(Wonderful 50 Days) 01 - the Appearance of Christ — Ed Miller

Our Father, we thank you so much for the Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts, ever to put the spotlight on the Lord Jesus, ever to unveil Him, how we thank you for the teacher who shows us Christ and shows us the depths of God and explains to us, gives us the revelation of the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge of God in the face of Christ.

And so we wait again upon you and we thank you for your word and now guide our meditations, prepare us for your revelation throughout the weekend. Lay the groundwork, we pray, and we thank you in advance because we claim it in the all-prevailing name of our Lord Jesus.

Amen. Just for interest, are there those here that do not know the topic of the weekend? Are there any? Alright, so you've all heard it and you've all studied and you're all prepared. As it's been announced, I would like to share with you those wonderful 50 days, those glorious 50 days between our Lord's resurrection and the sending of the dear Holy Spirit.

The Forty Days and Ten Days Between Resurrection and Pentecost

God has divided those 50 days into two segments, 40 days and 10 days. And so we'll keep God's division. We'll look at the 40 days and at the 10 days. 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension of our Savior and then 10 days between the ascension and the sending of the dear Holy Spirit.

Acts 1 and the Promise of the Holy Spirit

I'm going to ask you to turn with me to Acts chapter 1 please and just get this text before your heart and then we'll do some donkey work. Beginning in chapter 1 and verse 1, it's hard to believe we're in the New Testament.

Very soon we'll illustrate this from Leviticus. Beginning at verse 1, the first account I composed Theophilus about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen.

To these he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing truths appearing to them over a period of 40 days, speaking to them of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Gathering them together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised, which he said, You have heard from me.

For John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And so when they had come together, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?

And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.

And after he had said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while he was departing, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them.

And they also said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky, this same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven.

And then if you'll glance please at chapter 2, beginning at verse 1. When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rush of wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

I will hold that for the text. Some months ago, the Lord directed my heart to consider these wonderful 50 days. I don't know if you've ever studied that block of Scripture, that segment that includes those 50 days.

Why God Divided the Fifty Days

But I asked myself the question, why did God do it that way? Why did he give that 40 days and then that 10 days? 50 days! Couldn't he have died upon the cross and rose up from the grave and gone straight to heaven and carried on the program?

What's that 40 days all about? What did he want to teach us? What did he want to tell us? Was he tying up some loose ends? Was he anticipating something? Was he laying down some great truth? Why did God do it that way?

I'd studied in between some of the events. I'd studied Mary Magdalene and the Emmaus Road and that kind of thing, but I hadn't seen the block of time. And that's what I'd like to look at this weekend with you.

We've got five messages to cover 50 days. Obviously, you've got to be patient with me. We cannot look at everything, but we can look at something. And it's that something that I believe is the heart of God for this weekend.

In an introduction lesson, I almost find myself apologizing, and I don't mean it that way, because I don't know a lesson more basic, more foundational than the first one. And I don't mean to apologize, but what I'm trying to say is, in an introduction lesson, we are all over the place.

And we try to set the direction, and we try to set the perimeters of what we're going to be looking at. We try to get a panorama of the whole thing, so that seeing the whole thing, we can then focus on what is the heart of God, or at least what we're going to look at for our emphasis.

So I pray during this introduction lesson, even though we'll do a little bit of donkey work, that you won't be lost. I've already committed it to the Lord, and many have prayed and are praying that this will not just be fact.

We've got to lay out the facts, but that they'll be living, and that God will use this to prepare us for the weekend. It's quite easy to outline the panorama, because there's an event, and then there's a segment of time, and then there's an event, and then there's a segment of time.

And then there's an event, and then there's a segment of time. So you got three events, and three segments of time. The first event is the cross, the burial, the resurrection of Christ. That's an event.

And then there's 40 days. And then there's an event. He ascends up into heaven. And then there's 10 days. And then there's an event. An event. The Holy Spirit comes down from heaven and indwells his people.

And then there's a segment of time. And you're in it. The church age. I believe that there is a spiritual message in that first event. And there's a message in that first block of time. And there's a message in that second event.

And there's a message in that second block of time. There's a message in that we've got a long way to go in an introduction lesson. What I would like to do eventually is show you where we're going to focus on that 40 days.

But in order to do that, if you'll bear with me, I would like to give you what I think. We're not going to develop it a lot. I just want you to get the idea. Here's what God intended by this. Here is the great message here.

And so on. We'll look at the whole thing. And then focus on what we'll be looking at this weekend. May God help us. We get to the spiritual messages. I'll call attention to enough scripture, I think, to illustrate the point.

And I'll give you the references if you want to turn pages. But I've got it all written down here. So it'll just flow a little smoother. The first three events, since we're going to focus more on the segments of time, let me just give you, just mention what I believe to be the heart of the event.

The Cross Satisfies God's Holiness

The first event, of course, is the death, the glorious death, the burial, the resurrection of our Savior. You've grown up with this glorious truth, and I can't give you anything new or anything novel.

You know the meaning. You know the spiritual intention of the cross and of the resurrection. From God's viewpoint, it satisfied His holiness. It was a satisfaction. His justice, His character was vindicated at the cross.

From our point of view, from our standpoint, what it basically means is this. When I look at the cross, I'm forgiven. My debts are paid. I don't have to go to hell. Jesus died and Jesus rose again, and I don't have to go to hell.

He paid a debt He did not owe. We've sung it. He paid a debt He did not owe. I owe the debt I could not pay. That's the first event. I am forgiven. I don't have to go to hell. The second event is the ascension of our Lord Jesus.

Christ's Ascension Welcomes Believers into God's Presence

Forty days later, while the disciples looked on, our Lord Jesus extended His hands in a high priestly benediction, and as a priest, He rose up into heaven. What's the message of the ascension? From God's viewpoint, certainly glory and honor and exaltation for our Lord Jesus Christ.

He got the double glory. The glory that He had with the Father before the world began, and the glory He achieved, that He won at the cross. What's the message of the ascension from our standpoint? You know, when I studied this, I was greatly convicted by the Holy Spirit, because quite honestly, the ascension has never made a major contribution in my life.

You know, we talk about reading things, la la la, and that was sort of the ascension for me. That our Lord Jesus ascended, I knew, and the big thing I knew, that without that, He could not send the Holy Spirit.

Where would we be without the Holy Spirit? You know, everything we have ultimately comes because He ascended, but I'm talking about the act of ascending. That just never meant anything to me, and I didn't understand the spiritual message of the ascension of Christ.

Try to picture it this way. If our Lord Jesus came and never died, where would you be spiritually? If He died and never rose, where would you be spiritually? He rose and never ascended. Let's say He rose and just lived on the earth.

What would you miss? Now, apart from the Holy Spirit, I know that, but I'm talking about in the act of ascending, what did He teach us by ascending? You see, our Lord Jesus represented us on the cross.

We know that. He stood, it was our humanity when He died, when He was buried. I hope it thrills your heart that when He ascended, He also ascended representing you and your humanity. You see, the first event I look at the cross and say, I don't have to go to hell, but if He just rose and lived on the earth, I know I don't have to go to hell, but I'd never be sure that I was welcomed into the presence of God.

I wouldn't know that. And the ascension tells me that as He represented me on the cross and I don't have to go to hell, He was welcomed into the presence of God and I was there and you were there. And the message of the ascension is this, just as I don't have to go to hell, now I am reinstated into the favor, into the presence, into the blessing of God.

I'm so glad He ascended. I can honestly tell you as I stand before you now, I couldn't have several weeks ago. I am as glad He left as I am that He came. I'm so thankful He ascended and I'm glad that He's delayed His coming.

If He had come back a week later, I thought He got kicked out of heaven and that He wouldn't allow it. But He's been up there 2 ,000 years and I know now the work is done and finished. I don't have to go to hell and I'm welcomed forever into the presence of God.

Pentecost and the Indwelling Life of God

That's the first two events, the cross, the ascension. The third event, again, nothing new, Pentecost. God sent the Holy Spirit from God's viewpoint. That means that God now can have what His heart longed for, union, fellowship with His people.

That He could indwell them from our viewpoint. Pentecost gives us the howl of our redemption. It's the life of God. It's the power to live and to perform all the pleasure of God. It's the source. Having said that, event one, I don't have to go to hell.

Event two, I am welcome into the presence of God. Event three, I now have the life of God and the ability to live for God's pleasure. That's not what we'll look at this weekend. We could. There's so much in that.

But in between those glorious events were segments of time and that's where my heart has gravitated, to those segments of time. That 40 days, that 10 days, that glorious segment called church age, the now, what's that all about?

I'd like you to consider with me that first segment of time, that 40 days. What did Jesus do during that time? What did Jesus say during that time? Let me describe that 40 days for you in my own words and then illustrate it from the Old Testament and then as God helps us, hone in on the message of that segment of time.

May God give us light. During those 40 days, as you know, and I think this is what you've been studying, there are 10 or 11 post-resurrection appearances of our Lord Jesus. I say 10 or 11. People don't really know if they were 10 or 11 because some people combine the 11 disciples meeting at Galilee with the 500.

Some separate those two making 11 rather than 10. We don't know if he appeared more times and didn't write it in the Bible. Maybe he did. We don't know that. We know he appeared at least 10 times and some of those appearances we don't know anything about.

He didn't give a record of all the appearances. For example, we know he appeared privately to Peter. That's all we know. Maybe there's a lesson in that. Maybe when someone needs to get right with God, that's a private thing and that's between them and the Lord.

We know he appeared to his brother James. We don't have a clue about that appearance. God doesn't tell us about it. He just said he did. We know he did. We know he appeared to 500. It depends on how you approach that.

We don't know. We don't have a lot of details about that. Some of his appearances we know a little bit. We don't know much. We know he appeared to a group of women and they fell down and they wrapped themselves around his feet.

That's all we know. Let's spell it all out to us. We know when he appeared in Galilee it was mostly a sermon what he gave. What's the 40 days all about? We know he mixed up the appearances. In fact, we say he appeared 10 times in 40 days.

Yeah, half of them on day one. Isn't that amazing? That means in 39 days you got to spread out the other five. On the first days he appeared to Mary Magdalene and to the women and to Peter privately and to the Emmaus disciples and to the 10 Thomas absent in Jerusalem.

And then we know one week later he appeared again, Thomas being present. And then sometime during that 40 days, 39 days, he appeared four other times to seven disciples at Tiberius, right? To the 500, to his brother James.

We know a little bit about his final appearance. We'll look at that, Lord willing, Monday morning. We don't even know what order these things took place in. It's amazing to read how people try to put them in order.

Some people think that they might have been simultaneous. Some. Simultaneous. That wouldn't bother me. He's omnipresent. He can appear at different places at the same time. I don't understand that, especially in his resurrection body, but I'll leave that to the experts, especially those first three or four, hard to put in order.

I assigned my family that chore to figure that all out. It was a lot of fun. If you ask the average Christian what happened during those 40 days, pretty much everybody would say the same thing. He appeared and he disappeared.

And then he showed up again. And then he disappeared. And I suppose they might even add the scripture that says he appeared by many infallible proofs. That's what he did during those 40 days. He appeared by many infallible proofs.

The Seven Feasts as Old Testament Pictures

Well, you know, the Old Testament is the New Testament in story form, in picture form. And there are many shadows in the Old Testament. This segment of time that I'm so desirous to communicate with you that was pictured in the Old Testament.

And so what I'd like to do is just sort of that before you in the seven annual feasts, I said, we got to do a little donkey work. I won't spend a lot of time snowing you with all of these things. I like the word that's used in the Bible.

You know, sometime we meet like this and someone says, we're going to have a Bible conference. I always wondered why they call it a conference. Nobody confers. It's not a conference. And I just never liked retreat or I like the Bible word convocation, a holy convocation.

They had these seven convocations. Convocation is where you get together for the purpose of worshiping the Lord. That's what a convocation is. And that's what they did. And they had these seven convocations that were commanded by God.

Three in the spring, one in the summer and three in the fall. And all seven feasts, feast of Passover, unleavened bread, feast of first fruits, feast of Pentecost, feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, tabernacles.

The Feast of Firstfruits Pictures Christ's Resurrection

Now you could look up all the details on that and what day and what month and all of that kind of thing. We need to focus on the spring feast and the summer feasts. You say, why are you focusing on the spring feast and the summer feast?

I'm focusing on the spring feast and the summer feast because the spring feast pictures this. And there was 50 days between the spring feast and the summer feast. And then the summer feast pictures this.

And when you see the spring feast in that 50 days in picture form, it's the same 50 days that we're studying. And so if you want to understand, you come back to the picture and you say, Lord, show me the picture.

What is this? And what is this? And what is this? And what is this? And when we know this, this, this, and this, we can go home. We're not going to look at every detail. For those that want the references, I'll give those as we go.

Let's look at that first feast, feast of first fruits right after Passover. Most commentators believe that that first fruits was a picture right after the cross, a picture of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Have you heard that before? The first fruits, first Corinthians 15, 20, the first fruits. Now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. Verse 23, each in his own order, Christ's the first fruits.

Afterwards, those who are Christ's at his coming. And so Leviticus 23 is the reference 9 to 14, numbers 28 verses 26 to 31, Deuteronomy 16 verses 1 to 12. They give us the heart of this first fruit. Let me just tell the story in my own words.

There were several rules connected with this first feast. Rule number one, according to chapter 23 of Leviticus verse 10, they had to be in the promised land before they could celebrate this feast. They had to be.

God said, don't do it. And of course, in the desert, you're not going to have the first fruit anyway. But they had to wait until they were in the promised land. I should think that's suggestive, this promised land and all that represents this whole new beginning.

It had to be the promised land. Number two, it had to be on Sunday, the day after the Sabbath. And God for this feast took all the rules of the Sabbath and dumped them on Sunday. And he said, for the first time, let Sunday be your day of rest.

And everything that was for the Sabbath was now put on the Sunday. This had to be done on the Sunday, Leviticus 23, 11. The third thing was it was done in connection with the burnt offering. They had to offer the burnt offering and with it all of its ancillary votive offerings, all of the oil and the grain and the wine.

I'll leave that for you hermeneutics to figure out the details of that and why it was doubled and all of that. Some of those details snow me. I just get over the top. I want to see the big picture. And then the fourth thing was until this feast was celebrated in the new land, they were forbidden to put anything in their mouth.

They were not allowed to eat anything, not a crumb of bread, not a grain, not a nut, nothing. Eat nothing until this is done, because your life in the new land will begin with this. This is the start of everything.

And until this is done, there is no lie. Chapter 23, 11 says, and he shall wave the sheath before the Lord for you to be accepted. In other words, the waving of the bodily sheath, this early harvest, the priest would take it and wave it before the Lord for you to be accepted.

And it had to be in the new land and it had to be on Sunday. And you couldn't even begin to live until that was done. And once that thing was done, then God said, now you can start living. Well, if that's a picture, as I think it is of the first fruit from the dead, our Lord Jesus, you say, what's the 40 days all about?

In the new Testament, Christ kept appearing and disappeared. He kept showing up. He showed up to groups. He showed up to individuals. He showed up alone. He showed up in private. He showed up in public.

He showed up at different locations. He showed up at different times of the day. He showed up at night. He kept showing up. In the old Testament, it was the waving of the sheath for you to be accepted.

In a simple word, you say, what's the message of the 40 days? I'm not too deep friends. I have an idea that 40 days was just God waving his sheep all over the place. So you could see it. He kept showing up.

The message of the 40 days is see Jesus, behold the living savior. That's what it's all about. The whole 40 days. That's the message of the 40 days. Look at Jesus and what I'm going to present before you.

God helping me. Jesus kept showing up and he showed up in representative ways. And he was saying to the church, you want to know how I will appear to you? Then you better study Mary Magdalene because that's how I'm going to show up.

You better study the Emmaus road because that's how I'm going to show up. And the way I show up in those 40 days is the way I will always show up. You'll know how to see me and you'll be safeguarded against ways I will not show up.

That's what the 40 days is all about. It's to tell us how he will show up. It's God waving his sheep and this weekend we need to go through the 40 days in order to see how God will appear to us. He promised he would in their representative days.

That's the message of the 40 days. Let's behold him. Let's watch God wave him this weekend. Let's see how he shows up. What's the message of the 10 days? Well, see the Old Testament doesn't divide the 50 days into 40 and 10.

The Ten Days of Waiting for the Holy Spirit

So we're stuck. I don't mean stuck. We have the New Testament in order to understand the 10 day. Sorry, Harry. Turn please to Acts chapter one, gathering them together. He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait, underscore it, but to wait for what the father promised, which he said, you've heard from me.

John baptized with water. You'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Not many days from now. Luke 24 verse 49. Behold, I'm sending forth the promise of my father upon you. You are to stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high.

The message of the 10 days is very simple because there's not a lot of information. And what God tells us, he spells it out. 40 days. Behold, the lamb of God. See Jesus. 10 days. Wait. That's the message of the 10 days.

Wait. Wait for the Holy Spirit. Wait. Lift a finger until the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Let me illustrate this wait part. Turn, if you would, to John 20. Just want to read this one little passage in John 20 verse 19.

When therefore it was the evening of that day, the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, peace be unto you.

When he had said this, he showed them both his hands and his side. His disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus therefore said to them, peace be with you. As the father has sent me, I also send you.

And when he said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they've been retained.

During one of the appearances of our Lord Jesus, during the 40 days, he did this strange thing. He breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. Some are bothered by that because it looks like Jesus breathed on day one and said, receive the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit didn't come till day 50.

And so what's that all about? And some say, well, he didn't really say receive him now, but he said he breathed on them saying you will. It's prophetic. You will not many days from now. Either way, the message is the same, brothers and sisters in Christ.

See Jesus and wait for the Holy Spirit. You know, this is, this expression, he breathed on them is unique in the New Testament. Never before did Jesus do this. All during his three and a half years of ministry, he never breathed on anyone.

And it's exactly the same word that's used in Genesis 2 .7. Familiar with that one? And the Lord God formed out of the dust of the ground, man, and he breathed on him, into him, the breath of life and man became a living soul.

What if God did not breathe in Adam? What could he do? He'd be an amorphous mess. He's just a hunk of clay. He couldn't move a finger if God didn't breathe into him. God saying, I'm about to send you out into the world with my gospel.

You better wait until God breathes into you. You've got a job to do and there is no power in you to do it. Behold the Lord Jesus Christ. Wait for the Holy Spirit. One more block of time. Let's take a look at it.

Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks

As we saw the resurrection of our Lord Jesus illustrated by the waving of the barley sheaf. So we expect 50 days later in the feast called the Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost, that's just the word means 50.

The Greek word means 50. They call it the Feast of Weeks because they had to wait seven weeks. Full counting from Sabbath to Sabbath. They had to wait seven of those and then on the next day, the 50th day, 7 times 7, 49 plus 1, 50.

I'd expect to come to my Bible to look at the feast of weeks and see Pentecost. Right? That's what you'd expect. It's not what you find. And you study the Feast of Weeks and you scratch your head and you say, where's the wind?

Where's the fire? Where's the dove? How come? I mean, you look at all of this symbolism and say, it's supposed to picture this, it doesn't. Have we misinterpreted the picture? Have we misinterpreted the reality?

What's the Feast of Weeks picturing? Let me try to set that before your heart. God helping us. If you've studied that, you might have been as surprised as I was. First, I was disappointed. I thought, my Lord, why didn't you call on me to give a picture?

I could have done a better job than you did in the Feast of Weeks. Until I began to see the heart of God in the Feast of Weeks. Oh, may God help us as we look at this. Let me just get, as I did with the Feast of the Waving of the Sheep, let me just mention the critical points.

Once again, for those, I see some taking notes. If you want the references, here they are. Leviticus 23, 15 to 22. Numbers 28, 26 to 31. Deuteronomy 16, 9 to 12. That's where you get the bulk of the teaching on the Feast of Weeks.

Let me just give you the facts. Fact number one, had to be a Sunday. They didn't count from the waving of the sheep. They counted from the day before, Sabbath to Sabbath. Had to be a Sunday. Had to be a waving.

But this time, you're not waving the sheep. They had to wave two barley loaves, or rather wheat loaves. Two loaves of bread that were baked with leaven. They had to wave that, not a sheep. Waving loaves of bread.

At a glance at Leviticus 23, 20, or out, just listen. The priest shall wave them, them, the loaves, them, with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering with two lambs before the Lord. What in the world was being waved?

Waved them, two loaves, with the lambs before the Lord. Some people actually believe that the priest was required to take a lamb and wave a living lamb before the Lord. Some to get out of that said, no, they didn't have to lift it up.

They tied a rope to the lamb and they walked it back and forth, waving it before the Lord. Some say the Hebrew, and I incline to this. You don't have to accept this. This is how I think it was. If you have any other questions, check with Harry on all of this later.

Some say, God said take two lambs and two loaves of bread and wave the loaves over top of the heads of living lambs. And that's how I think it happened. What's this Feast of Wheats all about? Had to be on the Lord's day.

Had to be two loaves of bread waved over the top of a living lamb. Strange command. God takes special pains to say, make sure you bake that bread with leaven. You know, they weren't allowed to do that.

Something unique about this bread. Bake it with leaven and wave it over top of the lambs. The first offering, when it was just a barley sheep, there was no sin offering. But God said, along with the burnt offering and all of its ancillary votive offerings, make sure you offer a sin offering this time too.

And so they had to offer a sin offering. And then God gave this command, Deuteronomy 16, 10. You shall celebrate the Feast of Wheats to the Lord your God with a tribute of free will in your hand, which you shall give just as the Lord has blessed you.

God said, this is going to be a time for a free will offering. And everybody, according to the way you've been blessed, doesn't matter what you bring, bring it out of your heart because you want to. Not duty.

You don't have to. It's not a rule. It's something that's spontaneous, something that's intuitive. Just offer this because you want to. And finally, connected with this Feast of Wheats, God did to this what I think he did to my son in Fiji this year.

He wrote the word missions all over this offer. You know, we read the book of Ruth and God said, make sure if anything falls in the corner, don't even reach the corners, but if anything falls out, leave it there.

That command came right here in the Feast of Wheats. God said, in this Feast of Wheats, let's make it bigger than the Jews. Let's bring in the neighbors. Let's bring in everybody. And God says, you make sure you get your sons.