This is a wonderful chapter about seven holidays which the people of Israel were to have every year. God gave them to the people, and told them just when to have each one.
Holidays are often meant to remind us of something that once happened. This is true of some of God’s holidays in this chapter, but some of them told of a time to come.
First Feast
Sabbath
The first one stood by itself. While all the others came once a year, this was once every week, on the day now called Saturday, the seventh and last day of the week. From Sunday to Friday, Work should be done, but the Sabbath was a day of rest, set apart to God, and on it no work should be done.
Since we began these Bible Lessons, we have noticed a number of times, the mention of the Sabbath. As someone has said, Every time a new subject is mentioned, from Mount Sinai on, God speaks of the Sabbath. It is because He would have His people know of His great promise which goes beyond all others to them,—of bringing them at last into His rest.
Dear young reader, to-day, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts! You will never be at peace with God, never know the Christian’s portion, never sing the new song of which Rev. 5:99And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; (Revelation 5:9) and 10 speaks, unless you claim the Lord Jesus as your own personal Saviour, now while you may.
Come to Jesus now!
The Sabbath was the first day to be mentioned, as it told of the end of God’s purposes for His people,—to bring them into His rest.
Second Feast
Passover
The second one was the passover, and that leads us back to the twelfth chapter of Exodus; and forward in our Bibles to the cross of Christ.
The blood of a lamb was shed, in Old Testament times, as a picture or shadow of the blood of The Lamb that was yet to be shed. Rev. 7:1414And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:14) tells of some who have washed’ their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Here, then, is our starting point in God’s calendar for sinners.
Were the children of Israel all safe from the visit of God that night in Egypt, because some had the blood of a dead lamb on their door posts? No, only those were safe who were behind the blood. And is it true that since Jesus has died, no one will be lost forever? No, only those are saved who have believed in Him, as their own precious Saviour. Dear reader, have you?
Immediately after the passover, was the week of unleavened bread. Are you saved? If so, then your life should show that you are.
This week without leaven we can understand when we remember that leaven is always a type of sin. With the passover, the dying of Jesus—behind us Christians, we ought to spend our lives without allowing sin. We belong to the Lord Jesus; shall ways and thoughts and talk that He cannot be pleased with, be ours?
The seven days of verse 6 are to speak to us about our whole lives,—the full time we have to spend here. “No servile work” could be done: not for themselves, but for God, were they to live.
“An offering made by fire”—the Lord in His devoting Himself to God—was to be before them every day. Is He as often in your thoughts?
Third Feast
Resurrection
As the Lord’s death was foreshadowed in the second of the seven “feasts”, or set times, so His resurrection and acceptance as a Man in the glory of God, are shown in the third. Two scriptures, in particular, tell us this; one is John 12:24,24Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (John 12:24) Where, during the week before the crucifixion, the Lord Jesus said to Andrew and Philip, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
He was the “corn of wheat,” which, unless it die, “abides alone,” but dying, brings forth “much fruit”—-many people to share His glory.
The other scripture, which perhaps more than any other, explains today’s lesson, is in the great resurrection chapter, 1 Con 15:20-23 chiefly. Christ is the “first fruits”, as verse 23 plainly says.
Now in verse 11 of Leviticus 23, you will see that the waved sheaf was “to be accepted” for the people. God has accepted Jesus on our behalf, who trust in Him. We are, as Eph. 1:66To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:6) expresses it, “accepted in the Beloved.” So great is the work of His Person who gave Himself for our sins, and so powerful the work which He did in dying for us, that we who have turned to God to wait for His Son from heaven, are “washed from our sins in His own blood, and... made. . . kings and priests unto God.” (Rev. 1:5, 65And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, 6And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (Revelation 1:5‑6).)
What kindness, what love! But, have you, dear reader, accepted what God has done? If not, you are neglecting the only way of escape from being lost for eternity.
Fourth Feast
Pentecost
Seven full weeks after the third, came the fourth of the fixed times, or feasts of the Lord. Like the third great day in the year, this one was on the first day of the week, the day following the Sabbath.
In this holiday, God was looking on to that day, just fifty days after the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, of which we read in the second chapter of Acts,—the birthday of the Church. This is why verse 16 speaks of a new offering; and verse 17 of bringing out of their homes, loaves baked with leaven, which is always used in the Bible to refer to sin. In us who compose the Church, there is sin; but in the Lord Jesus, there was none, so we have in verse 18, with the leavened bread, seven lambs without blemish of the first year, one young bullock, and two rams, for a burnt offering, and a sin offering, and a peace or thanksgiving offering in verse 19,—all of these pointing to the precious blood of Jesus, by which all believers are redeemed.
It was a new work that the Holy Spirit began, in Acts 2, gathering out a people for heaven, and when His work is ended with the coming of the Lord (1 Thess. 4:15, 1715For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. (1 Thessalonians 4:15)
17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17)), it will not be begun again. God will bring blessing to this world afterward, yet through that thousand years, which we call the millennium, though the other holidays of this chapter will be observed. The fourth one will not be at all, because the heavenly people will have been caught away, never to live on this earth again.
The Old Testament does not mention the Church, though it leaves room for it, but in the first chapter of Eph. we learn that it was a mystery, or secret, which God kept back until Jesus died and rose again, and commissioned the apostle Paul to tell the story.
If you, dear reader, are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you are not only saved but belong to the Church of God.
Are you saved? Do you know the Lord as your own personal Saviour?
Fifth Feast
Blowing of Trumpets
This section of the chapter gives us the fifth and sixth of the fixed times which God appointed for the children of Israel to celebrate every year.
The fifth one was on the first day of the seventh month. It was not reckoned from the fourth of the fixed days, but from the Passover in the first month. As each of these “convocations” or gatherings was distinct and different, so the special thing on the fifth day was the blowing of trumpets, but no work could be done then, and an offering was to be made by fire to the Lord. This “feast of trumpets” was a foreshadowing of that future day when God will wake up the sleeping hosts of Israel to seek their God again. “Arid many of them which sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:22And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)). This is at the beginning of the millennium when God will gather again into their land (Palestine) the twelve tribes of Israel.
Sixth Feast
Atonement
The sixth one of the set days was the day of atonement in the tenth day of the seventh month, ten days after the feast of trumpets. The people were then to “afflict their souls”, as they were told twice, in verses 27 and 32. This also speaks of the time when Israel shall be gathered again into the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They are to learn what they did in turning away from their Redeemer, saying, “Crucify Him! Crucify. Him!” Something of this we see in Zechariah 12:1010And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10) to 14, and other passages in the Word of God. The godly ones will then understand Psalm 22, and Isaiah 53, which they do not now.
Dear reader, will you not apply these verses in our lesson to-day to yourself, and ask yourself since, like the Israelites in a coming day (verses 23-25), you have heard the sound of God’s call, the gospel, you have made verses 26 to 32 your own? These verses tell of the finished work of the Son of God; “no work” can be added to what He has done in satisfying God on account of our sins. They were to afflict their souls (to mourn over their sins), and to offer an offering made by fire (a picture of the judgment of sin falling upon Jesus on the cross). Have you owned yourself a sinner to God, and presented Jesus to Him as your Sin bearer?
Seventh Feast
Booths
This section presents the seventh and last of the annual set times which God gave to the people of Israel,—the feast of tabernacles, when all the people were to spend a week living in booths made of branches of trees as a reminder that they had had such houses when God brought them out of Egypt.
By and bye, when the redeemed people of Israel are in their own land in the millennium, they will have this “feast” in a way they never did before. They will look back in their thoughts over all the way God will have brought them, and blessed as they never have been before by Him, in spiritual as well as in natural things, their hearts will go out in praise to Him.
All is connected with the one sinless sacrifice of Jesus. Are all your hopes connected with that, too?