Main Street Church Sermon (17.15 - )

And because we're finishing the Feast of Israel today, I have been looking forward to this particular Sunday since the middle of January. What? Yeah, remember when there was snow and it was like really cold and stuff like that? Because that was at the time when I was thinking and praying about doing this series on the Feast of Israel. And I came up with this crazy idea to cover them in reverse order.

Now, why? The reverse order? That is like the ones late in the year and then to the ones first of the year. I did that because of what today is. Today is the first day of unleavened bread in the Jewish calendar.

Yesterday was Passover. What? Yes.

So yesterday was Passover. That was celebrated in Jewish homes. They would get together in the evening, have a Passover Seder meal. Seder just means order. And then they would have an ordered recollection over the meal about the entire Exodus story.

That happened last night. That was last night.

So I thought, let's cover these in reverse.

So if we start looking at these at the end of January, then by the time we get to the first one, we'll be on the actual 2025 date of. The first one.

So that's today.

So today is the first day of unleavened bread. And then the Jews will celebrate that through this week for seven days, unleavened bread. Can't eat anything except matzah. I don't know if you're familiar with matzah, it's like a gigantic saltine cracker that has no salt on it. What's that?

Every night, all week. You you use matzah in different kinds of ways. My favorite way is a matzah ball soup, which is pretty darn good. Uh you crack it up until it's just basically mots of flour, then you roll it in little balls and you put it in broth and it's uh pretty tasty. Mm-hmm.

It's good with hummus, yeah, it's true, yeah.

Okay, so we're gonna review this today, and this is our last time to look at these, and we're gonna do the standback. I've been promising this to you for weeks. We're gonna take the moment to stand back and look at the entire spectrum of at least the seven appointed feasts of Israel, and as we look at those feasts, stand back and see if it says something more than just a commemoration of small events. Like, for instance, many times as we are going through the feasts, We'd see things that have to do with barley harvest or wheat harvest or other kind of cyclical kind of agricultural events that they'd celebrate. Or the very first ones, in fact, were about leaving Egypt.

celebrating that. We celebrate things in our calendar based on significant events or significant things that happen.

So um like you know Independence Day, July 4th.

Well we celebrate that July 4th and we do July 4th because that's the day that's on the document. But that's when all this started. That's a very important date for the U.S. very important date. There's other things that we celebrate.

In February, we have President's Day. When I was a kid, it used to be Abraham Lincoln's Day and birthday and George Washington's birthday. And we combined them because there's too much birthday stuff going on. Combine them.

Well, those were very important men in the life of our churches, of the country as well.

So, anyway, that's what we do. They're significant. But these seven appointed feasts. are very different from where nations normally celebrate. because these feasts are invented by God They're invented by God and they're stipulated on the nation of Israel as they're leaving from Egypt and moving their way into the promised land.

And God says, while you're going, you need to do these feasts.

Now, another thing happened while they were doing their, while they're going from Egypt. To the promised land, God gave them the Ten Commandments on Sinai. And He actually structured the entire law system for this brand new country that didn't exist because they were slaves in Egypt. But at the same time, He gives them this structure about how to run this new country, He gives them these seven feasts. And He says, Do these feasts.

Now what's amazing about this is that God never wastes an opportunity to teach people stuff.

So in the seven feasts, by design He has put together what I kind of jokingly call an integrated message system. Ooh, it sounds really important. But it is actually a way in which God wants to tell them something super important.

So the question I always had, as we've been looking at this for 10, 11 weeks, is: what is that super big message? And what you have to do is, you have to get in your hip pocket an understanding of all the seven feasts, which now we've completed. And now you can step back. and see if it's saying something much grander than we ever thought. And that's what we're going to do today.

So that's why I'm excited today on this first day of the week of unleavened bread, the day after Pesach on the 2025 calendar. We're going to look at all of them.

So these are the pictures that I included for a lot of these feasts. I hope they ring a bell. We're going to look at them again.

So let's take a look. This is the picture of our crazy calendar, our circular calendar, the Jewish calendar based on months that goes around. And I tagged all the feasts on particular months in the yearly calendar that's visited every year.

Some of the fees are are tagged to a one day in one month. every year. like the fourth of July, is in the month of Ah yeah.

So it's always there. It's never like the third Thursday of the month. It's always the 4th of July.

So there's some of them that are like that, but there's some that aren't, but they do have a placement on the calendar in a funny way in which God is trying to tell us something. Woo-hoo!

So here's the complicated calendar. All this stuff. And the last time we were right up the top, Nisan is the first month of the Jewish calendar. We are right now in the Jewish calendar. in the first month of Nisan.

Okay, so in fact, we're celebrating because of that.

So we looked at the feast of unleavened bread, that's the last thing we looked at. which started what starts today. in y this year's calendar.

Okay, so I'm going to strip away a lot of these other things, those other months, because I'm only doing the seven appointed feasts. I'm going to get rid of our crazy 2025 calendar in the middle. And we're just going to look at these seven months, and we're going to put these things on it. There's a better way to look at this, so I'm going to take those seven months and lay them out in a line.

Okay, to make it a little easier and It's not as cramped.

So, um So here we are. Here's those seven months. And those little yellow tick marks are the different fees.

Okay, so I just took that circular of seven months and made it a line to give me more space to write stuff above it.

So let's just review really quick. We'll do a review. And while we're reviewing, maybe you'll get some ahas as we do it not in reverse order from the seventh month back to the first, but from the first month forward and see if it's forming in you some kind of message.

Okay, so in Nisan, the first one we look at is Passover, Pisach. And Passover, remember, is the very famous historical celebration of being released. Uh from Egypt as a nation. And that is all done through the blood of a lamb.

So if you recall, God says sacrifice a one-year-old lamb that's pure and perfect, has no splotches at all, it's a perfect animal, one-year-old male, kill it, take its blood specifically, and splash it around the edges of your door. And with that you have marked your door in such a way that the wrath of God, which came upon the entirety of the geography of Egypt, not just on the Egyptians, It came upon the Israelites as well. But he said, If you mark your door with his blood, Then I will pass over your house so the wrath of God does not come on your firstborn. But every every other house that does not have this marking The firstborn will die. That was the 10th plague.

That's the one, that's the straw that broke the camel's back. And Pharaoh said, We've had it with these people. Get them out of here. And we read some passages where even the people in Egypt said, get them out of here. Like, don't delay tonight.

Get them out of here. Go.

So that's that was it.

So so many of the firstborn died in Egypt. But in terms of Israel, when they trusted in God's plan for their salvation. To sacrifice a lamb, and to use its blood, by the way, remember, Blood is a picture of life. 'Cause there's life in the blood. That's a picture of it.

Because in ancient times they knew that when you sacrificed a lamb, when you killed a lamb, like for dinner or for a feast or something like that. You would bleed the animal first, and that what comes out of the lamb is its life.

So there's life in the blood. That was always the picture. Always the picture. You splash it on the house. God's wrath passes over.

That's the celebration of Passover. And I said that this blood, this sacrifice, this really. represents life itself, but life in the sense that it saves us from something. And that's super important. Saves us from something.

Okay. Then, right after that, like the day after Passover, Passover is a one-day event. In this calendar year, it was yesterday. It's yesterday. The very day after that, you start seven days of the unleavened bread.

And so unleavened bread came, its name, I love the name of it, Hag Hamatza. And if you see the word matzah in there, it's because it's matzah, it's bread.

So it's the celebration of that bread. The feast of that bread. And it actually is not one day, like Passover, it's seven days. And so this pictured realistically, again, the history of Israel coming out of Egypt, and that when they left Egypt, they couldn't take, it was so fast, they couldn't take any provisions to feed themselves. The only thing that they had was dough.

For bread that had not had the yeast. Kneaded into it yet.

So you just have You just have dough that won't rise because you leave too fast.

So when they actually hit the road and they go, when the first time they had to eat, they said, well, we've got this dough and it has no yeast in it. Yeah, Wayne. I ask a quick question. How did they preserve that so that it didn't spoil? They ate it as fast as possible.

They ate and baked it, ate and cooked it. That's what I that's my understanding. Yeah. But I mean they they In the passage itself, too, it says they didn't have much, because it says they literally did not lay any provisions in for the road. They just happened to have that dough there.

That was how fast the decision came, because as soon as the firstborn died in Egypt, The uproar was so huge. They just had to leave really fast.

So they they had, that's all they had. And no other provisions.

So, anyway, so God says, right after Passover, I want you to celebrate the fact that you lived on this island. Unleavened bread.

Now, if you remember, leaven is a picture. of sin in this context. And leaven as a picture of sin is pictured with yeast because a little bit of sin sprinkled into a bunch of wet flour will grow and spread. And that's a great picture of of the toxicity of sin. It goes in at a low level and it contaminates.

So, anyway, this pure bread, basically, this pure bread from heaven is thought after this to be manna.

So, manna I always called the part two in the whole matzah story because that's also bread from heaven that's pure. It has no yeast in it, and it comes from heaven.

So, really, it's a part A, part B on the bread thing. You've got matzah that was made that has no leaven in it, has no sin in it. It's sinless fruit. Food. Like m like mana was sinless food.

You from heaven.

So that's the seven days of unleavened bread. That follows a historical celebration, and that sort of makes sense. When we celebrate, we celebrate historical things that happened. That was the deliverance out of Egypt. That all makes sense.

But there's bigger sense to it.

Now in the midst of that first Nisan, there's also this very curious... Oh, I was going to say.

So just like Passover is a life that saves, unleavened bread is life that sustains, because that's what sustained them once they left the provisions of Egypt. But before. They got to the provisions of life in the promised land.

So, before they got to be able to grow fields in the promised land, they were in the desert.

So, this is life that sustains you in the midst of a wilderness.

So keep that in mind.

So that's the leavened bread.

Okay, in the middle of that same time, that same time, there's this very curious. Celebration that Jews largely do not celebrate today. Unless you're very Orthodox. And even the very Orthodox seldom celebrate it. With knowledge.

But it's interesting because what it says in Leviticus 23, when God tells them, I want you to do this.

Now listen to this one. This one's interesting. First fruits is this word in Hebrew, Rashit. And rishit just means beginning. means beginning.

If you read Genesis 1. You remember what the opening words in Genesis 1 is? In the beginning? If you put a B in front of the Reshit, That's the first word of the Bible.

So, this is a beginning of something.

Well, why would you stick this in this particular celebration as the beginning of something? And it makes a little more sense when you look at what comes next. But in this first fruits, it also coincided with the beginning of the barley harvest. And so, you would take the barley, you'd take a rabbi with you out into the fields, you'd judge good barley. really good barley.

Oh there is some good barley right there. You tie it up into a sheaf and then you take it a day or so later to the temple and the priest would take this sheaf that's just beautiful of the beginning of the harvest and then wave it before the Lord. Oh, okay.

Now, Jews don't do this today because... They don't have fields of barley.

So that sort of gets in the way.

So it's they wouldn't deny that this exists. But there's some confusion about how we obey God in doing this first fruits. It's kinda odd. But, but, it turns out that it's in the middle of this harvest, which is also right here.

So, that has nothing to do. That harvest has nothing to do with leaving Egypt. You see how it's kind of funny, kind of intermingled in it? Because they didn't grow any barley for quite some time. Like, for four decades.

So why is it stuck in this historical celebration of the Exodus? Keep thinking. Yeah. This is fun. I got to tell you, for the last two months when I've been studying this, I've been blown away on a daily basis.

And it is so inculcated into my thinking, I wake up and think about aspects of it I just never thought of before.

So we'll just keep doing this.

So that's an interesting mystery right there. That's an interesting mystery. By the way, when you made that sheaf that the priest would hold up and wave before the Lord to present to the Lord for the Lord to see, that's what you're doing. It also says, don't you dare, don't you dare eat any of that barley in those fields. Until this sheaf is waived before the Lord.

Because until it's waived before the Lord, all the barley that's in the field is illegitimate. It's tainted. You cannot eat it. This sheaf that's weighed before the Lord sanctifies the rest of the barley. Just hold on to that thought.

Okay. Fascinating stuff.

So this really is a beginning of something. Because rashit just means beginning.

Now, in the harvest metaphor, it's the beginning of the harvest. It's the beginning of the barley harvest. It would go on for some time. for several weeks. But actually, in the metaphorical sense, which is not a metaphor, it's the greater reality sense, it's the beginning of something much more profound.

Okay. Let's move forward. This is also another very curious feast. It's the fourth one in the list in Leviticus 23. And this fourth one is called the Feast of Weeks.

And you can figure out why, because in Leviticus 23, it says you don't pin this one to a day on the calendar like you do Pentecost. Pentecost is the 14th of Nisan. First day of unleavened bread is the 15th. It's a day on the calendar. That's easy to figure out.

Today, on the Jewish calendar, if you had one Jewish calendar on your phone. it would say today is fifteen Nissan.

Okay? What's that? Talk about Pentecost today. Oh, did I say Pentecost? Thanks, Mike.

Yeah, Passover. Thanks.

Okay, so here we are. This is actually Pentecost. That's another name for it because the timing of it, the timing of it in Leviticus 23 says you don't do it on a particular day in a month, you do it. A week of weeks. After The first fruits after a sheet.

A week of weeks. Well, a week of weeks, a week is another term for seven, is all it means.

So it's seven weeks, a week of weeks. And so it's... It's tied, it's tied symbolically. To that beginning, that rashit thing. It's tied to that somehow because it's connected to that whenever that starts.

So it turns out that the Feast of Weeks, which we call Shavuot, Is again, it's another harvest idea. In fact, it's sort of implicitly at the beginning of the wheat harvest, but it's also clearly at the end of the barley harvest. It's harvest, harvest, harvest, agrarian.

So is this just a harvest celebration like we have at Thanksgiving or something like that?

Well, no, but it's tied to that on the calendar, but it's making a connection in a larger sense back to first fruits.

So first fruits is the beginning. of something Then weeks is the end of something. Yeah. Harvest? Yeah, but see there's the seven times seven, seven weeks times seven days, and that total is...

49, and so in the Leviticus 23, it says the date after the 49. You do this.

So when you see seven in the Bible, it always means complete. It means we got to our goal. When you have seven times seven... It's like Well, it's 7 squared. It means you got to your goal, and you really got to your goal, and you're really at the end.

This is all wrapped up.

So, it really, just because of the timing of it, if that's the beginning on the left, And this is the very complete. Of that beginning. And if we're talking about harvest, which is okay. It's it symbolizes those two paired together symbolize. The beginning of a harvest and the end of a harvest, a very completed end of a harvest.

So it's the fullness of the harvest. And you remember another unusual thing right there, right there. It doesn't say to bring a sheaf of collected wheat. It says bring me two loaves of bread. Which, by the way, that's about as complete as you can get on a green harvest, right?

You planted it way back here, you watered it, it grew, we harvested it, we dried it, we ground it up, we made some bread. That was great. That's clearly the very end of the end of the end of the whole agricultural cycle is to make bread. But what's curious is two things about this bread. There's two of them.

Not one. Not twelve. Like the twelve tribes of Israel, there were twelve showbread loaves in the temple and in the tabernacle. Two Why two? And the other really strange curiosity.

has to be leavened. It has to be leavened bread. It has to be symbolically contaminated with sin.

So what he's saying in this entire thing right here is at the beginning of first fruits, the beginning, say that's the beginning of a harvest. Yes, two loaves of bread, end of a harvest. Clearly, it's it's becoming bread. But I want you to make this loav these loaves not unleavened like in the beginning of our celebration, but deliberately made with sin. And we came to the conclusion also at the time that the two loaves represent the Jews and the Gentiles.

the fullness of some kind of harvest. And the Jews don't have a sin less. standing with God, theirs is as sinful as the rest of the Gentiles.

So, somehow, as we look at this, we're looking at a harvest that represents a harvest of mankind, both Jews and Jews. and Gentiles all sinners. Levin.

Okay. Uh it It depends. Yeah, Mike asks, is it all Israel or just Jews? It d it sort of depends. We can get into that later, but.

But yeah, so this is this is a From this perspective, when you get to the Feast of Weeks, Some full time has transpired. I mean, it's a little bit. ambiguous because it's not tied to the calendar day. But some fullness of time transpires, and at the fullness of this time, there is a harvest represented by two groups of people. Jews and Gentiles alike, both all sinful.

Okay. You with me? Woo!

Okay, now it's getting harder because since I did this backwards, we're getting to feasts that we started with rather than most recently. But here we go.

So those are one, two, three, four. Four, there's seven of them, so there's three to come, and they're all clumped over here. in the seventh month. They're all clumps another three some clump over in this place over here It starts with the Feast of Trumpets, which today is usually not talked about in Jewish circles. And why?

Well, again, it's because of a little bit of confusion. But it's not just confusion because there's no temple or because we're not raising barley in our backyards. There's confusion because, as God gives it in Leviticus 23. It's crazy Because it says to blow trumpets, literally make a shout. The word for trumpet here, teruah, just means shout.

A loud noise. Think air horns. That's all I said at the time. Just a loud shout. But about what?

Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho? There were loud trumpets at Jericho. And they were heralding the fact that something big is going down. Guys, everyone has been forewarned.

So, this shout, this trumpet, is a way of making a broad announcement to a number of people saying, wake up, something big is going to happen. And every time you see trumpets, something big is going to happen. When you read Revelation, trumpets sound to show that something big is going to happen, and it affects everybody.

So when God gives this one In this seventh month, He says Blow your horns. And he doesn't say why. It it doesn't say why.

So even in earliest Israel, they'd look at this and go, well, psh. I don't know. It's a big deal about something that we don't understand the big dealness of. That's why it's very curious.

So today Jews don't celebrate, well they would disagree with me when I say this, but largely the feast of trumpets is not something you do on this date. But what they do is they do something instead.

Somewhere between when they got into the promised land And you got kings, and then they get taken into captivity, and they go to Babylon, and Jews go to Babylon, and then they come back. When they come back to the land after the Babylonian captivity, Uh Several things have changed due to the influence of Babylon. One, Is they've adopted the names of the months from Babylon.

So when you see these months, these are Babylonian terms, these are Babylonian words.

So that they adopted that, the names of the months. But they also changed When New Year is. Coming out of Babylon.

Well wait, wouldn't New Year be like There?

Well, and God says in the Exodus narrative, He says, I want you to celebrate in this month because this is the first month of your year. Nisan is the first month of the year. And in the middle of that month, you're going to have Pesach, you're going to have Passover, and you're going to have a Feast of Unleavened Bread. This is the first month of the year. But by the time they come back from Babylon, they say that the first of the year, is the first day of the seventh month.

And so to this very day that has sort of stuck.

So because of the problem with the Feast of Trumpets, which we don't know what that means. They celebrate Rosh Hashanah instead, which is New Year's.

So if you have a Jewish friend on the first day of the seventh month on the Jewish calendar, that is Rosh Hashanah, Rosh, head, Hashanah, year, head of the year, it's New Year.

Okay, why?

Well, it's a Babylonian echo. Largely because at this time of year, especially in Babylon, the end of the largest harvests have happened there, so it's more like a standard harvest. Celebration.

So, what they would do is say, This is like the beginning of life for us, so this is the first.

So, now you have this conflict in the Jewish calendar. When is Jewish New Year? Is it on the 1st of Nisan or is it on the 1st of Tishri?

Well, to this very day you asked you when New Year's is, they'll say, the first of Tishri. They won't say that.

Now that's an interesting thing, and that has kind of sidelined the Feast of Trumpets, which is on the same day. The Feast of Trumpets is on the first day of Tishri. Rosh Hashanah, New Year's, first day of Tissri.

So it's kind of gotten... push down because of New Year's. But New Year's on the first of Tissuri is not what God designated. It's a Babylonian carryover. To this very day.

to this very day.

Well, terua means to blow trumpets. It means to make an extremely loud sound. You take a ram's horn, you hollow it out, you carve off the end, you turn it into a trumpet. And if you ever listen to a shofar, is what that called? A shofar trumpet that's made out of a ram's horn.

It does not make a pretty sound. at all. I mean, well, it depends on the skill of the player. I could give you an imitation, but it's really poor. But it's really just an extraordinarily loud sound.

So, whenever you're going to gather, everyone says, stop what you're doing, here's this sound. Um Sounds like that.

Okay, that's my best imitation. That also sounds like an elk in heat, so I don't know what's going on. But it's meant to be a very, very, very loud sound, which is supposed to stop you in your tracks from what you're doing, gather you together. Everyone hears it and you come together and you do one thing. That's why.

It was such a mystery in the Feast of Trumpets. God says, Blow that loud thing And they're saying why? And God doesn't answer. It's very mysterious. Very mysterious.

Whew trumpets. That's the first of Tissri. It just means shout, loud noise, gather together. Attention, everyone.

So I always call this the feast of attention. Attention! Attention. For what? I don't know.

See why that's just nuts? I mean, the illustration I used, which I still love this illustration, is to walk into a neighbor's house, and when you walk in the house, you see that there's balloons, celebration balloons, blown up all over the house, hanging from the ceiling, hanging from the doors. There's balloons everywhere. And of course, your first expectation when you walk into this house is saying, hey, Oh. What's this?

Is this a birthday? Big deal going on? Birthday, anniversary?

Something big is happening. That's all I know.

Something big is happening. And if you ask the neighbor what's going on, they would give you a blank stare and go, I don't know. Can we have an idea for the revelation of that? We do, and we'll get to it. Yeah, we are informed about what this is.

But the Jewish community. Doesn't quite get it. They get that same response from the neighbor who doesn't know why they hung up all the balloons. But all we know is it's loud. It involves everybody.

It calls everybody to do one thing together. Yeah, okay.

So that's that's Feast of Trumpets. Great Mystery Okay, after that A little over a week after that is Yom Kippur, which means the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement. And now, this is very well known in the Jewish community. You ask them about Yom Kippur, they'll tell you about Yom Kippur.

They know Yom Kippur. And it's a very solemn occasion because from this point, from the beginning of the month and then atonement, the entire time of this month is taken up in Jewish mindset with thinking about the sins that you've committed. It's all about sin. It's all about sin. And the idea, and there's some gaps between these for that purpose.

And so in Israel, in the Jewish community, when you get to the beginning of Tishri. The issue on the table is your sins. I mean, powerfully. And so many Jews will take this time in a very solemn way. to count up everything they've done wrong in the previous year since the last time we were at this celebration.

And uh it and it's really it's very introspective.

Sometimes it's self-deceiving, but it's usually very introspective. And this is the topic of this time: it's sin. It's all about sin. All about sin. And then the idea is a hope that at the end of this many days period of thinking about sin.

That there will be There will be a solution to the sin.

So, for many Jews today, when you get up to this time of Yom Kippur, They'll say, Well, maybe if I if I list all my sins, if I'm exhaustive in listing my sins, I'm If I'm honest about listing my sins, and I come to God and I say, God, I'm confessing my sins to you, I repent of my sins to you, that somehow, somehow, God will take care of it. And the reason they think God will take care of it. is because the word Kippur means ransom. or exchange. Uh-huh.

When you do a ransom, you exchange money for someone's life? That's what kippur means.

So they know that if I I think through my sins, if I confess my sins to God, There will be a Kippur. there will be a redeeming payment made on my behalf because of my sins.

So In present-day Jewish ceremonies and Jewish thought, they think, well, if I just am very honest about my confessions to God, then that's sufficient. And if I don't do that well enough, then the kippur will not apply to me. I'll still be under my sins. But fascinating enough, that's That's an issue, that's a thought that we're very familiar with. Confession Repentance.

Payment for sin from something else And then lastly, well, there's my goat. I had to put the goat up. That's for Yom Kippur. Because remember, there's a very interesting part of Yom Kippur in the ceremony where you take two goats, you sacrifice one goat, and the other goat, the high priest, lays his hand on that goat's head. and places all the sins of Israel on that goat.

And then you lead that goat in the wilderness to symbolically take your sins away from the sinners. Thanks, Goat. Ah, okay.

So this is really the day of great exchange. Day of great ransom. The day of great. Redemption. To redeem means to pay for something.

Okay, then lastly we get the Feast of Booths. or the feast of shacks, I like to call it. Uh it's Sukkot and so Here's another mystery. Here's another mystery. Didn't we just celebrate the historical leaving of Egypt, which starts with Pesach, which Passover, and then the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and then they go into the desert?

And what are they living in in the desert? Shacks, booths. God made an error when he put together the appointed feast, because he should have put that historically over here. Au contrary. No, it's not a mistake.

God doesn't make mistakes. But he clearly is pulling it out of the historical celebration, and he's sticking it as the last of all the feasts. The last of all the feasts. is living in shacks. Which just raises a gigantic interpretive question for all of us.

Why is that the last thing?

Okay. So I hope I've got your brain cells engaged. That's the review. Let me go back and do a little more detail on these.

So let me go back. After the booths, that's my great booth picture right there, my shacks. Uh The idea of this feast of booths is not to glorify the shack, is to glorify the fact That From this to this. We lived in a temporary existence. Fully expecting that this existence will stop, the temporary existence will stop, and the promise of a permanent home will show after that.

That's what the Israelites did when they left Egypt. Remember? They lived in tents. Did they like it? No, but they had to celebrate it.

Why? Because we're living on the fact that this is a temporary existence, and God has promised a land where we can find a home.

So this is really the anticipation. of a home. where all we have right now is a shack.

Okay. Now let's take a look on this left side for a second.

So these ones right here.

So let's interpret.

So from a larger perspective, from a spiritual perspective, what is God trying to teach us in this grouping of the first three right here? Because they are three, actually three and a half if you include the fourth one, it's connected. What is God from a bigger picture of the larger reality of the universe? trying to tell us about that.

Well, let me pull out a couple of passages we looked at back then. Jesus himself, when you talk about Passover, the blood, and also the bread of the unleavened bread, Jesus has this long discussion about him being the bread of life in John 6. Go read it. It's incredible. And at the end of that, he says, So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh, that's the.

Bread. We break that bread at communion. This is my body. Broken for you. Unless you Eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Which, by the way, when he said that, the people listening to him said, That's enough, we're out of here. That's just crazy talk. That's crazy talk. And then Jesus turned to his apostles and said, are you guys going to leave too? And Peter says, no, because you have the words of life.

So so It turns out that Passover and unleavened bread is connected directly to Jesus himself. And this isn't just some kind of inference we're making up out of the air. We're not pushing Jesus into a Jewish history. Jesus himself said those things represent me. Passover, sacrifice of the lamb.

John the Baptist says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world when he sees Jesus. Jesus himself places himself into the Passover. And and his blood, Jesus' blood, the blood of the Lamb. The blood of the Lamb that protects us from the wrath of God? That this is Jesus.

Passover is all about Jesus. He is the Passover Lamb. How about the bread? He's the one that sustains us. in our wilderness journeys in this life.

with perfect bread. Perfect bread. Not the bread of the world. We're talking about bread that is sinless. He is the perfect food that gives us life from here to there.

So, really, these first two things: Passover and unleavened bread, and according to John 6, Jesus Himself says, I am that bread. In fact, it's not just slightly connected in that John 6 passage. He says, Your fathers had bread delivered out of heaven. Remember? Remember that?

The manna? Remember that? He says, the bread that comes from heaven, I'm that bread that comes from heaven. Read John 6.

So it's not us that are pushing Jesus into a historical narrative of the Jews. It's Jesus who pushes him himself into it. He says, this is me, Passover, and that's me, unleavened bread. It's Jesus. It's just Jesus.

What? And then I mentioned this. Rashid, this beginnings that's in the middle of all that stuff? All that stuff? That's a beginning of something?

Well Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:20, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the drum roll. Never mind. Too slow. The first fruits. Or the beginning, the Greek word.

is aparque its beginning, or the beginning of those who've fallen asleep.

So the first fruits It's at the beginning of those who've died. and have come to life again. And coincidentally, And it's not accident. During the Passion Week, Jesus dies on Passover, literally. He dies on literally while they are while they are bleeding lambs.

And killing them, Jesus dies. On Passover. The Lamb of God. The next day is the first day of unleavened bread. But the day after that His first fruits.

And Jesus rises on the day of first fruits. He rises on the day of beginnings of those from the dead. He's the beginning of those who've fallen asleep. He's the beginning of a whole process. Of millions, perhaps billions of people who will rise from the dead one day, and he's the first one.

Which is why it also says during that barley harvest, you got to take that sheaf and do this thing with it and show it. Every other piece of barley that comes after this in your harvest is illegitimate until this first one is presented to the Lord. It's the way of saying until Jesus himself is presented to the Lord, his death and his resurrection, all the rest of the resurrections don't count. There is no lie. It's Jesus again.

So all of these, all of these right here are all Jesus. And they're all his first coming. Oh, so could you actually say? That these first groupings of the ceremonies that you do, these celebrations, all picture in a very in a very tangible way. the coming of Jesus to be our Savior.

to die on our behalf, peace ought. to be the bread that that continues to sustain us through this life. He's our matzah. He's our mana. And could it very well be that he's also the very first of those who were raised from the dead, and were following shortly thereafter.

Yeah. I'd say that. Because We really don't have a choice. The New Testament pushes us in that direction without any ambiguity. That's it, right there.

But these are all things that Jesus did in his first coming. I'll also point out, if I go back here just a little bit. Remember this connection between the Feast of Weeks and the first fruits. and that the weeks, which is the very full completed harvest, so full it's actually taken the kernels of wheat and barley and turned them into bread. That period of time is kind of indistinct, but it's long.

It's just very long.

So, if we continue our conclusion about this being the first coming of Jesus. then when you look at the Feast of Weeks, if you look at what's in between, that's a long, long period of time until the harvest is complete and full. It's the period we're in right now. Where the harvest is happening. Remember Jesus with the woman at the well, and his apostles come back and say, were you talking to that woman?

Right? And he says, yeah, because you know what? The harvest is ripe, it's ready to go. We need workers for the harvest. And what is he talking about?

People, he's talking about people.

So the first fruits is the raising from the dead, the first one, Jesus being our forerunner and the first of many that will happen after that. And we are those who will live and die and be raised again just like he is. Paul says, if Christ raised from the dead, so will you. That's all the way from Rashid, the beginnings, to Shavuod, the end of the fullness of the harvest. It's some.

big time. And we are right now in a big time since All this stuff happened.

Okay, let's push forward. I think you knew a lot of that. Let's go. Uh Let's talk about why we're here today. Because when Jesus came into Jerusalem at the beginning of the Passion week, He knew that this was what we just looked at on that yellow circle on the left.

All of those things are going to happen here. He starts in the Passion Week. He comes in, he fulfills this prophecy from Zachariah. And uh By the way, just to remind you, we looked at Ezra and Nehemiah for weeks before we got into the feasts of Israel. And in Esther Nehemiah, which is like on calendar halfway between David and Solomon, and the coming of Jesus halfway as Ezra Nehemiah.

And while they were in there, they were rebuilding the temple. Remember that? And they get this stop order from the guys in charge in the area at the time. They get this stop order, stop working on the temple. And so the guys in Israel who are working on the temple, now back in Jerusalem, they say, well, should we.

Should we obey this stop order command? These guys?

So they said, well, let's bring in our prophets.

So they bring in a handful of prophets, and one of them is Mr. Zachariah, this same guy. And they bring him in, and they say, We just got one question for you, and our one question is this: Should we disobey the stop order on working on the temple, or should we? Should we do it or shouldn't we do it? Or what should we do?

And Zachariah and some others come up, they say, no, keep moving, go forward, work on the temple. But Zachariah doesn't stop there. He comes up with the entire book of Zachariah. He starts prophesying about, yeah, yeah, keep building the temple. And oh, by the way, I've got some other things coming down the pipeline from God, and here they are.

And that's one of them. Are you kidding? They asked Zachariah whether we should continue to work on the temple, and Zachariah came with... This guy's going to come into town riding on a donkey. Why did he do that?

Well, because the first question was Should we continue to rebuild? the place where the presence of God will be, And Zachariah says, Oh, you want to talk about the presence of God? Let's talk about the guy coming in on the white Yeah. It's all about the presence of God. Goosebumps.

Okay. So Jesus comes into town and we celebrate that today as he comes in and prophesies, fulfilled. Here's a great picture. These are all by Jacques Tissot again. uh of his um his thinking of what this probably looked like.

The interesting thing about the perspective of this picture that he painted is the fact that if today, if you go into the spot where the temple was, and you look directly east. You'll see the side of the Mount of Olives. It's actually a long ridge. You'll see the side of the Mount of Olives. And it'll look just like this, except Jesus isn't on it today.

So this is a picture that Tissot painted standing where the temple is. And you would look out to the east.

So, when Jesus came into town and people were heralding him and placing their coats on the ground and putting down the palm fronts and all that kind of stuff, it was in full and deliberate view of everyone in Jerusalem, especially. the religious leaders downwrit the temple. This is the most this is the most Billboardy way you could come into Jerusalem is come down the side of the Mount of Olives, and that's what he did. with all this going on. It was a public proclamation.

a serving notice to all the religious leaders in Jerusalem who did not miss this, because someone would say, hey, you've got to come out here to the edge of the wall, and you've got to look at what's going on just in the other, just right over the Kidron Valley, right over there in the Mount of Olives. There's thousands of people over there and there's this guy in the middle of it on this white donkey and he's coming down the hillside and all the religious leaders could just stand right there at the temple and see it happening. He served notice on all of them that something big is going down. And of course the people hailed this bigness as the coming of the Son of David, which is a title for the Messiah. It was an undeniable proclamation.

of the coming of the Messiah. No doubt about it. Fulfilled Zachariah. I mean, no doubt about it. This was an in-your-face serving notice to the leadership.

that the king is here. And of course, you you know what. Hosanna means, right? Means safe. Save us.

Save us. Save us. Of course they meant Save us from Caesar. But Jesus coming. to save them from sin.

Because the last enemy that this king came to take over was death itself. People thought he was coming in to conquer Caesar in Rome. He came in to conquer s death itself.

so that he would be our Reshid. The beginning. the firstborn of all those who rise from the dead. He's going to do it that week.

So Jesus came into town fully knowing what we saw on the celebrations, fully knowing what God intended for him. He was going to be the Passover lamb. He was going to be the bread that sustains. He was going to be the firstborn from the dead of all those who were going to be born from the dead. He knew that that was his take for this week.

That's what was going to happen.

So much so. That God planned his entry into Jerusalem. to deliberately coincide with Passover week.

Now see, Jesus could have come into Jerusalem. different times of the year. We know that he came in for celebrate other celebrations during the year. We knew that he came in for Hanukkah. Did God reveal who Jesus was at Hanukkah?

No. Not a great time. What's a great time? Let's do it smack dab on top of Passover so even the slowest person would make connections. About Jesus being the Passover lamb.

In fact, he's going to die on Passover with all the lambs. Come on. What an incredible, lucky coincidence No, it's the design of God. The Lamb of God is dying with all the lambs. Right?

He's the Rashid. He's the firstborn. Jesus raises from the dead on the very day they talk about the beginnings. of those who will be raised from dead. I mean, this is not accident.

This is a deliberate message system to tell you. that what God has been promising Israel since the day they left Egypt and were celebrating all these things on the calendar, they were celebrating the coming of Jesus. The one who would die on their behalf. And Jesus knew all of that as he came into town. I've always wondered what was going through his head as he saw these accolades that came to him.

And they rightly called him the son of David, they rightly gave him kingly titles. I mean, those are all correct. Those are all totally correct. But their expectation of what he was going to accomplish was so puny compared to what he actually accomplished. Come on, getting out from under the thumb of Rome is one thing.

But what about getting out from under the thumb of sin itself. And being purchased into God's kingdom and being part of the king of kings. What about that? Of course, they didn't know that. Not even...

Not even the apostles knew that. Everybody, it seems like, missed it. Uh it's some.

Some got it.

So let me go back to this. Everything you see in this yellow circle over here. With the exception of what's going to happen later right here. is all accomplished during Jesus' coming into Jerusalem. and what he did during that Passion Week, which we celebrate today.

Um on uh Palm Sunday. When he came in. Which leads the bigger questions about what about the rest of the calendar?

So let's look at that for a second. The rest of the calendar.

So trumpets. I'll just Play a few verses, okay? Let's do this. Isaiah fifty eight. Verse 1: Cry aloud, do not hold back, lift up your voice like a trumpet, declare to my people their transgression.

to the house of Jacob their sins. To this very day, Rosh Hashanah, up to Yom Kippur. The issue is sins. And this trumpet is meant to call Not just Israel. but all mankind to the problem of their sin.

And something on that day sin will be central. Center will be central when we talk about trumpets. Here's another one. 1 Thessalonians 4, the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And what is Paul talking about in 1 Thessalonians?

He's talking about the end of the age. He's talking about the day of the Lord. He's talking about. Judgment. Judgment.

where everyone's sins will be the topic of the day. Marcia Shuna. Trumpets. Trumpets. This is God yelling out to all mankind.

We're done. And so now it's judgment day. All the prophets and the writers of the Old Testament called this the day of the Lord. The end of the age. Final judgment for all we do.

It's a funny thing. All of us as human beings have a conscience that tends to condemn us constantly about the bad things that we do. And also, along with that conscience that tells us about the bad things we do, we wonder about whether there'll be a consequence to this. Because in the cultures that we live in, when you do bad stuff, like I say, racing down Main Street at seven miles an hour, there's a consequence.

So this consciousness of sin constantly says to us, will there be an accounting day for this? Am I going to get in trouble with the bigger authority of the universe? And so that's why when you get to Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year, the Feast of Trumpets, that's why the topic in the entire Jewish community is sin. It should be. Because at the end of the age.

Sin will be central. I just love this. This is Jesus himself. Don't marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice. and come out.

Those who have done good. to the resurrection of life and those who've done evil. to the resurrection judgment. That's the trumpet. At the trumpet, that will happen.

Let's move on. Let's talk about atonement for a second. Kippur means to atone by offering a substitute. By offering a substitute.

So Isaiah 53, which is all about Jesus. I'll read it sometime. I picked the end of the chapter.

Well, it's in the middle, actually. He poured out his soul to death. and was numbered with the transgressors, yet He bore the sin of many and makes intercession. for the transgressors.

So at Yom Kippur when Jews are thinking about a substitution, a payment based on how honest they are about their confessions. It has nothing to do with how honest they are with their confessions. although it's necessary. Better confession does not assure Redemption. does not assure that something will be paid for by someone else.

what assures you in atonement. is the life of the lamb that was killed. It's Jesus. So the Day of Atonement, as everyone is thinking about, the problem of sin and our accountability to our Creator God. Everyone will be thinking about that.

Then Yom Kippur happened right on its heels with a great and positive proclamation, but there is one who has taken your place because of your sin. There is hope for you, immensely immersed in all your sins. There's hope for you because another has paid the price for you. Yom Kippur, the great exchange, the substitution has happened on your benefit. But if you don't accept the substitution, You die in your sins.

If you don't believe that there really is a substitute, If you want to go and face God and say, I'm feeling pretty good about my life. I've done a few things wrong, but you know, you really can't fault me for being a sinner because I appreciate goodness and I try to do it as much as possible. And that's not going to get you very far. But you do have to be straight up about your sin. Yes, God.

I'm a sinner. I'm full of sin. I there's sin in places I never knew I even had a capacity for. I just can't believe this. I'm a sinner.

And I come to you and I confess which In the language, means to say what God says. Fest means to talk, khan means together.

So I say together with you, God, you're right. I'm a sinner. And there's no way in which I can counteract the problem that I'm a sinner, there's no way I can counterbalance it with good. I'm stuck.

So I come to God, I confess, I repent of those sins. And God says, Okay. We have a solution. We have a Passover lamb. A Kippur.

Someone who's been substituted on your behalf. And he welcomes you into his kingdom. But you have to believe the solution works. You have to believe the solution is made on your behalf. Because if you want to stand and make apologies for yourself, you're not going to get there.

That's Yom Kippur. Finally, the mystery of the booths. And this is the best verse I could think of to illustrate it from a New Testament perspective. Remember, Jesus tells the apostles in chapter 13 of John, I'm going somewhere you can't go. They freak out.

Well, we left our homes, we left our fishing nets, and we left everything behind, and now you're saying after three years you're going someplace we can't go? And Jesus goes, okay, chill, wait, wait, wait. Let me explain this. Let me explain this. And the heart of his explanation is this verse right here.

He says, and if I go. And I prepare a place for you. I'll come again. and we'll take you to myself. that where I am you may be also.

It's the promise of moving out of your tents. in the permanent home of God himself. And that's why, that's why the Feast of Booths is at the end. Because chronologically, in terms of the lifetime of all mankind, that is the last step. After you go through the sin process, as you embrace and recognize a replacement, a substitute on your behalf.

That's paid for you. Then God says, Okay, We're starting afresh, not afresh, we're starting the kingdom of God in a way you've never seen it before. You can get out of your tents. and you move into your dwellings. And that's exactly what Jesus told the guys.

Right? That's a great picture of the Feast of Booths. Because Feast of Booths isn't celebrating our temporary dwellings, Feast of Booths is celebrating that we're moving to the permanent promised place. place of living with God.

So it makes sense to put it at the end of the list.

So what is what is all this yellow circle? Talk about It talks about the fact that there's a day coming where judgment will happen. The payment for our sin will be applied on our behalf, a substitute for us, with a promise that now... There's a promise for life with God after this. That's why it comes in the middle of the calendar year rather at the end, because it leaves all these Unfilled months after this, implying very strongly that there is life after this, after this.

There's life with God. That where I am, you may be also. It's a promise. Remember when they left Egypt? God promised them a land to live in.

A land that you're not You're not going to have to work to establish it. There'll be houses you'll move into that you didn't build. There'll be venues that you didn't plant. Yeah, I mean There'll be all of this stuff. I'm promising you a place that you've never had before.

I'm promising you like a life like you never even dreamed of it. You just have to trust me and trust that I'm giving this to you and I'm making the way for you to get there. You've got to trust me. You've got to trust me. And so the reason why a whole generation did not make it in the land is because they didn't trust God.

They got to the edge of the promised land, the place of promise, the place of homes, finally. Not tents, homes. And they got to the edge of that, and they got some information back from the land. They said the giants are too big. We don't think God can make good on his promise to take us into this land of promise.

And they disbelieved and God said, well.

Okay, then you're staying in the desert. Until another generation would believe.

So, really, going into this promise with him. is all focused on our our side of the issue, on belief and faith. Do you believe that there's life that he gives to us, even in the face of the sin that we've committed, that we ought to suffer the wrath of God like the Egyptians did? But he provided a Passover lamb so that he can take care of the problem of our own self-imposed sins? And then it's a promise.

from something to something.

So So in the entire feast, God decides to separate what Jesus does to our benefit in two ways. One way he gets us out of Egypt. That's deliverance. From Something. And then at Yom Kippur, as a substitute.

He takes us to life with him. There's always a from and a to in salvation. In fact, the Passover Seder, okay, the Seder means order, it's this. formal thing they do over dinner when they recount the entire uh Egypt story. They have four cups of wine that they do, that are put throughout the entire dinner meal.

There's four cups of wine. It starts with wine, it stops with wine. And in those four cups, they're actually labeled. They're named. The first cup is the cup of sanctification.

which sanctification is the process of of changing from dirty to holy. And then the second cup. is a cup of deliverance Remember I said saving from? That's the deliverance. You know what the next, the third cup is called?

And we think this is the cup that Jesus raised during the Last Supper. Deliverance from Egypt.

So what would you say in terms of what his role is in the future for us. It's called the cup of redemption. and redemption means to be purchased. A substitute on our behalf.

So salvation from Sin, captivity? That's deliverance. And then redemption, a payment is made on your behalf.

so that you can live in his kingdom. And so finally the fourth cup. Hallelujah Praise. It's a cup of praise. That whole 4 Cup series in The Seder takes you far past just the Exodus story and takes you to the end of the age.

So Jesus comes to deliver us from something. and to pay the price to take us to something which is life with God eternally. And that's pictured in all the feasts, and that's pictured today in the narratives of the sedators of the Passover celebrations.

Okay, we need to wrap this up.

So that is the entire picture of the feast. It is like a gigantic billboard. that God gave to Israel to celebrate on a yearly basis. Saying I will get you from something. I will deliver you from something.

In that case, historically, Egypt, in the case of all mankind, the captivity of your sin. and from the wrath of God that comes because of his justice on us? He takes us from that and he takes us to life with him. if indeed we accept the payment made on our behalf. Buy that Passover lay.

And if we accept that payment, He says, I'm going someplace you can't go now, but you will. Rashid, that's the from the dead. And you'll follow me. And where I am, you will be also. It's the entire picture of the plan.

God has for all of mankind. That's the feast of Israel. and celebrated in the history of Israel's life.

Now that's a reality, that history is a reality, but that reality is not the biggest reality. The biggest reality is what we just did. Because the day is coming where he will return. It's on the calendar. A trumpet will blow Everyone on earth will be notified.

both the living and the dead. Every one will be notified by this great trumpet blast. The issue of sin will be on the table. And those who accept the substitute We'll find life with God after that. those who don't accept the substitute.

Well not. It's the whole picture of the Bible. From beginning to end. And now I think I quit. Yep.

Any other I'll just give you like a minute or so. Any other insights you saw as we looked at these things and finally collected them together? There's there's so much depth to this, I just feel like I've scratched the surface. We think, Michael, you've always got good ideas. Four cups sanctification, which is the process of taking you from dirty to clean.

Sanctification, deliverance. Right? Redemption. Praise. That's perfect.

It's just so good. It is so good. And actually, the whole Exodus story is a historical. I called them dioramas a while back. They're a real life small version of the big picture.

Yeah. Okay, let's pray and then we'll sing some song. I don't know which one.

So clue Isaac in before you come up. Father in heaven, we thank you for how you communicate to us with such. Um grandeur. This This gigantic billboard that is revisited every year in the Jewish community about your plans for all of mankind, not just for the Jews, but for the Jews and the Gentiles, and all those, all those. who come to a realization that Jesus indeed is this Passover Lamb.

who died on our behalf, who paid the price. For us, when we could not pay the price for ourselves, and as a result, you've freed us from the captivity of sin, and you've brought us into your kingdom. You've purchased us to be. Members of your family in the kingdom of that future. And it actually starts.

now. As we make that realization. God, as we close this out, I pray that you would. Make make this calendar aware in the eyes of the Jews that we know who are who are scratching their heads about pieces of it and don't understand, that they might come to a saving faith in your Son, the Messiah Jesus, and that as a result, they'll find life with you eternally in the end. And thank you, God, for including us as Gentiles in that plan.

and that uh there are actually two Two sinful oaths. At the Feast of Weeks, and we're part of one of them. And it's just a tremendous thing. Your love for mankind is so manifest. Because because we see that you are interested in man that's made in your image.

And we understand not only during this Passion Week, as we look at coming into Jerusalem during this Passion Week and Palm Sunday and then next week in Easter. we realize that God so loved the world that he gave his son. Thanks.

Amen.