Leviticus 23:9-14 Bible Study | Episode 707

June 25, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Leviticus  23:9-14 Bible Study | Episode #707

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's men and Bible study. We are in Leviticus, chapter 23, and we're in verse nine, and we're at. You know, I hate to say it this way, but one of those feasts that is different than the other ones, and you say, well, they're all different than the other ones, pastor. And you're right. You're right when you say that. You wouldn't be wrong when you said that. But there are a couple that are different than the other ones, and the obvious one is Sabbath. The first one that is mentioned is the, or Shabbat, as jewish people will call it. The Shabbat feast is wholly different than the other ones. Why? Because it happens on a weekly basis, and it is a. It is a holy convocation, meaning they come together and they meet together, and they have worship, and they have a feast. They ate on Shabbat every year. And we as protestant Christians, don't do that necessarily as much, some more than others in the baptist background used to be, they would eat every day. Every Sunday they'd bring food, and they'd have dinner on the grounds. They would. Because they had to come a long way, because they had to come by cart or horse or walk. And so they would bring food with them, they would have worship, and then they would eat even to the afternoon, usually have some sewing, have a sermon or a devotional at the end of the afternoon, and then go home. And that was historically how the New Testament church operated in the territories. Maybe not on the east coast, but in the territories. And so. And it was that way on into, really, the automobile age. And then after the automobile age came about, they had less and less of the dinner on the grounds, and that would become more of a special time, oftentimes once a month, and then over time, that's become an opportunity to do it maybe once every quarter or, you know, two or three times a year, does that happen? And we as a church, generally had. Don't have dinner on the grounds. Generally, we have a breakfast before worship. And we're usually celebrating something, those. That's kind of the feast of Shabbat. And you go, well, why are you talking about that? We're on the feast of first fruits. Well, because Passover, the feast of weeks, the feast of trumpets and the day of atonement, I mean, and the feast of tabernacles are a long week where you come and you celebrate something about what God has done. The day of atonement is a special day also, just like the feast of first fruits for you. So, so as far as the calendar goes, you have Shabbat, which is every week, and then you have this feast of first fruits, and you have this day of atonement, which are kind of special and different. And then you have the four. You have the four other major festivals, which are the feast, you know, the feasts that last for a week. And in all actuality, the feast of first fruits along with the Passover and unleavened bread, happened during this feast of Passover and unleavened bread. It literally is during that feast. So it's a feast within a feast. And for a big old boy from Alabama like me, who wouldn't like a feast within a feast? I mean, that, that's, that's beautiful just to have a feast within a feast, as we think about it. But what was the point of it? Well, let's go to it. It's verse nine. And it says, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land which I give you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of its first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall rave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted on your behalf. On the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall rave it, and you shall offer on that day when you rave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year without blemish, as a burnt offering to the Lord. It is a grain offering, shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by the fire of the Lord for a sweet aroma. And its drink offering shall be of wine, one fourth of hin. That's about a quart, he says. He says, you shall eat neither bread nor parched grain, nor fresh grain until that same day. And you have brought an offering to your God. It shall be a statute forever throughout the generations and all your dwellings. Now what's interesting about this, this feast here, the feast of first fruits is first of all, it's not a holy convocation. It is a, it is a more of a personal thing about your, your actual, your actual harvest. Now in the, in the holistic or corporate sense, they did have a feast of first fruits at the temple. And it was during the feast of, it was during, it was during the feast of Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. It was during that time period. Now I want you to notice, it would have been on the first day of the week. Now this is where the picture comes in, gives us a picture into the New Testament, a picture of the plan of God. So what do you have? Well, you have, you have the Passover, where the Passover land is sacrificed and the blood is put over the doorpost of the heart. Then you have a beginning of the feast of unleavened bread, which is a celebration, their deliverance out of Egypt after the Passover, after the death angel has passed over them and they are leaving out of Egypt. And so that happens. And you're in, and remember, those are two days that are set. And they may be set. You know, there's, they're according to the calendar. They're not necessarily set in time and space, but they're according to the calendar. Now when it happened with Jesus, it happened at a certain time. And, and we know that by going through the New Testament and calculating out and reading the verses that tell us that Jesus was, Jesus celebrated the Passover on the day, at the evening of the day of preparation. Then we know that, that obviously he was, he was crucified and they had to get him in the ground because the Shabbat began in that evening. And what Shabbat was that? Well, it was the Passover Shabbat. So they had Passover on Friday. Then they would have the first Shabbat or the first Sabbath, the feast of weeks, which the first day, and they would have had that on Saturday. So you have two sabbaths or two shabbats in a row, the, the Passover Shabbat and then the Shabbat of first weeks. And you have both of those back to back, two high holy days, two convocations to come togethers, and then you, Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week. We know that from Matthew. Matthew tells us that Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week on the, it says on the first day of the week. So we know that you had those two, you had to have them. And Jesus would not been resurrected on a Shabbat. He was resurrected on the first day of the week. And by the way, the women couldn't go running and prepare his body if it had been a Sabbath. That's the reason they had to get him in the ground and not do anything with him at evening because it was a Sabbath. And so they couldn't have done it on a Sabbath. So obviously it wasn't a Friday, Saturday Sunday thing, it was a Thursday crucifixion, Friday, Saturday. And then Jesus was resurrected on Sunday. Now what's interesting about that is the feast of first fruits is where, as I read, where the priest goes in and he offers a sacrifice. First thing he does is he takes. Takes that first fruit and he waves it. He waves it before God. It's called a rave offering. He waves it in all four direction and he waves it before God and says, we're giving you our first. And then there's a sacrifice of a. Of a one year old spotless lamb. And then there's a sacrifice. The pint or the one fourth, one fifth henna hen, of. Of wine, which is a quart of wine. And they were roughly a quart of wine. And then they would have. They would have done that in the. In the temple. Now that. That is a. That is a picture of Jesus. It's a picture, the wine's picture of goodness, of God. And the first fruits is a picture of the first. The first born of many brothers. The first. The first to Jesus was the fruit that was sacrificed or slain for our sins. It is a. It is a clear picture. At the same time that the priest at daybreak would have gone into the temple with this, with this, with the. With the sheaf of whatever the first fruit was that they would have brought in at the same time that he would come in with that sheaf and waved it in the air. Jesus was walking out of the tomb at the same time the land was sacrificed, the. The wine was sacrificed. It's a picture. It's a bookend picture of Jesus with the feet with the sacrifice at Passover, and then the sacrifice of first fruits on the first day of the week. It's not a holy convocation notice. It's done. Done without all the people together. Same thing with Jesus. He walked out of the tomb without anybody there. They came and they found the tomb empty. The only people that were there when Jesus was resurrected was roman soldiers and they were knocked to the ground. And the person, the angel that removed the stone. And that was it. That was all that was there. And then the women go to search for, to prepare Jesus body and he's not there. And then they speak to, they speak to the angels, and then they also end up speaking to Jesus. And then, and then you have James and I mean, John and Peter come running to the tomb and they find the empty tomb. That is, that is what happened that morning when the first fruits offering was offering. When that, when this feast happens, and that's in, by the way, that opens up the opportunity to. That's when the real feasting begins. Because they've done Passover. Passover has a meal with it, but it's not, it's not a feast in the sense that we think of a feast. Then they have, they have the Shabbat or the sabbath of the first day of the first fruits, which is a feat, which is, which is not a feast in the sense of eating. It is actually. They're actually fasting. And then on the first day of the week, which would have been the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, they, they wave the wave offering before God, and that begins the actual feasting and celebrating. They can eat all the fruit that is beginning to be harvested. They can celebrate. And that celebration at last for a whole week. What kicks off the actual feasting and the celebration? What kicks off the actual goodness of God? Well, the answer is the resurrection. Jesus resurrection kicks off the actual celebration of God for us. That's, that's, that's the, uh, that's the picture in the story. And so you, you really have some interesting understandings. You gotta kind of get sabbaths down and how that works. Then you gotta go in and go. Okay, well, then how did, how did the feast of unleavened bread and how did the, how did the Passover work together? Well, they're back to back Passover and then immediately the next day begins the feast of unleavened bread. And then the next day is the feast of first fruits. It's the celebration of God giving us his first fruits. And Jesus is the first fruits of eternal life for us. And so it's waved to the east and west and south and north and everywhere, everywhere where the Holy Spirit is. There's an opportunity for those who are celebrating who, who God is. There's an opportunity for them to know him, to walk with him, and to celebrate the life that they have in him. And so this feast of first fruits is really an exciting picture. It's a unique feast. It's one of the three unique ones in this chapter, but it is a powerful one. And it is a beautiful picture of the greatness of God and how God is moving, how God is preparing, and how God has set it apart so that even with the jewish people, as they come into the promised land and as they begin to celebrate what God has done for them in the promised land, God sets out a clear picture of how he's going to bring about eternal life, how he's going to bring about salvation through these, really these first, I guess what you call the three first foos that he talks about, you have the picture right there. You have Shabbat. Those are harder convocations. They happen regularly during the year, but you need to understand them when you come into these other feasts, because the same, the same things that you would do during those shabbats, you do on the whole high holy days, the convocation days of each one of these feasts. Then you have Passover, the first day of unleavened bread, and then finally you have the feast of first fruits, where on mooning of that day, a sacrifice is made that is a clear picture of Jesus. He's the first fruits of God and salvation. He is the spotless lamb. He is the goodness of God in the wine they sacrificed right that morning. And then the celebration begins. Wow, what a powerful picture that is. What a, what an exciting picture that is. And so as you're studying through these things, this is just a real quick pass through. We spend maybe 15 minutes on each morning talking through these things and thinking about them. It's an opportunity for you to log that in your brain, because when you get in the New Testament, a lot of these things, a lot of these feasts are important because Jesus does some very important things during these feasts. And so I want you to understand what's going on, and I want you to understand how it happens straight from the Bible, straight from the book of Leviticus. I hope that as the Sunday morning celebrations of God's presence and power are about to happen at the end of this week, as we're in the middle of winter, I pray that you will make plans to be in a group of people who are celebrating the risen Lord, because even 1400 years before these things came about in their fullness, God was giving orders to the Israelites, which directly correlated and were beautiful pictures of what he was going to do and finish with Jesus Christ. As you go today, I pray that.

The Lord will bless you and keep.

You, that he'll make his face to.

Shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today, in Jesus name.