Gathered Around the Fire

THE FESTIVAL OF WEEKS or PENTECOST? FESTIVAL OF WEEKS is an appropriate name, because the word week means seven and a week of weeks is 7, 7s or 49 days so the next day after a week of weeks is fifty or Pentecost.  PENTECOST means 50 . Have you ever been standing near a corner you couldn't quite see around? Yet because the sun was behind them, you could see things approaching the corner by the shadows they cast. In other words you saw the shadows before you saw the reality.  In many ways prophetic words or 'signs' under the first covenant were just shadows of things coming around the corner later. The men who lived in those times could see the shadow of Christ coming, but they did not see the reality of it. The Book of  Hebrews says about them, they longed to see the Promise but didn't.   The shadow of Pentecost was seen coming around the corner, all the way back in Exodus... Just about six weeks (42 days) after the sudden miraculous E...

Looking at the THIRD festival of the Spring - the  F estival of  First Fruits BEGINNING OF THE BARLEY HARVEST - the bread of affliction.  After His death and resurrection, the writer of Hebrews discusses that Jesus first descended into the earth and then ascended into heaven. He wants us to know that He has filled all things, that Jesus is the first in all things, He is preeminent in all things.  “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” (Now this,  “He ascended” —what does it mean but that He also first   descended into the lower parts of the earth?  10  He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) Just as Jesus fulfilled the law as the CHOSEN LAMB when he followed in the route of the Lamb on the day of selection.   Just as He died at the appointed time   to become the final Passover Lamb ;  Now He ascended into heaven, ...

In certain places in Scripture Jesus is called the bread that came down out of Heaven. He came as the sinless one, correlating to the unleavened bread eaten during the feast of the same name. Lets not forget that the feast of the over-comers was eaten during the feast of unleavened bread, therefore they would be eating the bread of affliction.  Isaiah 53:3-5 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)   People despised and avoided him, a man of pains, well acquainted with illness. Like someone from whom people turn their faces, he was despised ; we did not value him.   In fact, it was our diseases he bore, our pains from which he suffered; yet we regarded him as punished, stricken and afflicted by God .   But he was wounded because of our crimes , (he was) crushed because of our sins; the disciplining that makes us whole fell on him,  and by his bruises* we are healed.   When we were looking at the Feast of the Overcomers a month or so ag...

Looking at the second of the three spring  F estivals,  The Feast of U nleavened Bread - removing hypocrisy and mixture. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast.   On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off  from Israel.   On the first day hold a sacred assembly , and another one on the seventh day. Do no work  at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do.   “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread,  because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt.  Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.   In the first month  you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.   For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone,...

Where are you in the Journey from coming out of Egypt to entering the the promised land?  Before you answer that question even in your own mind, let's look at the  historic Scriptural context. Scripture taken from Exodus 12 NIV unless otherwise noted.  We just came through the season of the Spring festivals, a month ago and now we want to take a look at  The first of the three Spring Festivals...  Passover, initiated by God for His people. "Eat it in haste;  it is the  Lord ’s Passover."    Exodus 12:11b I put this verse in right up front, for those who think Passover belongs to the Jews. Scripture uses the possessive tense here, the Lord's as in belonging to the Lord, not belonging to the Jews, but of course He shares His good things with His people. First the Lamb must be  Chosen  The  Lord  said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt,   2  “This month is to be for you the first month,  the first month...