Ultimately, sin must be put out of God's sight, but. In the end. Only God Himself can do it. The blood of animals and bulls can't do it. Our blood cannot do it.
It has to be one. Who is pure, and that would be the Christ. All the other feasts of the Jews. were feast of joy. This one was a time, a day, a single day of affliction.
Well, that alone tells us God wants us to be joyful in this. this difficult world. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Leviticus.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio. specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick as he concludes his teaching in Leviticus chapter 23. on today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Verse 18, we'll take this one to verse 21.
And you shall offer with the bread of seven lambs. You shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, which is without blemish, one young bull. and two rams They shall be as a burnt offering to Yahweh with their grain offering and drink offerings. An offering made by fire. For a sweet aroma to the Lord.
Now, we've covered these in earlier verse chapters. Verse 19. Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering. and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering The priests shall wave them with the bread of the first fruits as a wave offering before Yahweh, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to Yahweh.
For the priest. And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation. To you, You shall do no customary work on it, it shall be a statute for ever in your dwellings throughout your generations.
Well, they are still can't get away from the sin offering. Which was going on with all these offerings, they still had to do the daily offerings, so the burnt offering, the sin offering, they still had to go through their routine. This means For far as we can tell, that Aaron and his sons were on overload. The Levites would have helped, but they had to be there for everything. And so it was kind of like Iron Man football.
You're playing defense and offense. And that's how it was in the early days. Eventually they had enough priests where they had divisions of priests, and the priests could go home and farm for three months, and then their division would come up, and they'd all come back to Jerusalem and serve. But not in the early days.
So if you are serving in ministry and you feel overwhelmed at times, I don't want to be snarky and say, good for you. But on the other side, it it comes with the territory. of serving the Lord. Otherwise, are you really serving, or are you just, you know, it's going to be more difficult times than others?
Okay. Mood should have nothing to do with service. Moods are something you have to plow through. And remember that next snowstorm, maybe. Verse 22.
When you reap the harvests of the world, Of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field. When you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning From your harvest, you shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger. I am Yahweh your God.
Well, of course, God is always mindful of those who just don't have enough. And so he looks for ways to provide, and it's built into their law. But you look at this verse, and looking at this verse, I say, you know, this is not random. He's talking about The feast at harvest time. And he doesn't want the Jews to lose sight of in their religion the practical side of religion.
That it's not just about taking a sheaf down to the tabernacle. What about people who have needs?
Well, for us in the New Testament church, much of it is about the gospel, bringing the gospel. How how often Do we depart the church? mindful of something the Holy Spirit has pointed out to us. How quick does it Just go up in vapour. Hopefully, we are mindful of something.
Hopefully, we can design the pulpit curriculum for the children's ministry so that the pulpit would be ahead. One week of whatever the children are doing, so the parents would have a head start So when the if going home, the parents said, Well, what did you learn today? And they say, Well, we learned about, you know, Noah.
Well, the parent got that if they were in church the previous Sunday. If they were absent without leave, For you, Army and Air Force guys, if they were AWOL, Then the kid's gonna know more than them. and they'll have shame forever.
So, anyway, the hope is that the parents would be a step ahead, and the teachers would also have. a little bit more prep time by hearing it from the pulpit. Anyway, coming back to this verse twenty three, then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, You shall have a Sabbath rest. A memorial of blowing Of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall, verse 25, do no customary work on it.
You shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. And that of course would Include blood sacrifices on that day. This is the fifth. of the seven feast days. The feast of trumpets.
and now we're in September October. And a different harvest. There's still harvesting going to be taking place. This is the first day of the seventh month. Ending their religious year that began at Passover, the first month, the fourteenth day.
and beginning the civil year, or the harvest year, Which celebrates the again the provisions of the Lord.
So these days that celebrate. The harvest And this is still all part of that. It's saying, Lord. We see your holiness. That's why we worship you and we thank you for feeding us.
So you have that's what the manna from heaven was about. It was divinely given, it came right from God. and it was to feed the people. And that's what these Celebrations are about God providing for them. And we'll button that up when we get to the end of this evening's study.
So the Jews celebrated. Two beginnings of the year, you could say. They didn't really, I don't think they really saw it that way initially. They did later. They were just obeying and celebrating these things.
And they're recognizing it, but not. dwelling on it until later. when they created what we call Rosh Hashanah, what they call Rosh Hashanah.
So anyway, the first was a religious, an ecclesiastical year. And the second agricultural or civil. Deuteronomy 31 gets into some of this for us, as well as Exodus 12. This gave them two beginnings a year. Which is always Interesting, a fresh start twice a year.
The later, the latter Jewish tradition made. This Feast of trumpets, the beginning of the Jewish year, which they celebrate today as Rosh Hashanah. And so You can do with that what you like. I don't mean that again flippantly, but There's not really much more to it, except its type. The feast of trumpets.
It parallels the rapture of the church. The trumpet Eventually, a shofar, maybe in the early days, one of the silver trumpets. Scholars are divided on it. You can't pin it down. But someone would blow a horn.
Very loudly. to signify the the the issue of the new year and all that goes with it. Because right on the heels of this is coming the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles.
Well, the rapture. The link of Feast of Trumpets, you listen to the verses and you tell me if you can see it.
Well, don't tell me now. 1 Corinthians fifteen, twenty fifteen fifty two. Paul speaking about the rapture of the church. 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 shall be changed.
Well, there's the rapture and there's also some glorification of the The body. Then First Thessalonians. Chapter 4, verse 16. For the Lord himself would descend from heaven with a shout, With the voice of an archangel. with the trumpet of God.
and the dead in Christ will rise first.
So there you have the parallels. the Feast of Trumpets. A lot of the scholars are aren't sure. of its Jewish Connotations, you know, why what is this feast? But we are certainly, that's them.
I'm sure of what it is, the situation in their next year. I'm not the only one. And it parallels again the rapture.
Well, what happens after the rapture? When the church is no longer viable. The true church is pulled out, that is the believers. But the apostate church stays behind. That's the woman who rides the beast in Revelation 18.
What happens on earth?
Well, the Great Tribulation period. begins for For seven years. What happens there? Or Satan tries to wipe out the Jewish race and anybody that believes in Jesus as The Lord Which brings us to the next feast. Look at verse 26 now.
And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, Also, the tenth day of the seventh month shall be. the day of atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you. You shall afflict your souls. and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord.
This is the Yom Kippur, the day of covering. September, October. ten days after the blast of the trumpet, Or, I guess you could say nine days, counting the first day would make it 10. This is the holiest day of the year for the Jews in this respect. This was the single day that the high priest would go into the holy of holies.
on behalf of his sin and the sin of the nation, To address sin, we've been addressing God's provisions for the people, is getting them out of Egypt by blood and the harvest.
Now this one. is dealing all of them have s dealing with sin. And I don't want to factor that out. But this one zeroes in on. Sin.
They were to afflict their souls with a contrite heart. They were to consider their ways and by that meditate their transgressions. Habakkuk. He I don't want to jump ahead and I'll get all messed up. I'll get to that quote by Habakkuk, considering their ways.
The atonement. We covered this somewhere in our studies. the kofar, same word for pitch in Genesis. 6 verse 14 when Noah Put a covering inside and outside of the ark. Khofar, same word.
The atonement of chapter 9 and here. The mercy seat is called the kofar, the covering.
So it's a big deal, that the ransom, the word translated ransom in Exodus 30, verse 12, kofar. Sin's got to be dealt with. It cannot remain on the surface. It has to eventually be taken away.
So the covering is a form of cleansing on the surface. But the removal goes deeper than the skin, as we covered in Leviticus. 13 and 14 with the law of the leper. You wrote John 1:29, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, doesn't just cover them, He removes them, the blood of Jesus Christ. The implication is remarkable that ultimately sin must be put out of God's sight, but in the end, Only God Himself can do it.
The blood of animals and bulls can't do it. Our blood cannot do it. It has to be one. Who is pure, and that would be the Christ. All the other feasts of the Jews.
We're feast of joy. This one was a time, a day, a single day of affliction.
Well, that alone tells us God wants us to be joyful in this difficult world. He's not trying to make it difficult, but There needs to be sobriety and an account, a personal account of one's. spiritual state before the Lord. And so this is called the day of affliction, the time of Jacob's trouble. matches that Jeremiah thirty, verse seven.
And there's a lamentation he starts off with. He says, Alas! And that's that, there's a lamentation in that. For the day is great, so that none is like it. And it is the time of Jacob's trouble.
But he shall be saved out of it.
Well, that's the day of affliction. They're going to be saved out of this.
So, God's not saying, I want you to live in a day of this state of affliction. Matthew 24. Jesus said Previously, he said, there's coming tribulation such as the world has never seen. Echoing. Jeremiah, then he ties it right in, Jesus does to the Jews.
And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened.
Now, when he said that, the church wasn't around.
So, the people who heard him were the Jewish people. They weren't processing this from the eyes of a New Testament church. They took it to mean Israel. They were the elect. And there you have The reasons why you look at this Jewish calendar And you say, we see history in these events.
That is still a future, as well as the rapture, but some of the others are already satisfied. The church at Laodicea typifies the final apostate church.
So again, the seven churches of Revelation speak to different periods of history also. As does this Jewish calendar. Verse 28, and you shall do no work on the same day, for it is It is the day of atonement to make atonement for you before Yahweh your God. For any person who is not afflicted in soul on the same day shall be cut off from his people.
So this is inescapable. Verse 30: And any person who does any work on the same day, that person I will destroy from among his people.
So this is pretty intense. Verse 31, You shall do no manner of work. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. Pause there. That has to do with.
Covenant Israel, not the church. And Covenant Israel is broken right now. And it will in many ways it will be ultimately restored, but not identical in the kingdom age. Verse 32: It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest. and you shall afflict your souls on the ninth day of the month.
At evening. From evening to evening, you shall celebrate your Sabbath. And there's the Jewish. transition from evening to evening versus midnight to midnight. The affliction of the soul was twofold.
Abstaining from food. and introspection. They had to consider their transgressions.
Now, Haggai talks about this when the people were building their own houses. But the temple wasn't being built. And the prophets Haggai and Zachariah said, What's wrong with this picture? That God's house is not built, but you're living pretty well. And so Haggai says, Now, therefore, thus says Yahweh of hosts.
Consider your ways. Meditate your transgressions. Think about yourself in the presence of God. He says it twice. Hageai.
1 verse 5 and verse 7. Again, he says, thus says Yahweh of hosts. Consider your ways. Well, if you lay it on one of your children, if you get some punishment on your child, you're going to go think about that.
So you don't do it again. With a contrite heart. Imagine if America had a day of atonement instead of, let's say, Halloween. where everybody thought about They had guilt before God. and what they deserve from a holy God.
Instead of Other things.
Well, that's what the Day of Atonement was, and that will afflict. In the great tribulation, Israel, where only a third of their population will survive. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, verse 33, now verse 34: Speak to the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. This still September, October. The final feast of their year Until they get to Pentecost again, Passover again.
This reminded the people of their wilderness. experience and how God cared for them. He sheltered them, and so they would build these little huts, these little tents, and they would build it out of limbs from the trees. Nehemia talks about it in chapter 8. Zechariah 14:16 tells us in the millennial age, the Jews will still commemorate this.
this event. And many of the Gentiles that are coming to Christ in the millennial age will be asking the Jews, what are you doing here? Because again, when Christ comes back, there's going to be ignorance extraordinaire throughout the earth concerning righteous things. Anyway, it lasts seven days, with the final day, a big celebration. The first day was the Sabbath.
And the the eighth day Uh Also On the first and eighth days, ordinary work was prohibited. This is the second coming of Christ. What it pictures for us, that eighth day, the new beginning. After the tribulation, And The judgment is the kingdom age where he now Begins to rain from Jerusalem, and that is the new beginning. As far as a holiday goes, what Christmas is to us, as far as thrills, This would have been to the Jewish people.
It was a lot of food. And celebration, even though, and two days of rest, of no work. Verse 35: On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, you shall do no customary work on it. For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. On the eighth day, You shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
It is a sacred assembly, and you should do no customary work.
Now, these offerings, most of them are priestly offerings for the nation. There's too much here for the people to do. These eight days, the priests would offer 70 bulls, 14 rams, and 98 lambs, totaling 182 blood sacrifices, plus their morning and evening sacrifices. And you'll get that in Numbers 29, verses 12 through 40. And so it's not requiring every single person in the nation to bring a blood sacrifice.
It is requiring the priest to make these offerings as prescribed. Verse 37: These are the feasts of Yahweh which you shall proclaim to be holy. Convocations to offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh, a burnt offering. and a grain offering, a sacrifice, and a drink offerings. Everything on its day, verse thirty-eight, besides the Sabbaths.
of Yahweh, besides your gifts, besides all your vows. Yeah. All your free will offerings which you give to the Lord.
So, in the midst of these holidays, if you had other things to give, Yeah.
So it wasn't like, well, you know, it's all covered under the Priesthood. No, if you made a vow. You wanted to give a free will offering. The priests couldn't say, Well, we don't have to do the morning and evening sacrifice because we got all these others. No, you had to do those two.
Very active and busy temple. And no hint of the people At in the early days, complaining about this. They did later. In the days of Amos they thought the Sabbath was a pain in the neck, Cutting into their profits. Anyway, verse 39.
the financial profits, not spiritual profits. Also the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered In the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of Yahweh for seven days, and on the first day there shall be a Sabbath rest, and on the eighth day a Sabbath rest.
So the Jews rested at the first and last day. of these booths Tabernacles. or huts. And a and And that's what they did. Yeah.
They also did the same thing at the first of the grain offering, barley, and the wheat offering. 50 days later. And these things indicate that Jesus is our rest. Revelation 1:17, not our rest, pardon me. He is the first and the last.
And that's why you have these borders, the first and the last. For this seven day or eight day event, As well as the grain offerings. Verse 40: You shall take for yourselves on the first day. the fr the fruit of beautiful trees, branches, of palm trees. boughs of leafy trees And willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God seven days.
Uncertain they they are about what species these are so I hope that doesn't trouble you When you go to sleep. What is that leafy tree? Anyway, you shall keep it. As a feast to Yahweh for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever.
your generations, you shall celebrate it. In the seventh month.
So you see why the Jews had a hard time getting rid of the Sabbath and the circumcision and the diet, but God had put into his word provision for them to say, all. That's right. Just as the priests had a stipulation to work on the Sabbath, so when Messiah came, there were stipulations to depart these rituals. Paul was trying to tell him all the time. Verse 42, you shall dwell in booths for seven days.
All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths.
So everybody was camping out for a week. But on their own property. If you had a balcony, even in Israel today, if you're in Israel at this time of year, you see these little booths perched on balconies and different places and driveways, and they're living in these tents.
So Still goes on. You shall dwell in the verse 43. That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.
So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feast of Yahweh. And so they're the families and strangers Dwelled in tents for ten days. This is also called the feast of in-gathering. And the bottom line to this last feast, which is the Kingdom Age feast. is for the Jews to learn and relearn From those days, that man should not live by bread alone.
but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Thanks for tuning in to today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Pastor Rick Gaston is currently going through the book of Leviticus. We're glad you joined us. We trust that you're gaining some valuable insights into God's Word as we go through this Old Testament book.
Cross-reference radio comes to you from Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. If you'd like to subscribe to our podcast, you can do so by going to your favorite app store and downloading from there. For any additional information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, Crossreference Radio.com. Make sure to come back again for the upcoming edition in the book of Leviticus, as Pastor Rick has much more to share. We thank you for being with us right here on Cross Reference Radio.
