The Mystery of Ephraim

A Critique for this Pentecost article is given here

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A Congregation of the Church of God
A Congregation of God, A Free Church

Pentecost The Counting And Meaning Of It
Sermon Given by Darryl Henson; transcript posted on 06/16/2013 (14 PAGES)

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There are various groups who keep Pentecost. There are even people who call themselves Pentecostals who do not do very much that even resembles the word of God. The Jews keep Pentecost, they don’t know how to count it or what day it ought to be. They have chosen a particular calendar day Sivan 6 to keep it on. And that is not what the bible instructs on how to count it. There are different ideas and I don’t think anyone for the most part really understands the meaning of Pentecost.

For us we know that the annual Holy Days through the year rehearse every year in completeness the entire plan of God. From the sin that we entered into from Adam and Eve on down until sin is removed, and through the order of the resurrections, there is an order, there are several resurrections and an order in those as Paul explains in 1Corinthians 15. We began the whole process of rehearsing that plan 50+ a few days ago when we kept the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.

Christ of course became our Passover and became all the sacrifices of the old testament rolled into one. He became the ultimate sacrifice for everything. God was never pleased with the blood of bulls and goats but is very pleased with his Son and He said this is my Son in whom I am well pleased. Because His death truly meant something. It meant that our sins could be forgiven. The wages of sin is death and all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and so we were all gone except for His death. Now His death was only half that because three days later He was resurrected. And it is not a dead Saviour who saves you. It is a live Saviour. So His death and His resurrection were depicted in those days and even though He removed our sin from our lives so that we have a clean slate, and He can do that from day to day because it is a continuing sacrifice and we sin every day one way or another. By commission or omission or in some form of thought. I don’t think there are any of us that get away without sinning every day that goes by. I am judging you by myself but that is the best I have to go by at the moment.

So we continue to sin and thats why we eat Unleavened Bread for seven days. Paul said to keep the Feast of Passover, it was carried over to the new testament, because it obviously has meaning for new testament Christians. It is not something out of the past with ancient Israel that is gone and forgotten and never to be done again. The new testament church kept Pentecost. They kept the Passover. They kept the Feast of Tabernacles and the Day of Atonement. Those are all recounted in the new testament, I won’t go there, I am sure you are all familiar with it. But they were to be carried forward because they have so much rich meaning for us today if we are to be the children of God. So the Days of Unleavened Bread picture putting sin out of our lives. Christ is there as a sacrifice, but we are prone to sin. To continue in sin. Even though we fight it, even though we as Paul put it, beat are bodies into subjection, trying to stop sinning. It still occurs because we are carnal, natural minded human beings trying to walk in the spirit, but tied down by human nature which is not good. Some people try to tell you human nature is good. What does God say? The human mind and heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it. I think we all probably have that verse in Jeremiah memorized because human nature does tend to sin. It tends to negative. It tends to downward pulls. And the want to do and do the things that we should not. That is in every human being one way or another. So we have the days of Unleavened bread so that we continue to put sin out. Just because we have Christ’s sacrifice there does not mean we ought to continue in sin. Paul addressed that in Romans. Shall we then continue in sin because we have that sacrifice? God forbid. We should be working toward thinking like God thinks and acting as He acts and doing as He does. To walk as Christ walked and to bring every thought into the captivity of Christ as He tells us to do. So it is a continual battle that we fight as human beings to be like God is. And every one of us fall short of it. So we have the Days of Unleavened Bread to remind us that sin is to be put out. Leavening during those days pictures sin as Paul clearly explains in 1Corinthians 5.

Now leaven does not always picture sin. It did not only during Unleavened Bread but it did with the doctrine and practice of the Pharisees. Because Christ told people to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. So leaven can be a very bad thing that spreads throughout. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. And yet on the other hand, if you go to Matthew13:33 ( I think I will turn to that one, I am headed to Leviticus 23 in a moment) lets looks at this because leaven does not always picture sin. Another parable spoke He to them, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven. The kingdom of leaven has nothing to do with sin. There won’t be sin allowed there. So leaven must not speak of sin here. It’s like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. In other words the kingdom of God is going to spread around the world the way leavening spreads through dough. Until its everywhere and encompasses the world. Thats the ultimate goal that God has. To have this kingdom and peace throughout the universe. Even binding Satan so that that negative influence cannot be there. So it depends on what you are talking about with leavening. And we will see in a moment that leavening was used in relationship to the day of Pentecost and it has a very good meaning here.

Lets go to Leviticus 23. This is the chapter which outlines the Holy Days of God, the festival seasons and explains them to some degree. But it doesn’t explain the symbolism. We have to draw the symbolism from other parts of the bible. Just as Paul explained to us there in 1 Corinthians 5 again that leavening pictures sin during the Days of Unleavened Bread. So he is giving us a spiritual meaning as to why we are to put sin out during that time. That sin is not to be a part of our lives. It is to be taken away. So there is spiritual meaning even though you don’t read that in Leviticus 23. It just gives an outline that you should keep these days and this is when and how you should do it. But the bible interprets itself. And we can learn the spiritual symbolism in the new testament and some clues in the old testament as well as to what this should mean to us and why we keep it. What meaning does it have for us? There again it is explained quite well in terms of the Passover itself in what Christ became, His blood was offered for the sin of all mankind. We see that the symbolism of the Passover is very clearly indicated in the new testament. But all that blood of bulls and goats did not mean anything except to remind them of sin or to remind them to give offerings to God, to give thanks to God or whatever. But it becomes very clear throughout the new testament that the Passover is for the expunging of our sins and the resurrected Christ is there to offer us salvation because He is alive and can. He died so that we don’t have to. And he lives so that we might live eternally. That becomes very clear in the record and as I have already explained about the Days of Unleavened Bread. We will find this same thing is true of Pentecost.

Lets get into it here in Leviticus 23 and read the original command and see how this applies. Verse10… Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: so he is speaking of the time when Moses would have died and then Israel was about to go into the promised land. Remember God backed up the Jordan River so that they could walk across dry land. If you go into Joshua 5 you will see that that happened at Passover time. They crossed over at Passover and then they spent the first day on the plains of Jericho. And God had them start marching around for seven days, those days of Unleavened Bread and then the walls of Jericho fell. So God began deliverance for them at the time of the Passover. Just as Christ died to begin to deliver us from a life of sin that we have all lead. Now this time we have the sheaf of the first fruits offered and it wasn’t a harvest or a planting that they had done, but when they went into the land the grain had already been planted. They were just to take what was there already having been planted. It became theirs when the land became theirs and were to offer a sheaf there.

I think we can begin to see that story enacted in the new testament very clearly when Christ did not allow anyone to touch Him after his resurrection until He had ascended to the Father and been approved, and then came back to the earth and only then they could touch Him and will. And He allowed that. But He had to be offered so it should become quite clear I think that He was this sheaf that was offered for us. And it is stated in another place that He was the firstborn firstfruits of many brethren. So Christ the Firstfruits ( and I think we will read that later ) and them that are with Him at His return. So He is the first of the firstfruits. The most eminent. The most important. And then we who follow along behind will also become firstfruits. And I will prove that to you in a little while. There you begin, if you grasp that, to understand the plan of salvation. Herbert Armstrong explained it quite well in the book Mystery of the Ages which he wrote just before his death, and Paul explains it in 1 Corinthians 15 that we will no longer be mortal but immortal and that the mortal cannot have immortality. There must be a change. And he is saying there then that we take on eternal life at the resurrection and become immortal. And if we are to be the bride of Christ which it indicates then we have to be the same kind as Christ is because kind begets kind. Turtles do not produce dogs. God does not produce something less than he is. We will be at that time of the same kind as God. Today we are made in the image of God particularly the man specifically is the very shape of God. And woman is closely akin to that. So we are only in the image now but then we will become immortal and eternal as God is God. And it was not blasphemy when it was said you are gods. For God speaks of those things that are not as if they already were. He looks forward with anticipation to the time we become God. Now thats blasphemy to most people in religion and churchianity today. I won’t call it Christianity. It doesn’t fit the bible at all. But He intends for us to become in the family of God. To be as He is. It says no man can see God and live. But He says we shall see Him for we will be like Him and be as He is. What an incredible thing that is. And it is shown through the progression of the Holy Days through the year. So Christ is the first one waved before the Father. He was accepted and came back and then began the new testament church.

Lev 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the Eternal, to be accepted for you. (See Christ had to be accepted for us as new testament Christians) on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. It’s speaking here of the weekly Sabbath and I think we will see that very clearly before we are done. It is not talking necessarily about the first or the last holy day during the days of Unleavened bread. But you count from the weekly Sabbath during that time. And that can be shown in Joshua 5 that at that night and that time they had a Saturday night Passover and they waved it the next day. When Christ was here in the earth He was crucified on a Wednesday afternoon, resurrected on Sabbath/Saturday afternoon just before sundown. And he was waived on Sunday. Now that particular year that would have been the fourth day of Unleavened bread. When they went into the promised land in the time of Joshua it was on the first day of Unleavened bread which was both a weekly and an annual Sabbath that particular year. But it can occur on any day of the week today because the weekly Sabbath goes through a cycle of seven days and the weekly Sabbath can fall anytime during those seven days of unleavened bread. The symbolism there I think is very important. There has been an argument what if the weekly Sabbath falls on the last day of unleavened bread? Was the wave sheaf offered after the days of Unleavened Bread were over? No. You go back to the weekly Sabbath, the day before the Passover. That way the wave sheaf is offered during the days of unleavened bread. It has to fall within the days of unleavened bread. It isn’t the weekly Sabbath itself that is important. It is the wave sheaf that is important. And Christ has to be offered or be a sacrifice for all men from Adam through the millennium and the great white throne judgment for that matter. So that can cycle through all the days of Unleavened Bread if you begin it with the Sabbath the day before if it falls on the last day. He Himself is waived for every thousand year period in the seven thousand years that God has allotted for mankind. He did add the Last Great day at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles ( the eighth day ) for all those people that did not have a chance at salvation during these first seven thousand years. Babies that died, people who were pagans or whatever, who never knew of God and never had a chance truly at salvation. They will have there chance then. So it has to be waived for the people from Adam all the way down. Thats why God set it up to cycle through the days of Unleavened Bread so that everyone’s sins could be forgiven when the time comes.

Lev 23:12 And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Eternal. Of course Christ is depicted as the Lamb of God. We know that.

Lev 23:13 And the meal offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the ETERNAL for a sweet savor: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. So they were to bring an offering on that day even as we are instructed on all the Holy Day times to bring an offering before God.

Lev 23:14 And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: So God said don’t partake of those things for yourself until you are sure you have brought God into the equation. Put God first in other words. Then take care of yourselves. What if we didn’t put Christ first and we tried to save ourselves? We are all in trouble then. We have to have Him. So with that waive sheaf being offered we bring an offering to God. Ironically today is Father’s Day. One of my sons called me between services. He didn’t know it was Pentecost. He doesn’t follow the truth anymore. But this is the day we honor the Father. Our heavenly Father. Pentecost. We bring thanks and offering to Him and thanksgiving for what He has done for us. Particularly on this day. So the world can call it fathers day and set it aside for daddies but there is even a bigger meaning for us when we bring an offering before God. Verse 14 cont’d it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

Then he tells us how to count it. This is important and critical. Lev 23:15 And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete: not seven weeks notice. Seven Sabbaths. Thats important in understanding how to count Pentecost. I can show you places, keep your finger here for a moment, turn to Deuteronomy 16:10 and you shall keep the Feast of Weeks unto the Eternal your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand and so on and in verse 16 it says essentially the same thing. Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Eternal thy God in the place which He shall choose; in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and in the Feast of Weeks, and in the Feast of Tabernacles and so on. So it is called in the bible the Feast of Weeks and that can be confusing in terms of the count because people will say well you count seven weeks. If you count seven weeks that would allow for starting on Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday and simply counting 49 days you see. But here (Lev 23:15) He specifically does not call it weeks, He calls it count seven Sabbaths. That means then that you have to start following a weekly Sabbath with your count. You always start on a Sunday so that you get seven complete Sabbaths. Thats critical to understanding the count. Count seven Sabbaths of 49 days. That means you have to start right after a Sabbath. So it can’t be an annual Sabbath which can fall any day of the week based on the calendar in the heavens. Because that calendar is based on the spring equinox, the first new moon after and sundown. Three indications you can have the first month of the new year. And the new moon can fall on any day of the week. So its important to understand that it is counting seven Sabbaths not just seven weeks. Now in practicality it works out to be seven weeks long because seven times seven is 49. But the important part of this is that He says you have to count from Sabbath to Sabbath. See what I mean? So you start counting after the Sabbath from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering seven Sabbaths shall be complete. Count them out. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Thats the way it works. So the sheaf of the wave offering had to be always on Sunday. And God designed the new testament in Christ coming to the earth so that He would die on a Wednesday, be in the grave 3 days and 3 nights as Jonah was in the belly of the fish, and thats a sign, it wasn’t a Friday afternoon until a Sunday morning. Thats not 3 days (anyway you want to slice it) and 3 nights. It was a Wednesday that year. So He was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights, resurrected that evening just as the Sabbath was about to end some time between 3pm and sundown. And when they came to the tomb on Sunday morning while it was yet dark He was already gone. He had been gone for a while. Not there. But He was waived then on Sunday. Just as this indicates. This doesn’t make Sunday the Sabbath. It is the day after the Sabbath. We do not keep Sunday morning sunrise services on Ishtar do we? Everything that was important to happen had been done and then He went to the Father to be approved of those things which had been done already. It is already finished. So, you count 7 Sabbaths until you’ve got 7 Sabbaths that have occurred and He can call it then in other places the Feast of Weeks and so it does also amount to seven weeks. So there has to be 7 Sabbaths as well as a full 7 weeks. Therefore it has to be on a Sunday to get 7 full weeks and 7 Sabbaths involved. Now lets go on.

Lev 23:16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; (So there it tells us what I just said. It has to be 49 days and it has to start the day after the Sabbath. ) and ye shall offer a new meal offering unto the Eternal.

Now there has been confusion over the years about whether we should keep Sunday or Monday Pentecost. And that argument was based upon one Hebrew word and the question is whether or not that Hebrew word is inclusive or exclusive. In other words do you count Sunday or is it exclusive and you start the count the day after on Monday. And Herbert Armstrong went to different Hebrew scholars and checked all the different reference books and it was really inconclusive what the Hebrew actually meant. And the whole argument really was based upon the meaning of the Hebrew. And the Hebrew is not always complete in the same sense that English is. Sometimes one word can mean several words. Or cover several words. We do have instances of that in English as well or an implication lets say. So it doesn’t boil down to striving over a Hebrew word. But if you look at this for what it says He is telling you how to do it. Does it say to count 51? That is what you would have if you started the day after the Sabbath, had 7 complete weeks, 7 Sabbaths and the 50th day. Who needs to determine a Hebrew word? You don’t. You simply count 7 Sabbaths ( thats 49 ) and the 50th day is when you offer a new meal offering to the Eternal. Seven complete weeks plus one day is 50. And you do it on the 50th day. 50 is 5 times 10, ten being a very important number in God’s word. Ten commandments and other things. And also the symbolism of the Jubilee year is there. You don’t have 51 years in a jubilee cycle. You have 7 times 7 years (49) and then a Jubilee the 50th year is Jubilee. The counting for Pentecost is exactly the same thing. What does Pentecost give us? A mini-jubilee every year. There are scriptures that indicate Pentecost represents Liberty and freedom. What did the Jubilee year give me? The land was all returned to the original families as designated by Joshua on entering the promised land. And if anybody had been a fool and lost their land by and in various ways it was restored to the family in spite of the fool. God had a way to rid the land in that sense of poverty by giving back to the children that which maybe the father had squandered. So it offered them a new lease on life if you will. Fifty years lease on life. And represented liberty in that sense. Now Christ’s sacrifice and His resurrection offer us liberty from our sins. From a bad conscience. From having to live in the past. The past is gone. It is done. It is finished. We need not go there. So we have liberty from the shame of sin, the penalty of sin and all those things that sin brings are liberated from us by Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. So He was waived and Pentecost then is counted the same way as the Jubilee in weeks instead of years but it has much the same meaning in type. So you number 50 days. That will always put you on a Sunday. The Jews don’t understand that. They keep Sivan 6 whatever day of the week it falls on. They don’t understand the count from the weekly Sabbath. But thats the way it has to be. And even Christ’s offering was on the 4th day of Unleavened bread which would have been the 4th millennium since Adam and Eve. So that particular year it was there expressly in type for those people who lived in the four thousand years. But it cycles through all of them so that we all have access to it.

Verse 17.. Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Eternal. Now two weeks ago we kept the Days of Unleavened Bread where leavening pictured sin. We have already seen in Matthew 13:33 that it also pictures the kingdom of God. And what are the firstfruits? The firstfruits are the first ones who will be resurrected into the kingdom of God. So Christ used that same analogy that it would spread until it had gone through the whole loaf with the woman and this pictured the kingdom of God spreading through us because we are to be the firstfruits. Lets see that in a few scriptures. We will be back here in a little bit. Lets go to Romans 8 and see this new testament symbolism laid out before us for Pentecost itself. Lets start in verse 22 to get the sense. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. That was written over 2000 years ago and the earth is still groaning and travailing in pain because of the pollution of man and all of the things that are going on that are contrary to the way of God. So deliverance has not yet come to the earth into us. The whole creation groans and travails together Verse 23: And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Thats spoken of course in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 and 1 Corinthians15 and other places when the resurrection occurs at the time Christ returns to the earth. So he says we have the firstfruits of the Spirit of God. Now it was read to us this morning in Acts 2 so I will not go there how they were gathered on the Day of Pentecost in one accord and one place and the Holy Spirit came upon them for the first time. Remember Christ told Peter when you are converted feed my sheep. Take care of my flock. He wasn’t converted, did not receive the Holy Spirit until that day of Pentecost. Mankind had not had the holy spirit dwelling within them until that day. The Holy Spirit was the comforter Christ spoke of there in John 15 to 17 that would be sent after He had ascended to the Father. So they were told to wait those 50 days in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit would come. And that day it came in great power. And then we are begotten of that spirit now by repentance, the laying on of hands, or baptism and the laying on of hands in which God begets us of His spirit and He uses the family analogy again. A baby is conceived and it has to grow. If it doesn’t grow or if it is born too premature it dies. It has to be mature enough to live when it is born. Just as we are begotten of God’s spirit and a new spirit life begins in our hearts and minds and has to grow unto a state of maturity so that God can see that we can be born into his kingdom. We have not been born again. Nobody has been born again. We have been begotten of the spirit of God and will be born into the kingdom of God if we have reached spiritual maturity when Christ returns. So it is a process and God designed human reproduction to picture this so we can understand part of the mystery of God. And the mystery of God will be finished at the time of the resurrection. It is still hard for you, is it not, to grasp not having to deal with human nature? With being human and pain and dying and tears and sorrow and all those things that He says will be a thing of the past once we are a part of the kingdom of God there in Revelation 19. Anyway, we have the firstfruits of the Spirit. So Christ is the first of the firstfruits and then we which follow Him. Lets see that in 1 Corinthians 15:23. I kind of already quoted that but I will go back there anyway. So that we get a little better picture of it. Verse 22: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Through Him comes the resurrection. Verse 23: But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christs at his coming. So we then are indicated if we grow to maturity and are changed when Christ returns to be the firstfruits. He is the first of them. So when He talks about Pentecost and having an offering of the firstfruits, the spiritual type or meaning is for us. That we are to be the firstfruits of the kingdom of God.

Now there are other fruits that come after. When you go out to a fruit tree and you start picking fruit there are some that are ripe early. You don’t pick the green ones before their time. You look for those that are ripe and ready to eat. When Christ returns He is going to harvest those that are ready. There will be many who are not ready. There will be 100 million people left after the seven last plagues and the holocaust at the end of this age as Daniel points out. They will not be ready to become a part of the kingdom of God. They will be people from all walks of life, all different kind of religions, no religion, whatever. And He will sit down to judge them over a 1000 year period and how they live their life out and are ripe at that time. So He is looking for only those who are ripe at that time and I will show you that this is limited. Revelation 14:4 Different religions will tell you that there will be millions or billions of people who will be in the first resurrection and so on. But that is not the case. Verse 4: He starts this chapter talking about 144,000 standing on Mount Zion having their father’s name written in their foreheads. Being a part of the Kingdom of God as Revelation 2 and 3 show. And speaking of them verse 4: These are they which were not defiled with women;(women being a type of churches in the bible and in this sense not defiled by false religion… in other words they renounce that they have gotten rid of it. It doesn’t mean you could have never been in it. But remember Christ’s sacrifice removed our sin and our past. So if we had been defiled with it, that spiritual adultery can be removed just like physical adultery can be removed by the sacrifice of Christ. So in that sense virginity is restored on a spiritual level. No matter what satanic background we may have come from in other religions). verse 4: These are they which were not defiled with women for they are virgins. Now let me prove that to you, I won’t go to the scripture but Paul called the church at Corinth virgins. Now those people who had been called in Corinth were in a culture that was about as godless and immoral as any culture that has every been maybe save Sodom and Gomora. And yet he said he presented them to God as chaste virgins as without sin. So speaking spiritually then all their past physical sins and even spiritual sins have been wiped out at conversion when Christ sacrifice was applied back to them which pictures the watery grave. Therefore he can call them virgins even though they were by far anything but that in terms of morality in that day and age. Verse 4: These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. So it talks about 144,000. These are the firstfruits. No more, no less. 144,000 total are the firstfruits. And He said that the firstfruits will be changed (remember 1 Corinthians 15) when he returns. So when He returns there will be 144,000 either resurrected or changed if they are alive and remain and become the bride of Christ. When the bride of Christ comes there in Revelation 21 its the bounds/boundaries of the New Jerusalem or 12,000 times 12,000 or 144,000. Thats all that will represent the Kingdom or the headquarters of God, the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, the Father and the son and of course the holy angels and so on. So when we speak of the firstfruits in Leviticus 23 and add the new testament to it we find that the firstfruits mentioned there are brought forward in type as new testament Christians – it can include some from the old testament that are included in the new testament – in other words Hebrews 11 where it talks about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Sarah and David and various ones who will be in that first resurrection. We know David comes from the old testament into the kingdom because he is going to be the King of all Israel in the kingdom of God in the millennium. So it is inclusive of that and lets see that back in Leviticus 23 now. I am trying to give meat in due season today and explain and rehash for us the great spiritual meaning of this day that was lost upon those Israelites who just kept it as a physical thing, bringing meal offerings and lambs and so on. But the new testament enriches the story a great deal and includes us. Anyway they are the firstfruits to the Eternal. And leavening means it spreads throughout the 144,000.

Verse 17: they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Eternal. 18And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Eternal, with their meat offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savor unto the Eternal. Christ became all these offerings so we don’t do those today. 19Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings. 20And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the Eternal, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the Eternal for the priest. So Christ was the wave sheaf first offer but here you have 2 that are offered as a wave offering together with Him in that sense. So I think that the symbolism here probably is saying that this is a 2 part thing. You had the old testament and the old covenant and yet there were some back then who qualified for the kingdom of God even though Christ had not yet died. But remember His sacrifice is retroactive back to Adam and forward for all of mankind and thats why the wave sheaf cycles through all 7 of the days of unleavened bread. Because His sacrifice can go back and pick up those who lived and died before He ever came to the earth. It is an all inclusive sacrifice. So you have the 2 lambs representing those from the past and those in the future. Old testament and new testament. And indeed Hebrews 11 does tell us a great number of names of those who will be in the first resurrection from the old testament. Makes it very clear.

Verse 21And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: (In other words a Holy commanded meeting or gathering. We have already read in Deut 16 that three times in the year shall all your males come to keep these days without fail. They have no excuse. Well, death might kind of stop you or maybe terminally ill or something of that nature. That is always understood. But the man was to be there as a representative of the family if no one else could come. Of course we find in other scriptures that the wife, the children, everybody was invited and certainly could be there and it would be optimal if they could be there and God would want them there. But if for some reason ( sometimes the woman just couldn’t travel that far when she is 8 1/2 months pregnant, yeah, whatever it might be) the male was to come anyway because they don’t get pregnant or you know God wanted a representative of each family there for sure. And if everybody else could come He wanted them there as well. But He made an exception for whatever thing might come along that was legit. Lets put it that way. So its a holy convocation, a commanded assembly. For ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations. And we find in Acts 2 they were there to keep Pentecost so it extended into the new testament. Why don’t people in churchianity keep Pentecost? It is there. New Testament example. God gave His Holy Spirit on that day. Pretty important wouldn’t you think? But they don’t keep it. They would rather keep Easter, Christmas and Valentines and other Pagan stuff that the bible says don’t keep. Anyway…

Verse 22 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the Eternal your God. I think there is a very important reason that includes this in the Pentecost instruction. Now its included in other places but it is specifically added here. Why? Because we are the firstfruits if we qualify under the terms of the plan of salvation before God. We are part of those firstfruits. In fact Paul even mentioned that Acaia was the firstfruits of Acaia. So a church member was listed as a first fruit even though he had not yet been part of the resurrection. It has not occurred yet. But God speaks of those things as if they already are that are not yet. So it is a positive thing to realize that once we are properly repentant and repent means change and if you don’t understand the truth you didn’t know what to change. Even though some baptist preacher may have baptized you. He didn’t even know what day the Sabbath was. Or if he did, he didn’t keep it. How do you change what you don’t know about? You have to learn the truth and then you can be converted to the truth and God’s way then you are qualified for baptism. But not before. Those things have to be understood. Otherwise its just a dunking. You might be clean and smell better but you have not done anything spiritually until repentance occurs. And thats a whole another subject of what true repentance really is. It is not just the feeling of I have been bad but it means change. Change those things which we have done that have been contrary to God’s way. And that takes a certain amount of time to do to prepare us to have our past expunged and receive God’s spirit and walk in newness of life in the spirit. But considering that we might then qualify to be called firstfruits and looking forward to the resurrection when Christ returns, having been begotten and preparing to be born into His kingdom if we reach spiritual maturity sufficient that He will grant us that grace to be a part of His kingdom. But there are others who are strangers. There are others who are poor spiritually speaking who don’t understand anything. We have been called to be the bride of Christ and to help Him teach the whole world the way of God in the millennium. So when we make offering before God, it is not just selfish on my salvation but we are to leave our mind open, our hearts open to give what we understand to others. To make sure that there is something for them. People will grow through the millennium and eventually be born into the kingdom of God and given immortality even as we will have been at Christ’s return. And we will be there to help teach them, instruct them, guide them and lead them so that that might be accomplished. So I think that He is telling us you may be the firstfruits, you may have first opportunity, you may be the bride of Christ but the others out there have need also. So don’t glean the corners of your field. Be sure that you think of others. That you take care of others. And that will be the job of the wife, the bride of Christ, in the world tomorrow. To take care of the children. So God includes them here specifically on Pentecost, that is directed at the first fruits.

And that is all that he gives us here in Leviticus 23 in terms of Pentecost and goes on from there to Feast of Trumpets which pictures the resurrection when those firstfruits do become immortal, eternal beings. We won’t go into that but the plan of God progresses. But I might make another comment in terms of what we just considered about gleaning the corners of the field. It is those people who live through the holocaust here at the end of the age, they will be poor, they will be weak, they will have just gone through life threatening circumstances and barely survived. They will need help. They will need the Father and the Son and the bride ( the Son’s wife ) to nurse them, nurture them, help them, strengthen them and teach them the ways of God. So they might be offered salvation during the millennium. Then of course you have the Great White Throne Judgment, it says there in Revelation 20, remember that the rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years were finished. So there is a first resurrection, remember Paul said each man in his own order. First resurrection is the first fruits 144,000 the bride of Christ. They administer to and serve the people in the millennium who survive physically into that 1000 year period. Then the rest of the dead are resurrected at the end of the 1000 year millennium as Revelation 20 clearly shows. Those will be all the people from Adam all the way down through history who never had an understanding of God’s way, died as babies, died as pagans, whatever. The vast majority of human beings who have lived from Adam until the beginning of the millennium never had a chance (everyone in the millennium will have a chance ). Estimates have been that since Adam there has been possibly 60 billion people on the earth. That is a big resurrection. The rest of the dead. But by then they will not only have the bride ( the 144,000 ), but those children who have been changed once they have qualified in the millennium will be there to help teach those billions who are resurrected at the end of the 1000 years. God is a successful God. Romans 11:26 All Israel shall be saved. He is not in a war with the devil (and the devils winning) and so lets go out and proselyte people. That is not whats going on. God has a plan. He is only calling so many now. We know how many. He will call many more in the millennium. And then he will call the vast majority of men and women and people who have every lived when the 1000 years are finished. And they will have their chance at salvation under peaceful conditions without the devil around. He will only be released for a short season at the end of the millennium. And then rebound so that he cannot influence all those people who lived and died before under his influence not understanding God’s way. So God is going to be a resounding success as a father. Most people will be a part of the kingdom of God eventually if you understand the progression of the resurrections and when God offers salvation to people. Everybody gets one good chance. Everybody. And most people today don’t have the chance because they don’t understand the truth. They don’t know the way. So they have not been offered the opportunity of firstfruits. But they will be offered salvation some day and taught the ways of God so that they can truly repent, be given His spirit, be led by it and then be part of this kingdom. God’s plan is one that will cause most people be to be saved. Some people believe that ultimately everybody but Christ did say there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. There will be a few who rebelled to the point where they cannot be a part of the kingdom of God.

We struggle don’t we brethren? We struggle with ourselves everyday. We see our faults, we see our weaknesses, we see our difficulties, we see the impediments that are between us and true righteousness and holiness that God is. And it is easy to be a little bit ( or a lot ) discouraged and frustrated because we are trying to be like God and we fall so far short of being like God is and reacting as He reacts, thinking as He thinks. So its easy to get down, get discouraged, its easy to worry about our past, its easy to worry about whatever people worry about. But God is very positive. He speaks of us as firstfruits even though we have not as of yet been born into His kingdom. He wants us to be there. And for the most part He is going to cause us to be there. We cannot save ourselves. It is a process that He does. He tests us, He tries us, He chastens us, He puts us through the fire, if you will, to refine us, to purify us, to cleanse us so that we can be holy. So He is up there manipulating our lives and He says think it not strange the fiery trials that come on you. Its part of the plan. That we have trials and tests and troubles because what do those cause us to do? Get on our knees and pray for help. Otherwise if everything was going hunkydory, peaches and cream, we don’t pray, we don’t turn to God. That if we have health issues, moral issues, any kind of sin issues or just simply not reaching the mark in some way, God has a way of showing us His way and giving us to do what we need to do. So He is actively involved in our salvation. He counts the head of our hair for crying out loud. So He knows everything good and everything bad we do. And He thinks and acts positively in our behalf. So we should not be discouraged.

I kind of want to change directions here a little bit and go to Philippians 3 because it espouses what I am implying already. Let me give you a little overview. He is talking about people and their assessment of themselves here and how those who are circumcised in the heart are ok but we are not to have confidence in the flesh. And he went on to reiterate that if anybody should have confidence in the flesh and himself to save himself or to be good it ought to be him. Because he says in verse 5: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; 6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. In other words, if anybody could trust in the flesh, Paul says it should have been me. Because I have all the credentials, all of the qualifications to trust in the flesh. More so than anybody around. But he didn’t. A lot of his effort had been against God, against God’s church. And he says that. 7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Those things that I thought were important, those things that I thought made me better than anyone else I count as loss. He calls it dung/manure. 8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: (Everything else didn’t matter. But what we call Immanuel, the Christ what He did and is was all that was important.) for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, ( his reputation in the community, everything he had to give up to come and serve Christ ) and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. I am willing to forsake and forgo and forget about any and everything that is important to a human being. Wealth, riches, standing in the community, whatever it might be. I am willing to turn from that to gain Christ. 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law,( or keeping the letter because he had always kept the letter of the law but he didn’t understand the spirit of the law and that was what he had gained and he had learned) but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death. So here he is giving you more explanation of Pentecost really. But His death and resurrection and being waived for us gave power in being accepted after His resurrection. And we fellowship with His sufferings even as we suffer in this life. It is a life of suffering. Human life is not easy in any form or fashion. 10b and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; In other words I give up myself , my life, my way, I have it washed away in baptism and I come up a new man to walk in the spirit. 11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. 12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect(mature): but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Immanuel. So he said, I didn’t attain a thing by the way I lived in the past, even though I thought I was doing fine as a Pharisee. I had to realize that life wasn’t accomplishing a thing. And I needed to follow Christ instead of just looking to Moses in the old testament.

Now he says something very important here that I have already touched on. I want to now emphasize to begin to wind this up: 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do,( in other words he is about to say something very important here – I don’t count myself standing here or sitting here writing this letter as having apprehended eternal life or being in the kingdom of God as yet – I look forward to that but I don’t count myself there yet – but one thing I do – lets understand this ) forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. Baptism represents leaving the past behind. Us praying and asking for forgiveness daily to God means putting whatever happened that day that was bad behind. You cannot carry the trailer of the past behind you. I have driven pickups without trailers and we moved quite well along the highway thank you. I have hitched heavy trailers behind and have had trouble climbing the hills. Unhitch the past. Forget those things which are behind. Don’t think about them anymore. Don’t worry about them. Don’t be ashamed of them. Don’t be confused by them. Forget them. Yours and everyone elses. Because he says he will forgive those who forgive and he will not forgive those who do not. Unhitch the trailer. Forgetting those things witch are behind. Don’t bring them up. Don’t talk about them. Don’t worry about them. Yours, mine or theirs. They have no effect anymore. That is the beauty of the sacrifice of the Lord Christ. Is that we don’t have to be concerned with the past. Whether it be recent or distant. You cannot relive the past can you? Not at all. It’s done. It’s gone. You can’t relive it. Nor can you unlive it if it was that bad. It’s done. But it’s covered in the blood of Christ at the bottom of that stake. And there it should stay. And never be brought out of that blood. Who do we think we are? To dig through the blood of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Prince of Peace, the Forgiver of all sin. Who do we think we are to dig through His blood with our dirty fingers trying to find other peoples sin or remembering our own. How presumptuous, how blasphemous. How ungodly, unChristlike to dig through His blood to find sin. Now does that clarify anything? Anyone who would do that is satanic. He is the accuser of the brethren. That is an official title of his. It is what he does. And if we do it we are acting satanically. And the expression fits. Get you behind me Satan. I don’t know how I can put it any clearer than that. You don’t know what somebody was thinking or what they may have done when you saw them yesterday. And they may have cried out to God on their bed before they went to sleep for whatever it might had been what they thought or did that day and asked for forgiveness of Almighty God. And if God forgives who are we to not forgive. Does that not put us in our mind above God? Because His judgment is not good enough, ours is better because we know the truth about that lying sinner. Now, do we begin to understand what Paul was saying? Brethren, forgetting those things which are behind, this one thing I do, forget the past. All of it. Whose ever it is. And sometimes our own is the hardest to forget, is it not? Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto things which are before or which are ahead.

14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Immanuel. Jesus meant / means God is salvation. Yahshua, or Joshua or Jesus in English. They were to call Him God is salvation. But it said those in the future there in Matthew 1 will call Him Immanuel. Those in the end time as Isaiah 7 & 8 show. And Immanuel means God with us. Press forward to the prize of the high calling of God with us. And He is with us. He gives His Spirit to those who obey Him ( Acts 5:29 ). He gave His spirit to the obedient ones on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. And He has given His spirit to us since. He is going to pour it out soon as Joel 2 says in a way far beyond even what Peter experienced in Acts 2. Peter couldn’t help but think of Joel 2 when the Holy Spirit came down in cloven tongues of fire and sat on them and they began to speak in other languages and all of the miracles and healings and so on that occurred on that day. But even he in quoting Joel ( as was read by Gordon this morning ), talked about signs in the heavens, and darkness, and the Day of the Lord. So even though it was partially fulfilled on Acts 2 and has very important meaning for us, that was not the final fulfillment. Because Joel is all about the Day of the Lord and all the events leading up to the return of Christ. And that had not happened 2000 years ago when Peter quoted Joel 2. So it was only a partial fulfillment. And when He pours out His Spirit again in these last days, it’s not the same sense of begettal that it was then, but it will be a manifestation of power and the might of almighty God. And it will be, if anything, far more forceful and powerful than what those apostles and disciples experienced on that day of Pentecost.

What did Moses tell the Israelites there in Exodus 14? God told Moses, speak to the people that they move forward. Not backwards from where they had come from. Not giving up the blessings and the deliverance that God had given. But to move forward. The direction is always forward. Luke 21. He says when you see all these things coming you know the end of the age is near. Look up. For your redemption is near. Look up, look forward. Do not look back. Why do we think Lot’s wife is used as an example. Looking back at the worst culture that had ever been on earth, Sodom and Gomorrah. And turned into a pillar of salt. What Paul is saying here is echoed throughout the bible. Jeremiah 7:24 talks about how the people went backward and not forward. Isaiah 37 says to put down roots and bear fruit upward. God has called us out here to put down roots and to bear fruit upward. And if we dwell in the past, bring up the past, worry about the past, remind people of their past, we are not doing the one thing that Paul said above all things he was doing. And that is to look forward to press toward the mark or the prize of the high calling of God in Immanuel. You see we can get so sidetracked so easily brethren by petty issues, by people’s sins, by people’s faults, we can get involved in this world in making a living, we can get involved in so many many many different things that we do not remain God centered. But we worry about this person, that person, this thing, that thing, whatever is going on, wherever, and that becomes our focus, that becomes our problem rather than thinking about God in heaven and thinking about pressing on toward the mark in changing ourselves so that we can be one of those first fruits and be born into the kingdom of God. For lack of vision the people perish. When you start looking at things around you and things that are going wrong and somebody thats going wrong and all these things, you take your mind off Christ. What happened to Peter when he jumped out of the boat to go to Christ, when he looked instead of at Christ at the things around him, the wind, the waves, the I can’t do this, God can’t deliver me, SPILL. And had to be rescued by the One that he was heading for in the first place. Lets not get our minds off our father and His Son. Lets move forward to the prize of the high calling we have been given and not be destroyed and drowned by the waves and the winds of the things we see happening around us. Now do you begin to see why he said so resoundingly, one thing I do, I leave behind the past and I move forward. You might encapsulate all the things Paul wrote and all the books he wrote in that one thing. It is so vitally important to our success as Christians. To always look to God and always look forward and never look behind. I hope you have a very inspiring rest of the day. Now we can have desert.

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A Critique for this Pentecost article is given here

~ by Joel Huan on October 24, 2019.

Posted in Sources