Lessons From the Fifty Days

Well, back on April the twentieth, the day after the weekly Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we entered a specific period of time that takes us all the way through to the Spring Holy Day that we know as 'Pentecost' that Mr. Martens mentioned in the announcements. We are right now nearing the end of that period because Pentecost is a little over a week away; it will be on the eighth of June.

Let's turn to Leviticus 23, a section of scripture we are all very familiar with. We spend a lot of time throughout the year in these scriptures because these relate directly to God's Holy Days that we observe faithfully each year. Lev. 23:15 "And you shall count for yourselves the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be completed:" Verse 16 "Count fifty days until the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord." We see in these two verses that God instructs us to do something as it pertains to ourselves, establishing when Pentecost is to be observed. Notice He says for us to count for ourselves… fifty days. Now, some of you are really math geniuses, so you can count very well. It's easy when we read these scriptures; He says count for yourselves fifty days from or beginning with (as more correctly translated), the day after the Sabbath. This is the same day they brought the sheaf of the wave offering. It was from this point in time that the counting was to begin. What we see from this is that this point in time, which brings us to Pentecost, is the only one of God's festivals that does not fall on the same day in the Hebrew calendar every year. It always falls on the day after the weekly Sabbath, but not necessarily on the same Hebrew calendar day, because it has to be counted from a specific point in time; that time being the day after the weekly Sabbath that falls during the Days of Unleavened Bread. (We'll see the proof of that shortly.)

The question for us to consider during the message today: Do these fifty days from the Days of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost have any special significance, any special meaning or application for us? What might be some of the things that God would have us to consider during this time? (I realize we're getting down toward the end of this time, but it's never a wrong time to think about the meaning that is behind these fifty days.) You see, God didn't intend for these fifty days to just fill the void between one Holy Day and the next; there's a purpose, there's an intent for us. We're going to look a little closer at this entire fifty-day period and see what there is for us to learn from this period of time. Probably what I'm going to cover today isn't all of it, but at least it's some of the main themes I think we can glean from these days.

From the first day to the fiftieth day, I think, we'll see some amazing things that God is working out in his plan of salvation that we see unfold in this fifty-day period.

Lev. 23:21 "And you shall proclaim on the same day, that it is a holy convocation unto you; you shall do no customary work on it: it shall be a statute forever in all of your dwellings throughout your generations." This fiftieth day we will come to is to be observed forever throughout your generations. This was a day when a new grain offering was to be made, because this was to be a holy convocation. It's a time when God's people come together, as we still do today to worship him. We know from the scripture that the Jews call this day by several different names: Feast of Firstfruits (for obvious reasons we'll see in a moment.); Feast of Weeks, (due naturally to the counting of seven weekly cycles that had to be fulfilled prior to this holy convocation that we read about in verse twenty-one). Pentecost is also as we talked about last week, when the Jews read the book of Ruth in their services.

It becomes clear that this counting of fifty days brings us to the day of Pentecost, which we observe the day after the weekly Sabbath, which of course would be a Sunday.

Lev. 23:17 "You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two- tenths of an ephah (that's approximately one bushel): they shall be of fine flour, they shall be baked with leaven, they are the firstfruits to the Lord." Here we're looking at the fiftieth day, after the counting is completed on the Day of Pentecost. I want to continue reading on down through verse twenty and again I want us to think about what is being said because we'll be going back to some of these words. Lev.23:18 "And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year without blemish, one young bull, and two rams: they shall be a burnt offering to the Lord, with the grain offering and their drink offering, an offering made by fire, for a sweet aroma to the Lord." Verse 19 "Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering, and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering." Verse 20 "The priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest."

As you go through this, and you start analyzing what is being said here, I want us to begin contrasting this offering on this fiftieth day back to the offerings made on the first day; the connection is made by these fifty days. The fifty days connect these two periods of time… these two Holy Days. When you look at these two, you begin to see some similarities but you definitely see some differences.

Let's go back up to verse nine, back to the offering made on the first day of the fifty days… which would have been Sunday, the first day after the weekly Sabbath, during the Days of Unleavened Bread. We'll read through these and then we'll come back. Lev. 23:9 "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying," Verse 10 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, 'When you come into the land which I give to you and you reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest:" Verse 11 "he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf, (I'm emphasizing some of these words, because we will be coming back to them.) on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it." Verse 12 "And you shall offer on that day when you wave the sheaf a male lamb of the first year without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord." So, again between verse nine and verse twenty one we have this entire fifty day period covered with a tremendous amount of meaning for us to glean from it. Back in verse nine it talks about the wave sheaf. I don't want to get into a great deal of depth about that subject today; it's another sermon and believe me, it's a full sermon to cover that. Let me give you a summary of it so you'll get the gist of it. I think we are all aware that this wave sheaf represented Jesus Christ who was the first of the firstfruits. That's what it says here: that these were presented as the firstfruits of their harvest. He was the first of the firstfruits, He was the first one to be 'harvested', He's the first one who was flesh who was changed to spirit; He was the first to be accepted by the Father. (It's another one of those scriptures that shoots the oneness doctrine down, doesn't it?) Remember that God instituted his Holy Days around the agriculture environment present in Palestine at the time. Ancient Israelites, unlike most of us today, were from an agrarian nation. It's always interesting that they depended totally, completely on God blessing them with the weather; because if they had a failed crop… just like in the time of Ruth, then famine could come on the land quickly. Without food, people couldn't survive; without rain in due season, crops didn't grow. They were much more dependent on God in ways like that, I think, than we are today. They planted and harvested crops; they raised their own animals for their own food, so if you were an Israelite during that time and you came home after the Feast of Tabernacles in the Fall, you would begin planning for your planting for the Spring harvest. Barley and winter wheat would be planted; these two crops would grow through the cooler months and become ripe during the Days of Unleavened Bread in the Spring. In the Spring, they would begin the harvesting the day after the weekly Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread, because that's when the priest offered this wave sheaf offering to God. After that offering was made, then and only then could they begin harvesting their crops. The people would go out into the field and gather up some barley or wheat stalks, bundle them together and bring them to the priest. The harvest once begun after this offering was made, would continue all the way through to Pentecost. That was roughly a fifty-day period of harvesting that was going to take place. This harvest that was taken during this Springtime of the year was a much smaller harvest than the harvest taken later in the Fall around the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. Of course, we have to remember that the Israelites had no concept of the spiritual meaning of what they were doing. They realized the vital importance of this offering, the vital importance of this Spring harvest because it had to sustain them until the larger harvest took place during the Fall. When they went through this ritual, this celebration, they were acknowledging that the harvest was a blessing from God who provided the sun and rain so they could have a bountiful harvest. This fifty-day period was a time of harvesting, which as we're going to see underscores the spiritual meaning for you and me today.

Lev. 23:11 "The priest shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it." The wave sheaf was waved and from what I read in a lot of the commentaries the wave sheaf was lifted up and brought down instead of a side-to-side waving motion. When you think about the symbolism of Christ's resurrection and his ascension to heaven to the Father and back to earth… it makes a little more sense that the wave sheaf would be done that way. Whichever way they did it, this is what they did during this offering. What's important here is that this was made to be accepted by God on behalf of the people. Again, we see the parallel between this offering and that of Jesus Christ who was offered on our behalf; offered for our transgressions, not for himself but for us. Verse 12 "And you shall offer on that day when you wave the sheaf a male lamb of the first year without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord." I THINK IT'S SIGNIFICANT AS IT RELATES TO CHRIST'S SACRIFICE THAT ALONG WITH THIS WAVE SHEAF OFFERING THERE WAS A MALE LAMB WITHOUT BLEMISH ALSO OFFERED. To me it's a clear reference to Christ's sacrifice. The offering we read about in verses seventeen through twenty, the offering that was made on the day of Pentecost… the bread or grain offering was offered with seven lambs of the first year without blemish along with one young bull and two rams. We also see that this offering that was made on Pentecost was offered with one kid of the goats as a sin offering and two male lambs as a peace offering. Unlike the wave sheaf offering, made fifty days earlier during Unleavened Bread which represented the sinless Christ, this offering on Pentecost had as part of its offering an offering for the forgiveness of sin. When we contrast the grain offerings made for each of these different times, one on the first day of the fifty day period and one on the last day, we begin to understand why the difference and the connection.

Notice what is said about this first offering made on the first day of the fifty day period… remember, an offering which represented Jesus Christ. Lev. 23:13 "Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin." A hin was about three and a half liters, twelve pints… that gives you a concept of what size this was. This offering was made at the same time the wave sheaf offering was made. It was two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil. What you notice is that this was just flour and oil, no leavening was in this offering. This was unleavened bread. Remember this takes place during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so naturally they could not make a grain offering during this time with leaven, it had to be unleavened. You also notice that along with this unleavened bread there was to be a drink offering of wine. So, what are the two components of this offering: unleavened bread and wine. It's very easy for us to recognize the significance of this with regards to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and our observance of the Passover; very, very interesting.

If you contrast that first offering on day one with the offering made on Pentecost as we read in Lev. 23:17 "You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah; they shall be of fine flour, they shall be baked with LEAVEN, they are the firstfruits to the Lord." Here we have two loaves of bread that the people themselves had to bake in their own dwellings… so they had to put their own work into this offering, their own effort to make these loaves. They then brought these to the priest as an offering. Again, it says they were made with two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour, but these were baked with leaven. With the wave sheaf, the grain offering was no leavening, which represented the sinless Christ. The two loaves baked with leaven represent whom? They represent the Church; they represent you and me who are not free of sin. These two loaves of leavened bread represent the Church of God's people, God's faithful disciples in both the old and the New Testament before and after the coming of the Holy Spirit. That's what this offering on Pentecost represented. It also represented the two separate, but now two fused races of people who comprised the church: the gentiles and the Israelites.

It's interesting to see how Paul describes this union of these two loaves of bread or what they symbolized. 1 Cor. 12:12 "For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." Verse 13 "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free--and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." When did this drinking in of one Spirit begin for the Church? Pentecost, 31 AD; that's when this started.

Lev.23:17 "… as firstfruits to the Lord." We have on this Feast of Weeks, Feast of Firstfruits, Pentecost at the end of the fifty days of harvesting, the birth of the New Testament Church as represented by these two leavened loaves of grain. Verse 18 says these loaves were a pleasing aroma to the Lord, just as God's Church is pleasing to him. We're told in verse 20 "The priest shall wave them (the loaves and all the other offerings that were put with them) with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs; (and notice) they shall be holy to the Lord FOR THE PRIEST." What that says basically is that this offering was taken, and the priesthood for their own sustenance used it. It's much the same today, the ministry (the paid ministry), are provided for through the tithes and offerings of the church. The same principle applies. Let me bring out one more last important point we find here in Leviticus 23 and that is on which day the wave sheaf offering was to be made. This is a point of contention and always has been for years and years and occasionally it rears its head again in the Church of God and people start trying to figure out it's different days and you get into all sorts of hoopla. I'm a simple man, I like to look at things simply and I think God's word makes it very clear when you just don't try to confuse things.

Remember which day the wave sheaf offering was to be made; because that's the day you have to start counting to get to Pentecost fifty days later. Lev. 23:11 "And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted on your behalf on the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it." The question is: which Sabbath is it talking about? That's always the question that comes up. Notice down in verse 15, we noticed in verse 11 that it said on the day after the Sabbath was when the priest was to wave it. Verse 15 "And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath" (again we see the same terminology, this was the day the wave sheaf offering was to be made and that's when the count was started; we know that sometimes understanding things in the scripture requires reading them in the context they were written in). What is the main information we find given to us in Leviticus 23? This is the one place where we have all of God's festivals and Holy Days laid out for us in chronological order. Notice verses one and two: Lev. 23:1-2 "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:" Verse 2 "Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: the feasts of the Lord which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts." These are feast days, holy convocations that God proclaims to be HIS; they are the days that He set apart for his people to come together to worship him. Notice what we see to be the FIRST holy convocation: Verse 3 "Six days shall your work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a solemn rest, a holy convocation; you shall do no work on it. It is THE Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings." This is the first of the holy convocations that God lists here. In verses four through eight, we have the Passover and Unleavened Bread mentioned; if you read through that, there is no mention of a Sabbath day. The term is not mentioned again until we get to verse eleven when we read where it talks about the day after the Sabbath was when the priest should wave the wave offering. When we drop down to verses fifteen and sixteen, we see the same terminology used again. Lev. 23:15-16 "And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven Sabbaths shall be counted, be completed." Verse 16 "Count fifty days until the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord." Since there's no reference to festivals being annual Sabbaths, but only a reference to a weekly Sabbath, beginning in Verse three… it becomes obvious in reading this whole section that the weekly Sabbath is what's being referenced in verses eleven and also in verses fifteen and sixteen. The same phraseology is used in all four verses. Each of these days being referenced is The Sabbath of the Lord, which is the weekly Sabbath. The Sabbath day that is used is the Sabbath day when we begin to count the fifty-day countdown to Pentecost is the weekly Sabbath that falls during Unleavened Bread. To me, when I read that, it is pretty simple to understand; so what's to argue? Nothing, in my book.

In the Bible, God as an analogy uses the harvest of physical crops. They represent or are a type of God's people and we're to learn spiritual lessons from these harvests because we see what God is doing spiritually when we take time to analyze the agrarian harvest of that part of the world. God is in the process right now of bringing sons and daughters into his kingdom. What He is harvesting are human beings, human lives and He's bringing them into his family. As we've read, the wave sheaf offering represents Jesus Christ and the first one harvested; the first one changed from flesh to spirit. He was the first of many yet to come. After Christ, the wave sheaf, was offered, God could then begin harvesting his church. He could begin then to pour his Spirit upon more people. God began to call people; began to work with them, to give them his Holy Spirit… giving to those who would become his church, those who are called in the scriptures the 'firstfruits'. I think we might have covered in a sermon before how awesome and important the firstfruits are in God's plan of salvation, sometimes we lose track of that and I think it's important for us to realize just how important God's firstfruits are to him and important to God fulfilling his purpose for all of humanity. The harvest that took place in the fifty day period between Unleavened Bread and Pentecost; this harvest represents you and me. That is something we have to think about… there is a purpose for fifty days between these periods of time. If we know these fifty days revolve around us as part of God's firstfruits, what should these days do for us? How should we respond to these days in light of the truth that God reveals in these days?

We must realize this fifty-day period is a very special time. God didn't intend for it to just go by without us giving some thought to it. Hopefully we've spent time thinking about it up to this point and will think about it during the next week… thinking about and considering what these days mean to each of us individually. You and I have been given to partake of the divine nature of God himself. We have a purpose. We have a calling in our lives that the rest of humanity, right now, cannot share. They don't have the understanding; it hasn't been given to them. You and I understand how we fit into the eternal plan of salvation that God is directing and is being played out on the stage of human history. You see, for us the great, awesome God has injected himself (think about this)… He has injected himself into each of our personal lives. What a wonderful, wonderful blessing that has to be. We are part of the firstfruits. We are part of that early harvest that God is harvesting. It's something we should treasure in our hearts and be very, very thankful for every day. Throughout the scriptures there's a great deal that God talks about in the use of numbers. Fifty is one of those numbers. Because as I think about the fifty days between Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, I can't help but think about another joyous fifty time period. Most of you, your minds have already gone there and that of course is the Jubilee, which is celebrated every fifty years. (You can read about that in Leviticus 25:8-12.) It's also called the Year of Liberty in Ezekiel 46. Every fifty years properties were reverted to their original owners; people who had lost land and possessions over this period of time… those were returned to them and their families. This was done by God to prevent poverty from plaguing successive generations of the same families. The Jubilee was celebrated as a time of liberty and freedom, so too, are the fifty days between Unleavened Bread and Pentecost. As you and I have had our sins forgiven by the blood of our Passover, Jesus Christ and we begin the process of putting sin out of our lives and eating the unleavened bread of righteousness. as we begin to grow and develop with the very heart and mind of Jesus Christ, God has begun performing his spiritual harvest of a people represented by these fifty days between Unleavened Bread and Pentecost; a people who could receive freedom and liberty from their bondage to sin. During these fifty days, we're given the opportunity to rejoice and reflect on how well God's fields are ripening.

What's another thing we can glean from these fifty days of harvest between Unleavened Bread and Pentecost? I think that we can see that we're not only a part of the firstfruits harvested, but we are also to be enthusiastic laborers in that spiritual harvest. I know it's a concept that's hard to believe that I'm being harvested, but I also have to be a laborer in the harvest, but that is what's true about this. You see, the fifty days aren't intended for us to just sit back on our backsides and do nothing… that's not what God's intent is. Christ has given us a job to do as laborers in his fields. It's a job that we find in Acts chapter one that was given directly to God's people by Christ himself. This is a very, very important section of scripture for us to consider as our part in the harvest that God is doing.

Acts 1:1 "The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach" Verse 2 "until the day in which He was taken up, after He, through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen." He tells us right up front that Christ gave specific commandments and instructions to his apostles, hence to the Church, to his people. Verse 3 "To whom He also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them forty days and speaking to them things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." For forty of the fifty days between Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, Jesus appeared to his disciples and He taught them. Verse 4 "And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father which He said, 'You have heard of from Me'; Verse 5 "for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." He was, of course, pointing them to Pentecost when they would receive God's Holy Spirit. That's when they were going to become laborers in God's spiritual harvest. Verse 6 "Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him saying, 'Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?" Did they get it yet? No, they did not. They did not understand Christ's meaning, nor did they understand what He expected from them at this time. But remember, He told them in John 14:25 they would receive understanding when they were infused with the power of God's Holy Spirit. They couldn't understand this yet. They understood the words He was saying; they didn't understand the meaning.

Acts 1:7 "And He said to them, 'It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority." Verse 8 "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be a witness to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." The job of preaching the gospel message that Jesus Christ brought to the earth was a direct commission from Jesus Christ to his Church. If you back to Matthew 28 and Mark 16 and Luke 24, you can read that commission that Christ gave. What Christ was basically saying to you and me, to his people down through the ages is 'I've got a job for you to do; I'm commanding you to do that work! I'm commanding you to participate in my harvest.' He tells us that He will give us the power through the Holy Spirit to accomplish that work. Remember Christ said in John 4:35 "Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest?' Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white with harvest.'"

When we look at this corrupt, sin- filled, sickening world that's getting worse every day, do we look at the people in this world the way Christ looked at them? Do we look at them as being ripe for harvest? That's how Christ sees people. Sometimes we don't see it that clearly.

Matt. 9:37-38 "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few;" Verse 38 "therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." Do we pray that God will send more people to work in his harvest, in other words to call more people that they can become part of the work that God has given us to be a part of? Christ spoke these words after He saw the multitudes of people who came to hear his words of hope and of life and to be healed. Christ was moved with compassion for those people, these people who were filled with sin, filled with sickness, had no regard for God or man, but Christ had compassion on them because He said they were weary and scattered. They were like sheep having no shepherd. Christ will complete his spiritual harvest; you and I have our part in making sure that we are there doing our part to help him with that harvest.

These fifty days from Unleavened Bread to Pentecost should be a time when we can celebrate; when we can rejoice in the fact that we have the privilege and awesome opportunity to be a part of the work of God… a work that carries the message of hope to a truly hurting and suffering world we live in. Not only have we been called to be firstfruits in God's harvest now, but also we are directly commissioned by Jesus Christ to assist him as enthusiastic laborers in his spiritual harvest; a harvest that is going to continue right up to the time of his return. Our focus as we approach Pentecost should be on seeking God's Kingdom with renewed zeal and continued commitment to a personal growth and dedication to God; a commitment to zealously seek to be laborers worthy of our wages, wages which will be eternal life in the family of God. With the few days we have left between now and Pentecost, let's become more spiritually invested in the harvest that the Lord of the harvest is completing. Let's be a part of God's work.