If you want to study Pentecost in scripture you will have difficulty until you first learn all of the names that it goes by.  Today we are going to look at the 4 names used for this day and how they factor into 6 fulfillment leading up to the 7th and most important fulfillment yet to come.  The title of the sermon is

The Final Fulfillment of Pentecost

Now, this day is known by 4 names in you bible in various places.

1. Feast of Harvest
2. Feast of the Firstfruits
3. Feast of Weeks
4. Day of Pentecost 

Israel left Egypt on the Feast of Unleavened Bread and tradition has it that the 10 Commandments were actually given on the day of Pentecost.  The first mention in our bibles of this feast is found in Exodus 23.  In Chapter 20 is the giving of the 10 Commandments.  Immediately following this God gives a series of judgments through the next few chapters.  When you come to chapter 23 you see God giving instruction on land Sabbaths, and weekly Sabbaths at it relates to harvest time.  Let’s start in verse 10 for the context.   

Exodus 23:10-16  10 " Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce,  11 "but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.   12 "Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed.

God then Connects Harvesting, Sabbaths, and Worship together.

 13 "And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth.  14 " Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year:  15 "You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty);  16 "and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field.

So notice here that God is focusing on these three times a year, how they relate to the agricultural year and the weekly and yearly land Sabbaths.  The month of ABIB.  It means green ears.  It focuses on the point in the harvest that the first month was determined.  This is the first time they meet to worship each year.  The other two times were also associated with the harvesting.    Unleavened Bread is when the barley was harvested. The Feast of the Harvest is when the wheat was harvested and other first fruits.  And the Feast of the Ingathering is when the large fall harvest took place.

All three had a harvest theme.  But Unleavened Bread and Pentecost were linked for two other reasons.  Firstfruits and the Wave sheaf offering.  The first harvest of the year happened during Unleavened Bread when the first of the Barley was picked and offered to God.  This was the first of the Firstfruits that would continue to the harvesting around Pentecost time.

Leviticus 23:7-12   7 'On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.  8 'But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.' "  9 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,  10 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest.  11 '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.  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 we see the linkage, just as we did in Exodus 23, of Harvesting,  Sabbath, and Worship.  And we know that played a crucial role in fulfilling some of these aspects.  But notice some peculiar clues that most of the world misses during His resurrection. 

Matthew 12:39-41   39 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.  40 "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.  41 "The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

If you don’t keep the Holy Days the meaning of that prophecy is lost upon you.  That particular year, Jesus was crucified on Wednesday and put into the tomb right before sundown late that afternoon.

3 days and 3 nights later you find yourself at the weekly Sabbath and right before sundown on that Sabbath He rose from the dead.  The next morning Jesus told Mary not to cling to Him because He had not yet ascended to the Father.  What did Jesus do for all of those hours between sundown and sunrise and why didn’t He go instantly to the Father? Paul records in:

1 Corinthians 15:51-52   51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed --  52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Paul gives another description of these events in:

1 Thessalonians 4:15-16   15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.  16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

So if the process to resurrect life will happen in a moment with a shout of an archangel the dead will rise and meet Christ at His return.  So why the delay at the time of Christ’s resurrection?  Personally I take a lot of comfort that Jesus rose from the dead on the weekly Sabbath during the days of unleavened bread.

When Jesus rose on the third day it was not yet the Morrow after the weekly Sabbath when the High Priest would wave the Sheaf of the grain before God as an offering of First Fruits to God before anyone in the Nation would partake of the grain.  He then waited till the next day to ascend to the Father.  As the first of the Firstfruits to be resurrected.  Jesus became that Wave sheaf offering and thus became the first of the Firstfruits.  This is the 1st fulfillment of Pentecost.  

1 Corinthians 15:20-21   20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.

We are Firstfruits (Pentecost) but Christ is the first of the Firstfruits (Wave Sheaf).  The resurrection open to mankind is 2nd  fulfillment of Pentecost. 

Acts 1:1-5  NKJ The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,  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,  3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.  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 from Me;  5 "for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."  

Jesus waited after his resurrection for the time of the wave sheaf and he is telling his disciples to wait for the right time (Pentecost to officially start the church.  The Start of the Church of God is the 3rd fulfillment of Pentecost.  So they waited in Jerusalem until the promise of the Father that Jesus told them about the night He was arrested.

John 14:26   26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will be your teacher in all things and will put you in mind of everything I have said to you.

John 16:7-14   7 "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.  8 "And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:  9 "of sin, because they do not believe in Me;  10 "of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;  11 "of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.  12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  13 "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.  14 "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

So the Spirit of God was poured out to God’s people is the 4th fulfillment of Pentecost.

Again, Jesus could have poured out the Holy Spirit right there and then but He told them to wait for the promise and that was fulfilled on Pentecost.

So we see the names of Feast of Harvest and Feast of Firstfruits were given to point to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and then those who would follow Him in the first Resurrection.  The Church in the wilderness only knew about the Agricultural thankfulness that came with the Wave Sheaf, and Feast of Harvest celebration.

It is also called the Feast of Weeks because you find this day by counting.  When you consider that unless you lived in Israel during the Kingdom Period of Israel you would never have known when to keep this day.  To keep this day you would have had to know when the year started.  Some years had 12 months, others 13. The Priests determined the start by the grain and the moon.  Secondly you would have to keep the Sabbath and know which Sabbath was the start of the counting.  Without these you could not find the feast of the Firstfruits.  Israel was the first fruit of the Church Of God.  The 5th fulfillment is the Church of God has become the Israel of God.

Galatians 6:15-16  15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.  16 And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

To create a people with God’s spirit to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and overcome this world.  When we are baptized, we have a laying on of hands to request God send His Holy Spirit onto a person who has repented and committed to following His Son.  That spirit begins a new life within us that has hope of eternal life.  Before God’s Spirit there was no life potential for anyone. 

But that Spirit begins a work in us toward a new spiritual creation. 

NKJ Ephesians 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,  2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love,  3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling;  5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;  6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

When we sin, we repent, ask for forgives.  We ask for His spirit to wash us clean again and reconnect us with Him.  We need His spirit to understand the spiritual things of God.  And as we grow we conquer the carnality that lies within our members.  We fight and we scratch the sin within us till it is removed.  When we talk about those who have died in the faith we talk about how their work is finished and they now await the kingdom.  Turn to:

2 Timothy 4:7-8   7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

The Saints overcoming this world is the 6th fulfillment.

But His spirit in us points to one fulfillment yet for each of us.

Romans 8:3-17  3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,  4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

This Scripture is hinting to that final fulfillment in us. Continuing to v5

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.  7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.  8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

So we see this dramatic comparison between being physical and death, and being spiritual and life.  Carnality is the enemy of God and death is the enemy of God.  Continuing in verse 9.

Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.  10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.  12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors -- not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.  15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."  16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,  17 and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

Remember that Paul was talking to converted people with God’s Spirit and he called them heirs of God.  And Heir is someone who receives an inheritance.  What is our inheritance? 

1 Corinthians 15:50   50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption.

Our inheritance is to no longer be composed of flesh and blood and have a physical body.  We talk today how we need His spirit to overcome the weakness of the flesh.  But one day, we will no longer be composed of that weak flesh.  We will be made of that same spirit that dwells in us now. 

The 7th and ultimate fulfillment of Pentecost is that the Sons and Daughters that are joint heirs with Christ will be composed of that same spirit as the Father and Son.  Right now God’s spirit dwells in us, brings His word to mind, allows Christ to dwell in us and for us to be one with both the Father and the son.  But we are still dying.  The last enemy to be overcome is death and that can only happen when His children are composed of the same Spirit as God.  Let’s review the 7 fulfillments of Pentecost.  

1. Jesus as the Wave sheaf became the first of the Firstfruits.
2. The resurrection open to mankind. 
3. The establishment of the Church of God
4. Spirit of God poured out to Gods People
5. The Church of God has become the Israel of God
6. The Saints overcoming this world
7. * Flesh becoming Spirit and inheriting the Kingdom is the final Fulfillment of Pentecost