The month of Jewish festivals and 7 Feasts
📖 Levi✝icus 23:23-44
TISHRI – The month of Jewish festivals
During Tishri – the Seventh Month in the Jewish calendar , the Israelites celebrated the following festivals :
📯 FEAST OF TRUMPETS 🎷: It was celebrated on the First Day of the month (v 23-25)
🐂 YOM KIPPUR 🐏: Celebrated on the Tenth Day of the month (v 26-32)
⛺ FEAST OF TABERNACLE: Celebrated it on the Fifteen Day of the month (v 33-43)
📌 The significance of these festivals are: DENY YOURSELVES; DO NO WORK; A DAY OF REST; OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICES .
📌 The consequences of sins are death and separation from God. So to avoid these CONSEQUENCES; to RECEIVE FORGIVENESS and be RECONCILED TO GOD, Moses was commanded to give His instructions to Aaron how to observe the rituals of atonement annually for the people.
🙏 Let us ponder upon the DAY OF ATONEMENT (YOM KIPPUR) in brief.
📝 OBSERVATION
The High Priest
1) take bathe in the courtyard and dressed in the tabernacle; and he offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and for his family.
2) Then he enter the Holy of Holies with the bull’s blood, incense.. and sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat for 7 times .
3) He cast lots for 2 Goats. One for sin offering for the people and other as scapegoat .
4) The scapegoat is allowed to go away in the desert by putting the priest’s hands upon the goat’s head and confessing the people’s wickedness.
5) The bull and goat, offered as sin offering , are to be carried outside the camp and burned.
📝 INTERPRETATION
✅ Leaving the scapegoat in the wilderness is to ensure that it will not return , and it is often interpreted that as the goat carried the sins and guilt of the people far away , never to be seen again , God forgives the sins of his people and will remember them no more. (Isaiah 43:25 )
✝️ Jesus – the sinless Lamb carried our sins outside the city and then on the cross to atone for them ( Heb 13:12)
✅ This atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites ( v 34). But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins , because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. ( Heb 10:3-4)
📝 APPLICATION
📌 Jesus said, ” Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire , nor were you pleased with them.. and He further said “HERE I AM , I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL ” Heb 10:8-9 .
NO MORE SACRIFICES ; NO MORE RITUALS FOR CHRIST HAD PAID IT ALL 🙌
📌 As the perfect , sinless lamb of God, Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient to cover our sins once and for all time( Heb 9:12-14).
💕 Beloved, what a loving and wonderful God we are serving. All we need is to obey Him, confess our sins and receive His forgiveness to experience a closer relationship with Him . 🤝
Glory to God🙏🏼
✍🏾 Mark Boje, ArP 🇮🇳
7 Feasts and their significances
All the Feasts were ordained by the Lord with great spiritual significance for the New Testament period, so the children of God might prepare themselves to live blissfully with Jesus for ever and ever.
- Feast of Sabbath (Lev 23:1-3):
6 days the people of Israel were to work, but the seventh day was a day of rest……
We should have the rest which we obtained through salvation. If we lose this rest it means that we have profaned the Sabbath. - The Feast of the Passover (Lev 23:5):
The Paschal lamb signifies the Lord Jesus Christ (1Cor 5 7). When we come out of the bondage of sin at conversion, we celebrate the Feast of the Passover first time in our lives. As the children of Israel observing it every year shows that how we should always remember how we were saved, and praise God. - The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev 23:6-8):
This Feast signifies Sanctification and the life of separation and also a life of sincerity and truth. (1Cor 5:8). If we give up our life of separation, we will lose our sincerity and truth. - The Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Pentecost (Lev 23: 9-22):
This Feast was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the sheaf of the first fruits was waved. Pentecost means “fifty”. We see that on the day of Pentecost, the fiftieth day after the resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit was poured on the 120 people who had gathered in the upper chamber in Jerusalem (Act 2:1-4). On this day believers and consecrated servants of God were formed. We celebrate this Feast in our lives for the first time when we receive the Holy Spirit. Thereafter we continue celebrating it by getting filled in the Spirit again and again.
- The Feast of Trumpets (Lev23:23-25):
This Feast spiritually signifies the rapture of the Church at the secret coming of the Lord.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1Cor 4:16,17)
If we celebrate the feasts of Sabbath, the Passover, Unleavened Bread and Pentecost in the proper way, surely we will be able to celebrate the Feast of Trumpets. Otherwise our having celebrated the other feasts earlier will be in vain. - The Feast of Atonement for sin (Lev23:26-32):
We read that they were to afflict their souls and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord.
This Feast signifies an event which takes place after the Lord has gathered the Bridal Church to Himself at His Secret Coming. When the saints who are overcomers, called the firstfruits of the earth, are caught up, the rest of the Church who are not perfected are left behind. Nevertheless, if they die as martyrs in the first 3 and half years of tribulation that follows the secret advent of the Lord, they will partake of the First Resurrection. By not taking upon themselves the name or the mark of the beast, and by enduring all the tribulation and finally dying as martyrs they celebrate this Feast of Atonement for sin. - The Feast of Tabernacles (Lev 23: 33-43)
This Feast is a shadow of the Millenial Reign where we will reign and rejoice with the Lord for a thousand years.
These seven Feasts which were observed in the Old Testament period, speaks of seven different spiritual experiences. The children of God who are to be caught up at the Secret Coming of the Lord should have attained the spiritual experiences as signified by first four Feasts.
Those who observe the Feast of Trumpets (those who are caught up at the secret coming of the Lord) and those who observe the Feast of Atonement for sin (those who are left behind at the secret coming of the Lord but later die as martyrs) will celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles (ie take part in the Millenial Reign)
Extract from TPM Sunday School Syllabus
Stay Blessed 😊
Ravi