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- Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel, it wasn't their military gods, it wasn't the type of people they were talking about.
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- Good evening and welcome to Sunday Night Bible Study with Pastor Joe Sias Shipley of Wynton Baptist Church.
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- Today we start a series on the Jewish feasts, the festivals, the biblical festivals, and I want to just give you an overview of them.
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- You can find most of these in Leviticus 23, but we're just going to do an overview of the, well, some people say seven, technically there's ten
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- Jewish feasts, and we're going to go over them, and in the next few you can see their significance and how
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- Jesus Christ fulfills these, how these were foreshadowings of Him. So here we go.
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- Leviticus 23 says this, Leviticus 23 verse 1,
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- Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the
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- Lord, that you shall proclaim them as holy convocations or gatherings. These are my appointed feasts, okay?
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- And then in Leviticus 23, He goes through these feasts. So let's go through them one by one. The first one is the
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- Sabbath, now a lot of people don't count this one because it's weekly, it's not just once a year, it's every week, but we have the
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- Sabbath. That would have been Friday evening to Saturday evening.
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- Remember, the Jews counted the days from sundown to sundown. You see this in the creation account, when
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- Moses wrote in Genesis, evening and morning were the first day, evening and morning were the second day.
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- So from sundown to sundown is a 24 -hour day, according to the
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- Jewish calendar. And as you guys study this, remember, the Jews use a lunar calendar, not a solar calendar.
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- So their years end up being, for the most part, 354, I think it is, or 355 days.
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- And then when those days catch up with them, they'll add a 13th month every now and then. Instead of doing a leap year, where we just add a day every four years, they'll add a full month to make up for the quote -unquote missed days on their lunar calendar.
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- All right, so the next one after Sabbath is the Passover, okay? Now on the
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- Passover, it says in verse 5 of Leviticus 23, the first month on the 14th day.
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- So on the Jewish calendar, that would be Nisan, roughly March or April, Nisan the 14th would be
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- Passover. Since it's on Nisan the 14th, that necessarily wouldn't always fall on the same day of the week.
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- That could be on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, whatever. Immediately when Passover starts, immediately after that starts a week called the
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- Feast of Unleavened Bread, okay? So Passover is the kickoff to the
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- Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is a week long. Now, whatever Sabbath day falls, wherever it falls in that week, it's called the
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- Feast of Firstfruits. Whatever day is the Sabbath day during that day. I just missed that.
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- The day after the Sabbath, whatever Sunday falls in that week is the
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- Feast of Firstfruits. So again, in an eight day period, we have three festivals, okay?
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- We have the Passover, Nisan 14, kicks off the week of the
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- Feast of Unleavened Bread. Whatever Sunday, whatever Sunday falls during that week is the
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- Feast of Firstfruits. So those are the first three, and they fall within an eight day period of each other, all in March or April, all in the middle of Nisan, okay?
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- So Passover kicks off the week of Unleavened Bread. Whatever day
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- Sunday is on during that week is the Feast of Firstfruits, okay? Now, these are festivals.
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- Often they come with a sacrifice, a grain offering. Sometimes they come with fasting.
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- Sometimes they come with prayer. Sometimes they come with not doing ordinary work.
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- But all of these are taking place in an eight day period. Now, verse 15, you shall count seven full weeks from the day after the
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- Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the way of offering. You'll count 50 days to the day after the seventh
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- Sabbath, and you'll present a grain offering, a new grain offering to the Lord. Fifty days from the
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- Feast of Firstfruits, fifty days from that day is the Feast of Weeks, or Harvest, or Pentecost, you'll remember that, okay?
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- These all have New Testament fulfillments we're going to learn in the next few weeks, okay?
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- So for those of you on the edge of your seat about them, pretty cool. So this takes place,
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- I guess you'd say, at the end of spring, but still spring. These first four are all in the spring. Passover kicks off on leavened bread, in the middle of that,
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- Feast of Firstfruits, fifty days after Firstfruits is Pentecost, okay? Then you have, in the fall, you have the
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- Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, okay?
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- So we have Trumpets in the fall, Day of Atonement in the fall, and Tabernacles. Now, those are the ones mentioned in Leviticus 23, along with the
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- Sabbath, that would make eight. There are two others that were not given to Moses that were added later. One was added by Queen Esther, and that's called
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- Purim, or Lots, okay? That was added by Queen Esther. Another was actually added after the
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- Old Testament had already been written, in between the time period of the Old Testament and the New Testament, called in the
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- Silent Years, and that was the Feast of Dedication, or Lights, or Hanukkah, okay?
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- And we'll learn in detail about that in the coming weeks. Pretty cool stuff.
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- So I want to give you just a sample of what these look like.
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- So let's do Passover and the
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- Day of Atonement. Let's just knock those out real quick. First, let me slow down. Let's go to Colossians chapter two.
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- I want to show you something. Colossians chapter two. Speaking about whether or not we still have to keep these festivals, this is what
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- Paul says. Colossians 2, starting in verse 16. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in question of food or drink or regard of festival or new moon or Sabbath.
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- These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. In other words, the
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- Old Testament serves as a foreshadowing, a picture. Paul calls it a mystery now revealed of Jesus.
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- Jesus reveals what all these were doing. The Old Testament, Leviticus in particular, is nothing but a pointing to who
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- Jesus is. God decided to dispense his revelation one piece at a time.
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- The Old Testament writers knew of a coming Messiah, Christ. Not all of them knew that his name would be
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- Jesus born in Palestine in first century
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- A .D. under Roman rule and would be crucified because none of them would have known what
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- Romans were, crucifixion. They just knew that God was going to send a
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- Christ. God has always judged rightly and fairly based on what he has revealed to people at that time.
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- That's how he still judges. He always judges based on whatever information is given to him at that time.
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- Abraham may not have known that Jesus would be crucified by Romans, but Abraham, for whatever
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- God told him, believed God and was credited to him as righteous. People always judge based on whatever revelation
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- God has given them at that time. They would have lost their minds if Jesus had told them on Sinai his whole plan.
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- They would have been like, what? Antichrist? What is that? So God dispensed his truth a little bit at a time.
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- Here he's showing them, he's showing them sacrifices that have to be made for their sins to point to what
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- Jesus would do. So looking at Passover, for example, this is an easy one.
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- Do you remember when Passover was first instituted? It was before Leviticus 23. In Egypt, after the 10th plague, or at the 10th plague,
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- God told the people of Israel, I'm going to kill the firstborn of every living thing in the land of Egypt, cattle, man, everything.
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- The angel of death will pass over whatever home has the blood of the lamb over the doorpost.
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- So God told the Israelites to find an unblemished lamb. Not the sick one that you have, an unblemished one, a perfect one, to kill it and put its blood on the doorpost.
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- Now that sounds strange, but just catch this. If you weren't wealthy enough to own a lamb, you could share with your neighbor.
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- So there would be the blood of a perfect lamb on the doorpost. When the angel of death came to kill the firstborn, he passed over the homes that had the blood of the lamb covering it.
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- So the homes that had the blood of the lamb covering them, the angel of death passed over them.
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- Now, keep that in mind. Keep that in mind.
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- The fall festival, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, let's talk about what that is. So we got Passover, that's how that was introduced.
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- On the Day of Atonement, this is from Hebrews 9, starting in verse 7.
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- But into the second only the high priest goes, and he only goes once a year, and not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.
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- By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy place is not yet open, as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for this present age.
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- According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the confidence of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of Reformation.
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- But when Christ appeared as high priest of the good things to have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
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- So let's just make sure we understand this. At the tabernacle there would be a holy place, a holy room.
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- Inside that, behind the curtain, was the Holy of Holies. No one went in there, except the high priest.
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- Once a year, he would take in two goats, he would kill one, sprinkle the offering, the mercy seat, the
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- Ark of the Covenant, all of it with blood, take the blood, put it on the head of the other goat, send that goat away, never to be seen again, and that goat would carry the iniquity that was imputed on it for God's people and carry it away.
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- That high priest only went in one day a year. Jesus appears as the high priest and as the sacrifice with his own blood to secure an eternal redemption.
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- Secure an eternal redemption. Verse 13, for the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh.
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- How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offers himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living
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- God? Verse 15, therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promise inheritance since death has occurred that redeems them from transgressions committed under the first covenant.
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- We're going to pick up right here next week. So we're going over Passover and Yom Kippur, we're going to pick up right there next week.
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- I hope you are seeing how Jesus fulfills these feasts. These were instituted by God in the book of Leviticus, actually way back when the
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- Israelites were in Exodus. God tells them to keep them and they don't see why. And we're looking to the
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- New Testament to see how these were fulfilled. I hope you are seeing that.
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- So that's an overview. Again, we have Passover, unleavened bread, first fruits, and Pentecost in the spring.
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- We have trumpets, Day of Atonement, and the tabernacles in the fall. The Sabbath is every week. Dedication and Purim get added later, we'll talk about that.
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- Next week we'll continue where we're at going over Passover and Yom Kippur to show you how
