Deuteronomy 16:1-17.
THREE times every year a journey was to be made, and not empty handed, to the place, once more mentioned, where the Lord their God set His Name. These occasions were the passover (verses 1-8); the feast of weeks, or pentecost, (verses 9-12), the feast of tabernacles, (verses 13-15). In two other passages of Scripture these and other services of God appear. (Leviticus 23; and Numbers, chapters 28, 29.
The passover was at the beginning of the year, the constant reminder of redemption, —God’s foundation act for His people, —and in the place which He should choose to place His Name there (verses 2, 6 and 7), the redeemed ones were to be found, celebrating the great deliverance He had made for them, having put away sin from their dwellings. It was truly a time of remembrance, looking back to the day when they came forth out of the land of Egypt. So the Christian is enjoined, in the touching words of his Lord, “This do in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24, 25), to recall the vastly greater work of Christ in the one offering of Himself on the cross of Calvary.
When seven weeks had passed after the beginning of the harvest, the feast of weeks brought all the males, as representing the hosts of Israel, in case all the family could not come, again to the place which the Lord their God had chosen to place His name there. It was now a free will offering, as He had blessed them (verse 10), and all are seen there, —the heads of the families, their sons and daughters and their servants, the Levites too, and the, stranger, the fatherless and the widow were to be brought there to the place of God’s appointment. This is a forecast of the beginning of Christianity on the principle of redemption and a new covenant.
Lastly, after the gathering in of the grain and the grapes, the people are to meet again in the appointed place, now to celebrate the full joy of God’s grace to Israel in the land.
This in its true meaning has not come to pass yet, for there must be first, God’s gathering in of His own (the grain), before the storm of judgment breaks, and treading down His enemies in the wine-press (Revelation 14:14-20; Isaiah 63:1-6), and these events cannot take place before the close of the present day of grace.
Where, we may ask, in the language of 1 Peter 4:18, shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Trusting in themselves, and indifferent to God, they will be eternally lost.
O, dear children, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” 2 Cor. 6:2.
ML 12/14/1924