his people in these verses.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: He says, You will be my treasured possession.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: This little insignificant nation was going to enjoy a unique relationship with God compared to all the other nations.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: He also declares to them, You will be for me a kingdom of priests.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: God is declaring his kingdom, first of all.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, it's no ordinary kingdom.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: It is a unique kingdom.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And he's giving them the first opportunity to participate in this kingdom as priests.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: How incredible.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Finally, he says, You will be a holy nation.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: They will be set apart from all the other nations on earth.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: As a nation, they will be unique.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear how much he's offering them?
7:08
SPEAKER_00: To be his possession, to be his priests, to participate in his holiness.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: And remember, he offers all of this before the commandments are given.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: God initiated this relationship with Israel.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that is going to make them holy.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: The word holy means set apart.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Later the word would holy would begin to point to moral morality, but at the root of this word is the idea that something or someone is set apart.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: The space God occupies is sacred.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: It's holy.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Objects become holy when they are set apart for God's use.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: We have a holy God, and He's teaching the people how holy He is.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: And we have a law-giving God.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: In our study so far, we've seen the Noaic covenant, and the sign of the Noaiic covenant is the rainbow.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: The Abrahamic covenant and the sign for that was circumcision.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: And now we see the Mosaic covenant, and the sign of the Mosaic covenant is the law or the Ten Commandments.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: So, in order to give the people some governance, God gives them the law.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: They've been slaves in Egypt, and they've been told what to do, how to do it, how long to do it.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: They had not governed themselves for four over 400 years.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: They don't know how to do it.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people see the commit the Ten Commandments as a list of do's and don'ts, and I absolutely saw it that way when I was a child.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: But the people of Israel would have looked at it very, very differently.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: They would have seen these commandments as a continuation of fulfillment of the promise that he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be for them to experience the presence of God.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: That's how they would have seen the law.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: In the book, The Unseen Realm, which I highly recommend, it says the law was not a means of meriting salvation.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: An Israelite would have known that believing was at the heart of right relationship with Yahweh, not mere mechanical observance of a list of do's and don'ts.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Salvation in the Old Testament meant love for Yahweh alone.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: One had to believe that Yahweh was God of all gods, trusting that this most high God had chosen covenant relationship with Israel to the detriment of all other nations.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: The law was how one demonstrated that love, that loyalty.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: That's how it was demonstrated.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: They saw the law, the Ten Commandments, as God's copy of the covenant with them.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: The very first line of it reads, I am the Lord your God.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: They carried a copy with them as a reminder of God's loving agreement to be in relationship and covenant with them.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Were they expected to follow these commandments to the T?
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Yet.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Were they expected to follow the commandments?
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Was God's love for them based on perfect obedience to these commands?
10:56
SPEAKER_00: No.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: No.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: He had already expressed and promised his love and covenant with them before these laws were given.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: He was in relationship with them because of the covenant that he had made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: There was no other basis for the relationship, like perfect adherence to the law.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: With all of this in mind, we really begin to get a picture of what it meant when Israel broke the commands of God.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: They were not reaching some little agreement that they had, they were breaking covenant with the God who loved them.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: This is definitely how Moses, God's spokesperson, saw it.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: And he had to help Israel understand this.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: God had a distinct purpose for every one of the laws that he gave.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Moses brings this out in Deuteronomy 4.8.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Their prized possession was not the tabernacle or the temple once they got to Jerusalem or even the promised land once they got there.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Although all of those things are of utmost importance, the people of Israel identified the law, the commandments, as the one thing that set them apart, made them holy, set them apart from the other nations.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And it was their most valued treasure.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: God's law was so prized that the people were to keep their eyes focused on it all the time.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: They were to hold tightly to his teachings so that it wouldn't slip through their fingers or out of their hearts and be lost.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: This is how God wanted them to respond to the laws.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: It's stated in Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 8.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Impress them on your children.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew word for this declaration is Shema.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And it means hear, hear.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: This is a declaration, a core statement of faith that the people of Israel hold on to to this day.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: I love this quote by Spurgeon.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: He says, Because he's the living God, he can hear.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Because he's a loving God, he will hear.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: The laws that God sets before them were intended to lead these people into a devoted, love-filled relationship with their creator.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Too often today we we tend to see God as solemn or angry or demanding.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people have that view of God.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And in the books of the prophets, honestly, we see a God who is not pleased with his people, who is rather angry with them.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: But if our only view of God is that he is angry or demanding or solemn, we really miss out on who God really is.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: When people have this view of God, they miss the reality that God is filled with love, passion, and joy.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: We not only have a holy God and a law-giving God, but we have a God of joy.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: God is holy, but he is also a God of joy.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: The books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy describe the feasts and the festivals that God calls his people to.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: It's clear from the way God commands them to gather for these festivals and to enter into times of joy-filled feasting and celebration, that He is a God of joy.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: There are two words that come up again and again in these feasts and remembrances and that are commanded in the Pentateuch.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: The words are celebrate and rejoice.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Celebrate and rejoice.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: God was deeply concerned that they would grow as people of joy.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: He included all of them.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: And he tells them that if they can't make it to the formal celebration, to plan their own personal festival celebration, because God doesn't want anybody to miss out on the party.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: They were called to take their possession, to take their produce and trade it for silver.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Then in verse 26 and 27, he says, Use the silver to buy whatever you like, cattle, sheep, wine, or other fermented drink, or anything you wish, then you and your household shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: In other words, buy food and drink with your resources, throw a party right where you are in the presence of God, and don't forget to invite the religious people, because they went in on the party too.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: The laws and feasts are wonderful.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: They are designed to free them and train them to become joyful.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: The main feasts in the spring are the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of First Fruits, the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: The fall feasts are the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at each of these, and I pray that it just blesses you so much, the way studying them blessed me.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: As we look at them, we're going to see how they are a foreshadow of Christ.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: So first, the Passover feast.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: You are familiar with all that was involved with the first Passover in Egypt, but in the time of Jesus, this is what it would have looked like.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: The lambs for the individual families were sacrificed on the afternoon Thursday, the 14th of Nisan, ending around 5 p.m.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: On Passover, the Passover meal was prepared during the day on Thursday, and the feast began at sundown, 6 p.m.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Their new day began at sundown, and then the new day would begin.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to explain that.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Each day during the feast, a lamb was offered in the morning and another at 3 p.m.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Friday, the day after Passover, was an extra Sabbath known as the High Sabbath.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Two lambs were offered that day, sacrificed that day, one in the morning and one at 3 p.m.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Friday is also the beginning of the feast of unleavened bread, which we will look at in a minute.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: At 3 p.m.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: on Friday, the High Sabbath, a priest would blow the shofar, ram, the ram's horn, as the lamb was sacrificed, and as that was taking place in the temple at the altar.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: All the people would pause at the sound of the shofar and contemplate the sacrifice that was being offered for their sins right at that moment.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: That lamb was being sacrificed on behalf of Israel's sin.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: They knew the lamb, the lamb's blood was covering over their sin for the year.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Josephus, a historian in Jesus' time, said that there were upwards of 250,000 lambs that were sacrificed in the temple on Thursday during Passover.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Imagine the blood from all those lambs draining out from the temple courtyard down into the Kidron Valley because that's where it would go.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Some say that the priests had to pour water down that drainage tunnel to keep the blood flowing.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Blood mixed with water is coming out of the side of the temple.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus and the disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane, they would have crossed over that river of blood to get to the Garden of Gethsemane.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: For the Hebrews, Passover represents the deliverance of bondage and slavery in Egypt.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: But for the Christians, it represents deliverance from personal sin.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: The Jews mark their houses with the blood of the Lamb, but for us believers in Christ, Scripture says we are covered with the blood of the Lamb.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: The Passover feast represents Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are closely related, and sometimes they're very confused or lumped together.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: The feast of unleavened bread starts the day following the Passover, the start of the Passover, and it lasts for seven days.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: During the Jewish celebration of Passover and unleavened bread, the Jewish people use the bread matzah, which is the picture here, that is striped and it's pierced.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you've all seen it.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: The body of Messiah is described in Isaiah 53.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, striped and pierced for our transgressions.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Part of the Jewish celebration of the Seder Passover meal was to bring out a linen bag containing three whole pieces of matza.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Whole pieces of matza.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: The second piece of the matza is removed from the bag and it's broken.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Half of it is wrapped in a linen cloth and it's hidden somewhere in the house.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: This is known as the afikomen.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: It remains hidden until the latter part of the feast and the ceremony when the children in the home go searching for it.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: When it's found, the children come back.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: The child who found it comes back, gets a gift, and the Afikomen is then broken into many pieces and eaten by all the people who are in attendance.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: The Afikomen piece of bread is symbolic of the burial and resurrection of Jesus, Messiah.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the Jewish people had been had done this ceremony for 1,500 plus years before Christ came.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: The feast of unleavened bread points to Jesus as the bread who came down from heaven that was without sin.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: He was the second or middle matzah that was removed from the three and was broken for our sake.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting that this is what Jesus would have been doing at the at the Last Supper with his disciples.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Luke 22, 19, and he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body given for you.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: The Jews had performed this year after year, but this was the first time that someone had said, This is me.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: This is my body that is going to be given and broken for you.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: How incredible.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus died in time to be buried at sundown, Passover day.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: He was placed on the cross at 9 a.m.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: and taken off of the cross at 3 p.m., a mere six hours.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: There was time enough to wrap his body and bury it, put it in the tomb at sundown as Passover began.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: He was in the tomb for the first three days of the festival of unleavened bread.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: He was raised to life right in the middle of it and then ascended as the first fruits of God's spiritual harvest.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: All of this is part of the meaning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and it all points to Christ.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: The Feast of Unleavened Bread represents the burial of the Lord Jesus.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Next is the Feast of First Fruits.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: The Feast of First Fruits is on the 17th of Nisan.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, sometime between 6 p.m.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Saturday night and 6 a.m.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: on the first day of the week.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Jesus rose from the dead on the feast of firstfruits.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: On that day, during the feast of firstfruits, the Israelites would wave a grain offering before the Lord, celebrating his goodness by providing food for them, providing the harvest for them.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' resurrection was like a wave offering before the Father that signaled that there would be many more to follow.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: First fruits was the last of the spring feasts that the Lord Jesus was seen personally fulfilling on earth.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, but Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who fall who have fallen asleep.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his own turn, Christ, the first fruits, when he comes, those who belong to him.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: The feast of first fruits represents the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Next is the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: The Feast of Weeks took place exactly 50 days after first fruits.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: It celebrated the summer harvest.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: The word 50 in the Greek is pente, from which we get the word Pentecost.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Now listen, it was a commonly held Jewish belief that the feast of weeks commemorated the day that the Lord gave Moses the law on Mount Sinai.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: It commemorated the day that the law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: Moses brought the people out to meet God, and they saw that Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was crucified as the Passover lamb and rose from the grave on the feast of first fruits.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Following his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and many others over a period of 40 days.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Before ascending to heaven, Jesus told his disciples to not leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: For ten days, the disciples and all of those who were following Christ were waiting for something to happen.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: They didn't really know what they were waiting for, but the wait was necessary because the Holy Spirit had to come on this specified day.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Fifty days after Messiah's resurrection, on the feast of first fruits, God once again descended on his people with fire.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Acts 2, 3, verse 3.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place because they were celebrating the feast of weeks.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: And he told them to wait.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: The feast of weeks or Pentecost is the birth of the church.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Pentecost is the beginning of the church age that we are still in.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: The same power that rested on them is still available to us and in us.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: There's still power from the Holy Spirit to be experienced and will be for this entire church age.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Those spring feasts, the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of First Fruits, and the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost were all fulfilled in Christ.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: All of them.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it just blow your mind to see how perfectly Jesus fulfilled these feasts in exactly the timing that it was necessary?
29:43
SPEAKER_00: It was always the Father's will for the Son to come and to die for the sin of mankind.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: So God instituted these celebrations 1,500 years-ish before Jesus came.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Every detail had to be perfect.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: And it was.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: One of the reasons God established these feasts was so that Jesus could fulfill them.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Now something very interesting that we need to see for just a second, and it takes place in Leviticus chapter 22.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 22 is going through all of the feasts, one after the other, the spring feast and then the fall feast.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: But there's this one tiny little verse in 22, in verse 22, that says, When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.
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SPEAKER_00: Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord your God.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Could this be a prophecy, in a sense, of what God was going to do for all of us foreigners, the non-Jewish Gentile peoples of the world?
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Because that's exactly what happens.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what happens.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: In between the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, and the first the first fall feast, the Feast of Trumpets, is the church age, made up predominantly of Gentile people who would get in on the gleanings and harvesting of the church age believers.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what happened.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: God allows the Gentiles to come in because of the preaching of the gospel all over the world, every corner of the globe, and we have reaped a huge harvest of Gentile believers that's still going on to this day.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Those spring feasts were all fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: They were fulfilled by his death, by his burial, and by his resurrection.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: We have not seen him personally fulfill the fall feasts yet.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: That is in the future.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: It's going to happen.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: And included in Scripture are prophecies that declare that Christ will be the fulfillment of these fall feasts.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: The reason these last three have not been fulfilled yet is because we remain under the orders of Pentecost.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: The church age is continuing to cultivate the summer crop as we work in the fields that are white unto harvest.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: This is the age of grace, and it continues until the trumpet sounds.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: The first of the fall feasts is the feast of trumpets.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: You can see this graph here.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: In modern-day Judaism, it's known as Rosh Hashanah and is celebrated with a memorial blowing of trumpets or ram's horns.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: In ancient Israel, the ram's horn or trumpet, usually there were 100 trumpets that blasted.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: And the last trumpet, the last trump, they would call it the last trump, would blow this one single sustained note for as long as the trumpeter could hold it while the other trumpets faded.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: That was the signal for all of the harvesting to stop and for them to leave their fields and gather for a sacred assembly.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: It was a designated rest, this feast of trumpets.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: The span of time between the last feast of Pentecost weeks and the feast of trumpets is the church age.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: We've been working in the fields that are white unto harvest.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: At the trumpet or the ram's horn blast, all harvesting for the church age is coming to a stop.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: It will be done, it will be finished.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: I believe that the Feast of Trip Trumpets represents the rapture of the church.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: When we believers in Christ will be caught up to heaven.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Now there are lots of other theories about this.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: I just think this one makes the most sense out of all the studying that I've done.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to this event, God uses the prophet Joel.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: In Joel 2.1, he says, Blow the trumpet in Zion, sound the alarm on my holy holy hill.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: It is close at hand.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Look closely at this chart.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: The fall feasts are also known as the High Holy Days or the days of awe, which are a prophetic foreshadows of the Lord's return.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: Tishra 1 and 2 is the feast of trumpets.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: Then there are seven days, Tishra three through nine, and these are described as Daniel's 70th week, or the time of Jacob's trouble, or the day when God's wrath is poured out.
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SPEAKER_00: All of those are descriptors of the tribulation period.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Then the tenth of Tishra is the day of atonement, Israel's holiest day.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: What if those seven days represented seven years of tribulation?
35:33
SPEAKER_00: I personally believe they do.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: That would mean that the Feast of Trumpets is the rapture of the church, followed by seven years of tribulation, and then the Day of Atonement would represent Christ's second coming.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing else that needs to happen.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: You need to understand this.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing else that needs to happen before the trumpet, before this happens.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: First Thessalonians 4, 15 through 17, for the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: And the dead in Christ will rise first.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: That's the word for rapture here.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Caught up, snatching up, together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: And so we will be with the Lord forever.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: We will hear the ram's horn or the trumpet, whatever it is.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: We will hear the command and we will be out of here.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: We will go up to Jesus.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: The next prophetic event that we will see Jesus fulfilling personally is the Feast of Trumpets.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: I believe that is the rapture.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And it's still to come, and nothing else prophetically needs to happen before we hear the trumpet.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: And it is coming soon.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Then the day of atonement.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: The day of atonement is the most solemn and holy of the feast days.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: The day of atonement is also called Yom Kippur.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: It's the day of covering or ransom.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's also known, I love this, as the day of face to face with God.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Face to face with God.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: Because if we are correct that the rapture happens during the Feast of Trumpets, then we will be gone, and our sins have already been atoned for in Christ.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: So eschatologically, we the church will have already been raptured to heaven.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: The Jewish people will be the ones that God is working through during the tribulation period.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Many will be martyred for their faith in Jesus, Messiah, during those seven years, and no one will be able to shut them up.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: They will be such a powerful voice for him.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: The day of atonement will be fulfilled for the Jews when the Lord returns at his second coming.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: Revelation chapter 19, 11 through 14.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: With justice he judges and makes war.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: That is our future.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: We are part of that massive army dressed in white that will be riding in behind King Jesus.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: The days of awe will reach their crescendo on the Day of Atonement.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: It was the day when the entire world will come face to face with the living God and see him with their own eyes.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: It is a day of judgment for the enemies of God and a day of liberty for the people of God.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: For God, this is the day when the planet is returned to its rightful owner, Him.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: And then He begins his reign.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: The last fall feast to be fulfilled is the Feast of Tabernacles.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: It begins five days after the Day of Atonement.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: It is also known as the Feast of Booths or Sukkat.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: This is the most joyful of all the feasts.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: The Feast of Tabernacles celebrated the final harvest of the year and God's great provision for his people.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: During this feast, the Israelites were required to leave the comfort of their homes and they were to live in booths or tents.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: To remember that their ancestors had wandered around for 40 years and lived in tents after they came out of slavery in Egypt.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: The Feast of Tabernacles will be fulfilled in the millennial reign of Christ.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: God's great tabernacle will come down from heaven and it will rest over Jerusalem during the millennium.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: During this glorious period, Satan and his demonic hosts will be bound, and Jesus will tabernacle with his people.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament believers, the New Testament church age believers, and the tribulation believers will all be one in that holy tabernacle.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul said this about the feasts and festivals.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: These are a shadow of the things that were to come.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: The reality, however, is found in Christ.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: The reality is found in Christ.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: Those feasts are just a shadow.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: The reality is Christ Jesus.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: We have a truly joyful God.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: We have a holy God, and we have one who always keeps his promises.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Always.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to give us a proper view of God.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: He came to complete our view of God.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: So today, are we obligated to follow all the laws that we have seen in Leviticus, Exodus, and Deuteronomy?
42:30
SPEAKER_00: Are we obligated to those?
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Are we being disobedient to God when we don't follow these laws to the T?
42:38
SPEAKER_00: Those are good questions for us to ask.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: The answer is that since Christ, our relationship to the law has fundamentally changed.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 5, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: Everything will be accomplished because the reality is in Jesus Christ.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was clear that he was going to uphold the law of God, not break it.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: Sonic Light gives us some clarity here.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: It says Jesus probably meant that he came to establish the Old Testament fully to add his authoritative approval to it.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: Jesus authenticated the Old Testament as the inspired word of God.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: He wanted his hearers to understand that what he taught them in no way contradicted Old Testament revelation because it was revelation from God.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the reasons it's important to understand, to read and understand the Old Testament.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: How could it contradict since he was going to fulfill it?
44:13
SPEAKER_00: How could it contradict it?
44:15
SPEAKER_00: Rather than love God, our love for God being defined by the law, now our love for God is defined by loving God's Son, Jesus Christ.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: And God is delighted when he sees evidence of that love.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: We have a methodical God who is working out everything to the praise of his glory.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: He leaves, as it were, a trail of breadcrumbs, clues, things for us to help us understand the true meaning of who Jesus was and is.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: But to see you in these things as being the fulfillment and the full revelation of it is amazing.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: And to know that one day you are going to come and you're going to fulfill all those fall feasts.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: And with everything in us, we cry out, come Lord Jesus, come and do it.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Get it done.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: But until then, oh Lord, until then, let us be faithful.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: Let us harvest the people, the crop that's all around us.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: Let us speak boldly of who you are.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: And let our love for you shine so bright that it is undeniable to those who see us.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: We ask you to do all of this to the praise of your glory.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and we will see you next time.