Leviticus 23:22-2522And 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 Lord your God. 23And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 24Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. 25Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. (Leviticus 23:22‑25)
HOW wonderfully, and yet how simply does God bring before us in these feasts, one after another, the whole outline of His ways in this world, from the Fall of man until all is brought back again. The feast of the new meat offering has lasted a long time. Nearly 2000 years have rolled by since the Church of God was first formed at Pentecost by the coming of the Holy Spirit. How much longer it will last we do not know, but we are surely in the last days. Spiritual darkness is settling down over these favored lands long blessed by the light of the gospel; human wickedness and misery is increasing in spite of man’s boasted advancement. The light fades and shadows of the coming great apostasy fall across Christendom. May we not become discouraged by these solemn happenings, even as James tells us: “Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”
A long period of time comes between the feast of weeks and the next feast — between the third month and the seventh — which leaves room, no doubt, for the Church period. Then in verse 22 we have an event which does not carry any date and does not seem to be connected with the other seven yearly feasts.
“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 LORD your God.”
Nothing apparently intervenes between the offering of the two wave loaves and this verse. But it is the time of harvest, and this tells of the blessed hope of our hearts, for the Church period will end with the redeemed of this age being gathered home to heaven. There is no date to this verse, even as we are not told the day nor the hour of the coming of the Lord.
The gleanings left for “the poor, and to the stranger,” might well speak of some from among the Jews and also the Gentiles who, after the Church is gone, will believe the gospel of the kingdom and will be martyred for their faith. They will have part in the first resurrection. They will be raised from the dead and enter into heavenly blessing (Rev. 20:44And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4); J.N.D. Trans.)
Then comes the feast of trumpets. This will be a new testimony in the earth. It will not be to gather a people for heaven, but after the long parenthesis in time (the Church period), in the seventh month God undertakes for His earthly people again. The seventh month is in a peculiar way the Jews’ month, and so we have “a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.” When the Son of man appears in power and glory, “He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Matt. 24:3131And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:31).
ML-09/10/1972