Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / April 3, 2022 | Leviticus - Holy Feasts

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April 3, 2022 | Leviticus - Holy Feasts · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're into one of my favorite things this morning as we continue our series in Leviticus.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: We are in, if you're just joining us, we are in week nine out of ten.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we're into some really fun stuff.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fun for a couple reasons.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: One, because we get to talk about all the feasts today, all the festivals, which is sort of its own deal.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: But the other part that's really fun and much more exciting to me is that easily one of my favorite things to do when we look at the Bible is see how God sort of connects his story between the Old and the New Testament.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning, I'll be honest with you, we're going to be on kind of a fast pace because we've got a lot of feasts to cover.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But through that, our goal is that we would see how God was sort of building this foundation for his church that was to come later on.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that the eternal truths that he was presenting to the Israelites in the book of Leviticus are things that we can both pick up on now and carry on into the future as we get excited about God's plan.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we talk about the feast this morning, like I said, I'll go ahead and give you an outline.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to sort of discuss what they were like in the context of Israel as they're presented in Leviticus 23.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're going to look to the New Testament, and we're going to see how, through some of those events, God fulfilled and sort of built upon these feasts, and then what even might be coming in the future based upon what we already know.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of really fun things to do there.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in order to do that, let's go ahead and dive in.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: When we get to Leviticus 23, verses 1 and 2, it begins this way.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It says, The Lord spoke to Moses, speak to the Israelites and tell them, These are my appointed times, the times of the Lord, that you will proclaim as holy assemblies.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Moses is functioning in the capacity that he has been for most of Leviticus, where God has given him instructions that he is supposed to then give to the people as their leader.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this would be a verse that you could easily gloss over, if not for a word that has sort of come up frequently as we've been studying Leviticus, which is holy.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we see here that these feasts that God is about to proclaim and give, they are holy assemblies, where the entire nation is supposed to come together for a specific purpose of remembrance or of thanksgiving or something like that.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: But this is this sort of transcends, you know, grilling out in the backyard and shooting off fireworks to celebrate a holiday.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: These are things which, just as we've seen in the rest of Leviticus, are holy and serve a purpose.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing follows with all of these feasts.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And there are seven feasts.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um it starts with Passover, and here I have, these are the dates in 2022 where these things are still being celebrated, though this is not the same date every single year because we run on a different calendar.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're interested, that's when they're coming up this year.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it starts with Passover, and then it goes to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, then the Feast of First Fruits, which you can't say five times fast, then the Feast of Weeks, then the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so each one of these things holds a very special and specific purpose.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: But they're also, you might have noticed based upon the dates, that they are sort of divided into two categories.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: There are the spring feasts, which happen namely in the spring.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: This one, the Feast of Weeks, typically is at the end of May or the beginning of June.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of depends.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then we've got these feasts that come in the fall.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're divided into sort of these two different categories.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and these two different categories are actually going to come up later, and so it's important that we remember that there are some of these feasts that are sort of grouped together up here, and then some that are grouped together in the fall.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: But let's go ahead and talk about exactly what they did during these feasts, because these are the things that God is going to build upon later on.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll notice that the first three feasts, or rather I should say, from the previous uh slide, that they are all grouped together.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this year it'll be April 15th through the 17th.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the Passover, the feast of unleavened bread, and the feast of first fruits, they're sort of a package deal that comes together.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because they're celebrating a really significant event.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: When we get to Passover in Leviticus 23, 5, the Passover to the Lord comes in the first month at twilight on the 14th day of the month.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, why twilight?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so I mentioned a second ago that there are two different calendars here.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ours, if you if you didn't know this, we run on the thing called the Gregorian calendar, and it is a solar calendar, it's based on the movement of the sun.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar, it's based upon the movement of the moon.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so every single day in the Hebrew calendar begins at dusk.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so that might help in some of our understanding of how these days work, where being in twilight, like the twilight is actually the beginning of the 14th day of the month in this situation.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the Passover comes on the first month, and you you might be familiar with Passover.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was the it is a celebration of God's deliverance of his people out of slavery and bondage in Egypt, namely coming at the tenth plague, where for those who trusted in the Lord and were his people, they slaughtered a lamb, an unblemished lamb, and put it over the doorposts, so that the Lord would pass over their house as he brought judgment into the nation of Egypt.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so the celebration of Passover was a remembrance of what God had done in rescuing them, but also a look uh forward so that they could continue through all generations to make sure that their children and their children's children would remember how God had saved them and rescued them by the blood of the Lamb.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Passover came on the first day.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then we get to the feast of unleavened bread.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: It happens the day immediately following Passover.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this is two verses from Exodus and Leviticus 23.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: In Exodus, the original command, you must eat unleavened bread for seven days.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: On the first day, you must remove yeast from your houses.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever eats what is leavened from the first day through the seventh day must be cut off from Israel.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: That language of being cut off is something that we're hopefully familiar with.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we talked quite a bit about that, how severe it is.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: The festival of unleavened bread to the Lord is on the fifteenth day of the same month.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: For seven days you must eat unleavened bread.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so this festival, this feast of unleavened bread, was actually a week long.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so for a week, the Israelites were supposed to eat these unleavened crackers, this matzah.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason they were to do that wasn't because it was simple or particularly tasty, but because it reminded them of how in their haste to leave Egypt, they didn't have time to let the bread rise.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same reason why the Passover meal was supposed to be eaten like they were ready to go out and flee.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: They were supposed to have their cloaks on and their sandals and they had their staffs in their hand.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: They were a people who were on the move, and they were to be reminded of that.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So for a week there was the feast of unleavened bread.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then the day following that is another feast that we've actually talked about during this series.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the feast of firstfruits.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you enter the land I am giving you, and reap its harvest, you are to bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the priest.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Its grain offering is to be four quarts of fine flour mixed with oil as a food offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma, and its drink offering will be one quart of wine.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You must not eat bread, roasted grain, or any new grain until this very day, and until you have brought the offering to your Lord.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is to be a permanent statute throughout your generations wherever you live.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the feast of first fruits involved all of those things, except it was a particular day to recognize when they would be going into the promised land and experiencing the bounty that God provided for them in this new area.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was, I mean, a pretty stark contrast from going from desert to a land that was already filled with uh produce and plants that had been planted by previous nations.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so as they went into this space, they were supposed to kick off their harvest every single year by bringing the first of that harvest to the Lord.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: After that harvest, after they, or rather, after they uh brought these things to the Lord, then they could sort of enjoy the harvest that God had given to them.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the first thing they were to do was to bring it to the Lord.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So these three days are connected to each other.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're sort of a three-in-one package, and all of it is focused on remembering the things that God has done and the things that He will do.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're remembering the Passover, they're remembering how God rescued them, and they're following the same sort of calendar.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that becomes very apparent that they are just reliving the calendar of Exodus when we see the fourth spring feast, which is called the Feast of Weeks.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Feast of Weeks is so called because in Leviticus 23, 15 through 16, it says, You are to count seven complete weeks, starting from the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the presentation offering, so the first fruits.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: You are to count fifty days until the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So this feast, the feast of weeks, is seven weeks of seven days.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: That number might be significant if you know much more about the rest of the Bible.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of God's favorite numbers.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: It would be on his fortune cookie.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we look at the Feast of Weeks, there were these 49 days that were counted after the Feast of First Fruits.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And there were sort of two purposes for this feast.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: The first one was to celebrate the giving of the law at Mount Sinai.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So picture in your mind, you've got the Exodus happening if you're an Israelite, and there are these significant events that are happening, right?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And as you do that, um the rest of the generations for every year following are going to follow that same sort of calendar.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea is that seven weeks of seven days is how long it took for the Israelites leaving Egypt in the Exodus to arrive at Mount Sinai and be given the sign of the old covenant, which is the law, the thing which we have read about so much in Leviticus.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: The other purpose of the Feast of Weeks was to celebrate the end of the spring harvest.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of these things are coming together.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, they are holy assemblies, they are special things.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: These are not just sort of lavish parties that they're putting on for the sake of it, but they are generation after generation, is supposed to remember the history of their people and always keep it in the back, or rather the front of their mind during these times, so that they would give glory to the Lord for how he has sustained them and protected them and shepherded them.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that is the end of the spring feasts.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: They all happen within the span of about 52 or 53 days.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a break.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a break of about four months until we get to the final three feasts, holy feasts.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And these happen in the fall.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is the feast of trumpets.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's uh also known today as Rosh Hashanah.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the feast of trumpets is in Leviticus 23, verses 23 through 24.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord spoke to Moses, tell the Israelites, in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you are to have a day of complete rest, commemoration, and trumpet blasts, a sacred assembly.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: This this feast is interesting because it also begins sort of a ticking clock, in the sense that ten days after this feast is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, and five days after that is the feast of booths.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in 15 days here, we've got another three feasts happening.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: There was like pretty busy.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so the feast of trumpets is interesting because it kicks off this time of reflection, these trumpet blasts, critical to the culture of the Israelites.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not something that uh Miles Davis played, right?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of trumpet that we're talking about here, is a hollowed-out ram horn, a shofar.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And these ramshorns, you can uh listen to, you can look it up on YouTube.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: There are people who still know how to play these, and they have somewhat of like a deep bugle sound to them.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it emanates in that the sound of these trumpets can go for miles, especially across open terrain.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these trumpets, when I say they are central to the culture of the Israelites, I mean that they are used a whole lot, both for mundane and special purposes.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: In the sense of the mundane or normal, these trumpets, these shofars, were used to, for instance, bring people in from the fields when it was time to worship, or to let people know when they were supposed to, you know, come in or to announce certain times of the day.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: But in a very special sense, God seems to love using these trumpets to designate significant events in his history, and especially when he's involved, when he's coming around.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: You think of Joshua in the Battle of Jericho, when they walk around the city of Jericho as they're entering into the promised land, blasting their trumpets for seven days until on the final day the walls of Jericho come crashing down.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: These trumpet blasts are something that, as they ring out in the community, are drawing people in and reminding them of God's presence, leading them in an attitude of repentance as they head towards ten days later, the day of atonement, the most holy day in the Israelite calendar.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: A day where the sins of the entire nation are forgiven for those who have trusted in God.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: The sins of many are covered by the forgiveness or the sacrifice of one, a lamb that is slaughtered.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so on the day of atonement, there's a whole lot, we've talked about this quite a bit in the book of Leviticus, so I'm not going to go into huge detail.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the blood of a sacrifice is given for the entire nation.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the most holy day because it's the only day in the whole year where the high priest can enter into God's presence, the holy of holies, where the Ark of the Covenant rests.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so this special day, this day of atonement, Yom Kippur, is a day where the entire nation of Israel recognizes that God is the one forgiving their sins, their need to trust in God, and a sort of a release valve that comes after a time of reflection in these trumpet blasts.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: So after the Day of Atonement, oh, excuse me, the Day of Atonement here in uh Leviticus 23, 27, the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: You are to hold a sacred assembly and practice self-denial.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: You are to present a food offering to the Lord.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: On this particular day, you are not to do any work, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for yourselves before the Lord your God.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: A quick note on this a language that's used here to reflect and is and is similar through the rest of the feasts, is that they were basically a special Sabbath for the people.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: A Sabbath which was already a time when they were not supposed to work, now became a special time on these holidays where they were not to do any work out of fear or respect for the holiness that God had given to the special day.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of these things are being drawn together, and God is laying this foundation, and the final feast that we see in the calendar is the feast of tabernacles.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your Bible might say the feast of booths or the feast of shelters.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in Leviticus 23, verses 34, and then later on, tell the Israelites, the feast of shelters to the Lord begins on the fifteenth day of this seventh month and continues for seven days.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're to live in shelters for seven days.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: All the native born of Israel must live in shelters, so that your generations may know that I made the Israelites live in shelters when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord your God.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so this idea of shelters is coming forth in that God provided shelter for his people as they were going through the desert.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Even today, uh, Jews celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles by constructing these sort of mini booths or shelters in their backyard called sukkas.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the for the entire week, um, as they're celebrating the Feast of Shelters, it's another week feast, they would eat meals wherever this is in their home, probably in their backyard, and they would have meals as a family out there.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: But there's this really interesting connection that's going on between the shelters that God provided for his people as they were going through the desert, the remembrance of those shelters, but also a reference to the fact that God desires to dwell with his people.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, later on in the book of 1 Kings, when Solomon has built the temple, he dedicates it at the Feast of Booths, or Feast of Tabernacles.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon assembles all of these people and they come together, and this is one of those reasons why knowing the festivals is helpful for us just in understanding the rest of the Bible.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Deeper meaning is given to Solomon's dedication of the first true temple in the Promised Land, because he does it on the time when they are referencing the shelter that God has provided for them.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: We made it.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: We made it.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the seven feasts.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the seven feasts, and and I know that was fast.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I get that, but here's the thing God is laying a foundation.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about this.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: That God is shepherding and guarding a plan that He is carrying out throughout the generations.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: He is protecting that plan.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that plan involves the salvation of the entire world.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this plan, I believe, is referenced in these feasts that are presented in the Old Testament.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: That what God was doing was not only helping his people and the generations that came after the Israelites to remember what was going on and to remember God's providence, but also to look forward to a time and to understand a time when his plan would be built upon this foundation.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think when we look at these feasts in a way that I'm about to show you, I believe we can see a portion of God's eternal plan for his people and also what we might be able to expect in the future as we anticipate the second coming of Christ.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in order to do that, uh remember the spring and the fall feasts, that the first four feasts were in the spring, and the latter three feasts were in the fall.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: The spring feasts have already had things and structures, if you will, built upon them.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: They've had events that have sort of coincided with those same days where I think God is overriding what is um happening on the original feast and saying something greater has come.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll get to the fall feasts, which are things that we are anticipating.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when we look at Passover, this is probably the most well known feast as well as event that we're familiar with.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus was eating the Passover meal before he was sacrificed.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Seder meal that he was having with his disciples.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Last Supper was the Passover meal.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those disciples, one of those individuals in the room with Jesus, when he was drawing all of these connections about how he was the Lamb that was going to be slain for the sins of the entire world.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: How during Passover that they were going to, the entire nation of Israel was coming to the temple to celebrate something that Jesus was being condemned for.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so these events of Passover were carried on in the minds of those who were in the room.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter, like I said, who is in that room, later wrote in one of his letters, he said, For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life, inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so God is sort of building upon this foundation, this idea that we would hope in the minds of the Jewish people, and then later the Gentiles, but the Jewish people were, their generations had been given these feasts.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're thinking, man, you you understand like what has been going on.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: This framework has been developed, and now God has brought something even greater to it.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: On the day of Passover, the true Passover lamb is sacrificed.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that first feast is clearly pointing to what Jesus has done, that God was preparing the nations for it, and then showing us now how he has made it even greater.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are some things that could be said about the feast of unleavened bread and the feast of firstfruits.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: How perhaps the life that were presented or the life of Jesus is reminiscent of unleavened bread, and how Jesus is said to be the first fruit, sort of a sacrifice to God, the best that could be possibly offered.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the one I want to talk about more deeply is the Feast of Weeks.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, we call it Pentecost.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Pentecost is the Greek and Latin word for 50.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so the 50 days of the Feast of Weeks were turned into Pentecost.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as we look in the book of Acts, right, we see that the early Christians being led by Peter, they were sort of, the church was exploding in growth, and that they were sort of moving beyond this terrified state that they were in immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then his resurrection came and he emboldened them, he strengthened them, but he said that they would be receiving a sign, a sign of the new covenant.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so then on the Feast of Weeks, the day where God showed and gave the nation of Israel the sign of the old covenant, the sign of the new covenant is given to people, where the Holy Spirit is given to all believers, the power of God resting within us, so that we might be able to carry out the gospel and the mission of Christ into the entire world and for all time.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so you see the Old Testament is being overwritten by the New Testament.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: On the feast where they are celebrating the giving of the law and the giving of this time of recognition for God presenting power to the people, he gives a new kind of power to the people.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Flames licking above their head as they begin speaking in different languages, as the reality of the Great Commission going into all the nations is presented before them.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: The people are shown that God is with them and we're in a new age.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where a break happens.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we see a bit of a lull.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you think in the Hebrew calendar, there's about four months from the end of the spring feasts, or rather Pentecost, until the fall feasts.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems to be that that is reflective of our time now.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: That we look back 2,000 years ago to the giving of the Holy Spirit as one of the last and most obvious signs that the Lord gave to his people.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I do not mean that God is not working today, but it seems to be that since this point in time, and as you go through the New Testament, God said, You have everything that you need in order to carry out my will to the ends of the earth.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: God is still active in our world today, but it does seem like we are waiting.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're waiting until the promised return of Christ.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what I believe is shown in these last three fall feasts.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: If we can take this idea that God has created a foundation and a framework and is building upon it and is showing even greater things to the nations on the days in which the feasts were in the Old Testament, then I think we can look to the Feast of Trumpets as the next sort of sign that we will receive.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got to tell you, if we're making a Spotify playlist for what the second coming of Christ is going to sound like, it's going to be a lot of trumpets.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: I have a couple different verses here.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: But we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a command, with the archangel's voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead and Christ will rise first.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to get away from trumpets in the New Testament when we're talking about the plans that God has for the future.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in particular, what it seems like trumpets will bring about is the rapture.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: God collecting his people and bringing them into be with him, in his presence.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't really matter what our theology of the rapture is, sort of how you view the end times, because what I can tell you is that trumpets are associated with it.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems that the first of the fall feast, the things which will sort of usher in this new time, where we are then much more closely anticipating the second coming of Christ, is quite literally the sound of trumpets.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: A thing which brought about God's great power in the Old Testament, is something that will display his power in our age.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you recall from the feasts, the Feast of Trumpets began a time of reflection leading up to the Day of Atonement, the most holy day.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And as we look to the Day of Atonement, it's pretty easy, I think, to make a connection that this will be the day that Jesus returns.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: That on the Day of Atonement, that God is going to show and build upon the foundation that He made before.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where a high priest sacrificing an animal will cover the sins of the entire nation.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think in the future we will see Jesus return as our high priest and is going to bring and bring about judgment for those who have not trusted in him as the sacrifice for the entire nation, for all nations.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: That the second coming of Christ will be a time of separation that we see in the New Testament.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: The sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, for those who have made their decision to believe in Jesus, and for those who have not, that the most holy day in the entire Hebrew year is also going to be the most holy day in our future.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: As the greatest event and the thing which we are walking towards day by day, the second coming of Christ, comes about.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: And for those who have trusted in Jesus, the day of atonement is going to lead to the best day, which is the Feast of Tabernacles.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: The Feast of Tabernacles, this thing which reflects upon God dwelling with his people and providing shelter for them.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think we will be celebrating this feast in heaven with God as we celebrate finally being able to dwell with our God, not being separated any longer because of our sin, and him providing an eternal shelter for us in heaven with him and all believers.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think these feasts are pointing to this future where we can anticipate the trumpet sound and the gathering of believers and Jesus Christ returning and an eternal dwelling with God.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: These spring feasts, which celebrate for us what has happened in the past, and these fall feasts which point towards the future.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: I believe God is giving an eternal truth to his people.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe there's a question that has come to your mind, which is, what are we supposed to do with all these feasts?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: What are we supposed to do with them?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I put up dates.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are we supposed to get together for the feast of weeks and the feast of trumpets and such things?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, the Old Testament says they really were a foundation for us.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: In Colossians chapter 2, verses 16 and 17.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, don't let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink, or in the matter of a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath day.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: These are a shadow of what was to come.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: The substance is Christ.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So don't let anyone judge you in regard to three things that the Israelite calendar would be celebrating: a festival or a feast, a new moon.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is a lunar calendar, and so new moons are what brings about the changes in the calendar.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or a Sabbath day.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Colossians, he said, These things that God brought about, they were pointing to a future.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: They were a road sign.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: They were saying something greater is coming.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: They were a shadow of what was to come, and the shadow that was being cast was from Jesus.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so now as we think back on these feasts, we just appreciate them.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: We see what God was doing.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: We see what he's trying to tell us now in our world today.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And most of all, we look and we thank Jesus Christ for what he has done and what he will do.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are some messages that I think are frankly just fine to give, where the application is understand this and appreciate it.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there's a lot that can be said about these feasts where that is our takeaway.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: We just appreciate even more the plan that God has been carrying out from eternity past to eternity future.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think that there is a way that we can apply this to our lives today.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I do think there's a way that we can take all of this knowledge and taking perhaps a step back from looking to the future and trying to anticipate things.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: We can say, how does this affect my life right now?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was reminded of this when I got an email from Walmart this week.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know if you can read this, but it says, Your order is on the way.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Hi Connor, we're sorry.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Your order is on the way, but it's taking longer than originally promised.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's now set to arrive on Monday.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'll let you know when it's been delivered.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I got this email, and here's what was funny to me was the fact that Walmart gave me a date where they said that they were going to do something.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then they told me later on that it was a promise, which I didn't know that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that it was a promise that it was supposed to arrive on Friday.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then later on, I get an email from them where they're like, I know you didn't know that this was a promise, but we broke our promise to you.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's coming on Monday.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Probably for something that was outside of Walmart's control.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how I think this applies to us.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: We are like Walmart.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're like Walmart in the sense that we take the information we have and we start to create our own timeline.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that timeline is something that can easily be changed by things outside of our control.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yet we latch onto it so tightly that to ourselves, even if we don't use the specific word, we start to think of it as a promise.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: We start to think of our own life and the plan that we have for our life and sort of when things should fall into place and how our life's supposed to go, and we elevate it into this level where it becomes detached from God's plan and it becomes our own plan.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we fail to deliver, we get frustrated because oftentimes at God we think that he was supposed to follow our plan.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't going according to his plan.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want us to remember as we sort of condense what I grant you was a lot of information about feasts into hopefully just a phrase.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Trust in God's plan.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: It has never failed and has always arrived on time.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know that there are many of you who get anxious when you consider things about the future.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm telling you is that the application here, the point of this, is that we trust in God's plan, which he has been carrying out before any of us were around, very successfully.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: God has been carrying out his plan, protecting it, preserving it, so that the world might be saved by Jesus Christ.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And now, as we look back, having been given the Holy Spirit, all believers are empowered with the ability to carry out his will to the best of their abilities into all the nations, fulfilling the Great Commission.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got to tell you something: the return of Christ, it might not happen in our lifetime.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: But we are building towards something great.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're building towards the day when the trumpets will sound, when Jesus will return, and we will get to be with God forever in eternity.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to take that and just attach it to your own life for one moment and say that maybe God is laying a foundation in your life for something yet that is greater to come.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean money, I don't mean success and fame.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean if the greatest goal is the furtherance of God's kingdom, maybe what's going on in your life, the waiting, the pain, the anxiety, the uncertainty, all of these things, maybe they are building towards something that is far greater that you can't see.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe if we can trust in God and trust in the fact that his plan has never failed and always arrived on time, we can lean into him instead of trying to create our own plan and promises that ultimately fail anyway.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to turn your attention now, because today we're going to be celebrating communion.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's frankly a wonderful reminder of God's plan.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: You see, the thing that he was protecting and stewarding for so long was the fact that a Messiah was going to come.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And on Passover, that the Messiah was going to give of himself so that we might be saved.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going to step down for a few moments here.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what I would like for you to consider, what I would like for you to think about is how might God, in his amazing plan for the whole world, how might God be using you to carry out his plan?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as we look back and look forward, how can we bring Jesus closer into that plan?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll come back on in a few moments and we'll take the elements of communion together.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus then, knowing what was to come, that the next day he would be lamb that was slain for the entire world, lifted up the wine, said this is my blood given for you.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as often as you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you recall, Jesus said one last thing after that, which is that we were supposed to take these elements, and every single time that we do them, we're supposed to remember what was to come as well as what had happened.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: That we reflect on the body and blood of Christ given for us.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And until the time comes that Jesus returns, we are celebrating his body and blood.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we do together.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's what God wants us to do.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and pray.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you for your plan from eternity past into eternity future.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you have been working things out far before we were here.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: And God, you will be working things out probably once it is time for you to call us home.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray that you would help us to see these things, these eternal truths, as a shadow of Jesus Christ.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Telling about something coming that was greater than what we could ever anticipate.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, as people of your church, now we look towards a future that is coming that is greater than we could ever imagine.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Heralded by trumpets and the coming of your Son.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, we we reflect on all of these things and know that we often create plans for our life that don't follow your plan.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we get frustrated, Lord, when they don't come about.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that you would help us to remember that you have always been trust for trustworthy and that you can always be trusted in the future.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: God, we love you and we thank you, and it's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week, everyone.