Message Date: April 17, 2022
Bible
- The resurrection has no meaning without being connected to the grace of the grave.
- Jesus died on Passover, He was in the grave for the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and He was resurrected on the Feast of Firstfruits.
- There is a correlation between the Passover of the Old Testament and Communion in the New Testament.
- Passover – Instituted when God was about to deliver Israel out of Egyptian bondage.
- Communion – Instituted when God was about to deliver us from the bondage of sin.
- Passover – A lamb without blemish was slain and sacrificed.
- Communion – Jesus was identified as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
- Passover – They were spared from death when they applied the blood to the door frames.
- Communion – We are saved from the penalty of sin when we apply the blood by faith.
- 7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 1 Corinthians 5:7 NKJV
- Passover was just one of several feasts instituted by God and celebrated by God’s covenant people. As a matter of fact, when God instituted Passover in the Old Testament, He rearranged their entire calendar so that Passover would be at the beginning of their calendar.
- When Passover was originally instituted, it occurred in the fourth month of the year, but God saw it as such an outstanding event that He changed the entire calendar.
- 2 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Exodus 12:2 NKJV
- 1. Passover speaks of Justification. It all starts there.
- When we accept Christ as our Passover, God starts a new calendar with us also. We become a new creation, and old things pass away.
- 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV
- Passover, then, initiated a chain of events. It marked the beginning of a sequence of other feasts. You can read about this in Leviticus 23.
- When the Jews came to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, there were two other feasts that were celebrated in conjunction with Passover.
- The Feast of the Unleavened Bread speaks of sanctification
- This feast was closely connected to Passover. Passover occurred on one day. The Feast of Unleavened Bread began the next day and lasted for seven days. During this time, no Jew was to eat any bread with yeast in it, and no one was to even have a trace of yeast in their home.
- 6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 NKJV
- Leaven (or yeast) is used in the Bible to illustrate the nature and influence of sin. Just like a little yeast mixed in with dough will work its way through and influence the whole loaf, sin will work its way through and influences your life.
- The Feast of Firstfruits speaks of resurrection and consecration.
- Immediately on the heels of the Feast of Unleavened Bread came the Feast of Firstfruits. Men would go out to the fields of ripening grain with their sickles and cut down a certain amount of barley and bundle it up into a sheaf. No one could partake of the harvest until the firstfruits had been offered unto the Lord.
- God wanted the firstfruits then, and He wants the firstfruits now!
- Then these men, with the priests and elders, would march in procession up to the temple with much rejoicing. They would turn their sheaf of barley in to the priest, who would wave it back and forth before the Lord as a wave offering. Men were giving thanks for the harvest before it was ever harvested.
- 20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 1 Corinthians 15:20 NKJV
- When a man went out to the field and cut down a sheaf of barley, a small vacant spot was left behind. When the Lord rose from the dead, He left behind Him a small vacant spot, which still remains as a reminder of His resurrection – it is an empty tomb.
- Christ ,the firstfruit, offered Himself in consecration unto God as a token of the rest of the harvest that was to follow Him. We, in turn, offer the firstfruits of our lives to God as token that everything we are and everything we have belongs to Him.
- Immediately on the heels of the Feast of Unleavened Bread came the Feast of Firstfruits. Men would go out to the fields of ripening grain with their sickles and cut down a certain amount of barley and bundle it up into a sheaf. No one could partake of the harvest until the firstfruits had been offered unto the Lord.
- The Feast of Pentecost speaks of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
- After Firstfruits, the harvesting began – and it took seven weeks to do the harvesting. Just as there was a feast to acknowledge firstfruits, there was also a feast to celebrate the full harvest “coming home.” At Firstfruits, a sheaf of barley which contained hundreds of separate grains of corn was offered up.
- At Pentecost (so called because it is 50 days after Passover), two complete loaves were waved.
- A loaf of bread consisted of grains of corn ground into flour and mixed with oil, baked in an oven. The result: The separate identities were consolidated into a oneness.
- On the Day of Pentecost (in the Book of Acts), those once feisty, argumentative disciples were all gathered as one – they were in unity. God mixed in the oil and the fire of the Holy Ghost and they emerged on the world scene as “The Church.”
- After Pentecost, several months went by before there would be three more feasts held close together.
- The Feast of Trumpets speaks of proclamation.
- At the beginning of the seventh month, trumpets were blown. Shortly thereafter, two other feasts began.
- Trumpets were ways of communicating. They called people together…to assemble. They proclaimed when it was time to advance…to move on. They sounded when it was time for war. They sometimes called people to worship.. They also communicated freedom and emancipation.
- They had two trumpets. We have two Testaments.
- The trumpets were made of silver. In the Old Testament, silver often speaks of redemption.
- The two trumpets were each made of one piece of hammered silver. Some have speculated that this speaks of the unity, the oneness, and the harmony of the Word of God. The two testaments, the Old and New Testament exhibit a tremendous and supernatural harmony in the essence of their message.
- The message of the two Testaments is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ! Jesus and His redemptive work is the theme of the word of God from cover to cover.
- Others may ascribe other meanings to the trumpets, but I do know that we’ve been given the assignment of proclamation today, and our job is to proclaim Jesus!
- At the beginning of the seventh month, trumpets were blown. Shortly thereafter, two other feasts began.
- The Day of Atonement speaks of His preparing a place for us.
- Like Passover, sacrificial blood is shed on behalf of the people, but on this day the people watch as the High Priest takes that blood into the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the sins of the people. In that day, it was only a temporary covering – that’s why their High Priest had to do the same thing year after year. But we have something far better:
- 11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. 12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. 24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; Hebrews 9:11-12, 24 NKJV
- Like Passover, sacrificial blood is shed on behalf of the people, but on this day the people watch as the High Priest takes that blood into the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the sins of the people. In that day, it was only a temporary covering – that’s why their High Priest had to do the same thing year after year. But we have something far better:
- The Feast of Tabernacles speaks of the place that He has prepared for us.
- Tabernacles (or Tents) was the most joyous of all the feasts. It was the end of summer. The work in the fields had finished. It was time to rest and relax. There was a seven day period where all of the Israelites were to erect and live in tents. It was to remind them of their journeying in the wilderness. When all of our work here is done, we have something to remind us that we were really just on a journey as well.
- 1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. 4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. 9 Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. II Corinthians 5:1-10 NKJV
- 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. 16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 1 Corinthians 3:12-16 NKJV
- We need to enjoy the journey, and we can reflect upon the fact that God has tabernacled with us, and has been with us, and has sheltered us; but we also need to keep in mind how good our destination is and rejoice in the fact that God has prepared an eternal dwelling for us!
- Tabernacles (or Tents) was the most joyous of all the feasts. It was the end of summer. The work in the fields had finished. It was time to rest and relax. There was a seven day period where all of the Israelites were to erect and live in tents. It was to remind them of their journeying in the wilderness. When all of our work here is done, we have something to remind us that we were really just on a journey as well.
- It all starts with communion.
- 23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” I Corinthians 11:23-26 NKJV