Aerial photograph of an island just off the coast of Greenland by Túrelio
Good morning, friends,
I wrote yesterday’s post very late last night. So if you missed it, do scroll on down. 🙂 It was a blender kind of day. Yet, let’s praise Him no matter what! Don’t miss this worship song…
A Grateful People/Bless The Lord by Watermark
We are at Pentecost. Now, a common misconception of Pentecost that I had and maybe you might have is that this started with the apostles and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So lets dive in.
I could try to explain the entire feasts system but for today’s purposes lets just look at Pentecost. I was trying to find a handy, dandy chart like my sweet chart in my Bible online and I am AMAZED at all the @#$%^&*(* out there. Truly. Don’t look for yourself unless you know what you are looking for and know exactly what the feasts mean. Satan is alive and well online. I digress…
I’m back!! So seven weeks after Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits Feasts (or in our terms Easter), in the 3rd month of Sivan, the Jews/Israelites would gather together to celebrate the Festival of Pentecost (Shavuot). This is why the apostles had gathered all together. Yes, Jesus had told them to ..”not leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’He said,’you heard of from Me;” ( Acts 1:4), but they were together on the day of Pentecost.
A grain field along Gordon Ridge Road. by Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives
What does this Feast mean? Let’s look..drum roll, you are diving into Leviticus 23! You can do it!
15 And you shall count from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven Sabbaths; [seven full weeks] shall they be.
16 Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall present a cereal offering of new grain to the Lord.
A grain field near Mikkalo Road. Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives
17 You shall bring from your dwellings two loaves of bread to be waved, made from two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven, for firstfruits to the Lord.
Six Braided Jewish Challah with sesame. by Aviv Hod
18 And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs, a year old and without blemish, and one young bull and two rams. They shall be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their cereal offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire, of a sweet and satisfying fragrance to the Lord.
19 Then you shall sacrifice one he-goat for a sin offering and two he-lambs, a year old, for a sacrifice of peace-offering.
20 The priest shall wave the two lambs, together with the bread of the firstfruits, for a wave offering before the Lord. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest.
21 You shall make proclamation the same day, summoning a holy assembly; you shall do no servile work that day. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
I gave you some pictures..sorry, didn’t give you any of the burnt offerings (7 lambs, 1 bull and 2 rams) or the peace-offering (1 he-goat and 2 he lambs)..I’ll assume you are thanking me. Remember however it seems brutal to you and to me, this was critical for the communion between God and his beloved. The sacrificial system was the only way until Jesus to allow Holy God to commune with His beloved. The offerings were a “sweet and satisfying fragrance to the Lord”…You must get past your thoughts on this and consider what the blood can do. The blood is what cleanses. It is what frees. The brutality reminds me and hopefully remind you of the disgusting nature of our sin to God! Our sin is brutal to God. I would do well to remember this much more often.
Seriously, though, flash forward to the time of the apostles now and they have gathered together waiting. Not sure, when is the promise of what is to come?
And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all assembled together in one place,
2 When suddenly there came a sound from heaven like the rushing of a violent tempest blast, and it filled the whole house in which they were sitting.
3 And there appeared to them tongues resembling fire, which were separated and distributed and which settled on each one of them.
4 And they were all filled (diffused throughout their souls) with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other (different, foreign) languages (tongues), as the Spirit [a]kept giving them clear and loud expression [in each tongue in proper words].
5 Now there were then residing in Jerusalem Jews, devout and God-fearing men from every country under heaven.
6 And when this sound was heard, the multitude came together and they were astonishedand bewildered, because each one heard them [the apostles] speaking in his own [particular] dialect.
7 And they were beside themselves with amazement, saying, Are not all these who are talking Galileans?
8 Then how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own (particular) dialect to which we were born?
9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and [the province of] Asia,
10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and the transient residents from Rome, both Jews and the proselytes [to Judaism from other religions],
11 Cretans and Arabians too—we all hear them speaking in our own native tongues [and telling of] the mighty works of God!
More on this…TOMORROW! 🙂
Yeehaw! Pray on, beloved..Pray on.
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