Sermon Tone Analysis

*LEVITICUS 23 FEASTS OF THE LORD*

There is not a nation anywhere, even among the most primitive of people, that doesn't have its unique days of special celebration.

Worldwide, tens of thousands of holidays are observed annually.

*However, God instituted only seven holidays**.*

These seven holidays are discussed throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments.

However, only in one place, the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus, are all seven holidays listed in chronological sequence.

These seven holidays are called the *“**Feasts of the Lord**.”*

That expression indicates that these holidays are God’s holidays – they belong to Him – in contrast to man’s holidays.

They are, quite literally, “the feasts of the Lord.”

The word “feasts” in the Hebrew language means appointed times.

The idea is that the sequence and timing of each of these feasts has been carefully designed by God Himself.

*Each* is part of a comprehensive whole.

*Collectively*, they tell a story.

These feasts are also called “*holy convocations;*” that is, they are intended to be a time of meeting between God and man for “holy purposes.”

Since these seven feasts of the Lord are “appointed times” for “holy purposes,” they carry with them great sacredness and solemnity.

*A number of important points needs to be emphasized concerning these feasts.*

**FIRST**, these seven feasts of the Lord were given to the Hebrew nation.

The Jewish people are God’s covenant people.

*S*ECOND**, these seven feasts relate to Israel’s spring and fall agricultural seasons.

In the Old Testament, Israel was largely an agricultural nation.

(Citrus and other fruits, vegetables, beef, dairy, and poultry products)

**THIRD**, these seven feasts were based on the Jewish lunar (moon) calendar of approximately 354-day years.

Periodically (seven times every nineteen years), the Jewish calendar literally has a thirteenth month to make up for her shorter year.

If this didn't happen, winter months on the Jewish calendar would soon occur in the summer and summer months in the winter.

It is for that reason that these holidays do not fall on the same day on the Gregorian calendar each year.

**FOURTH**, and fundamentally, these seven feasts typify the sequence, timing, and significance of the major events of the Lord’s redemptive career.

They *commence* at Calvary where Jesus voluntarily gave Himself for the sins of the world (Passover) and *climax* when the Lord establishes His messianic Kingdom at His second coming (Feast of Tabernacles).

**FIFTH**, because the spiritual realities to which the feasts clearly point are fulfilled in the Messiah, all men everywhere have been placed in a unique position.

All of humanity has been extended an invitation to “meet” with God and receive the blessings toward which these seven feasts point.

**SIXTH**, the participation of Gentiles in the blessings associated with the feasts God appointed for Israel is consistent with *God’s unconditional covenant to the patriarch Abraham*, the central provision of which is, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18).

The Lord himself taught, “Salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22).

Israel and the Church are distinct entities with distinct promises.

*However, every blessing the true Church now enjoys, and every hope she anticipates, comes out of the Abrahamic, Davidic, and New Covenants that God made with Israel.*

*SEVEN* is the biblical number for perfection and completion.

After creating the world, God rested on the seventh day.

He didn't rest as a consequence of growing tired – *omnipotence does not grow tired, and God is omnipotent*.

Rather, God rested in the sense of “completion” and “satisfaction.”

What God created was “good” and “satisfying” – nothing else was needed.

Therefore, He rested on the seventh day.

* *On the seventh day of the week*, the children of Israel were to observe a Sabbath rest, patterned after God’s creation rest.

They were to rest from all their labors.

/*Exodus 16:23* Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD has said: 'Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD.

Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning.' " *Exodus 16:30* So the people rested on the seventh day./

* The seventh month of the year is, according to the Scriptures, especially holy.

In that month, all three fall feasts are observed.

/*Leviticus 23:24* "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'In the *seventh month*, on the *first day of the month*, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation./

/*Leviticus 23:27* "Also the *tenth day of this seventh month* shall be the Day of Atonement.

It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the LORD./

/*Leviticus 23:34* "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'The *fifteenth day of this seventh month *shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the LORD./

* The nation of Israel was commanded to refrain from farming the ground every seventh year – to allow the soil to rest.

/*Leviticus 25:4* 'but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD.

You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard./

* Seven sevens of years were counted (forty-nine years), and then the next year was to be the Jubilee (fiftieth) year.

(Leviticus 25:8-12)

* Seventy sevens of years were “determined” upon the Jewish people during which time God would bring to perfection and completion His redemptive purpose (Daniel 9:24-27).

* The Book of Revelation records the consummation of this age.

It uses the number seven more than fifty times.

Not without significance, the book revolves around seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls (Revelation 5:1, 5; 6; 8-9; 11:15-19; 15-16).

The seven feasts of the Lord, then, are His “appointed times” during which He will meet with men for holy purposes.

When completed, the seven holidays will bring this age to an end and usher in the “Golden Age” to follow.

During that age, every man will sit under his own fig tree (Micah 4:4).

That concept is not intended to suggest boredom or a lack of creativity and activity, but of completion and satisfaction.

In that day, all that the heart could ever desire will be possessed.

\\ \\ *Four of the seven holidays occur in the spring of the year*.

The four spring feasts of the Lord typified in the Old Testament have been fulfilled in Christ in the New Testament.

In that sense, one can look back at and examine them.

They are history.

They occurred almost two thousand years ago.

Their spiritual benefits, however, continue forward to the present hour.

*The final three holidays occur in the fall* of the year within a brief fifteen-day period in the Hebrew month of Kislev (September~/October). *As the first four holidays depict events associated with Messiah’s first coming, these final three holidays depict specific events associated with the Lord’s second coming.*

These final three feasts form the basis for what the Bible calls the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13).

\\ \\ **THE FEAST OF PASSOVER**

*The first “feast of the LORD”* is Passover (Leviticus 23:5).

It is the foundational feast.

The six feasts that follow are built upon it.

Passover occurs in the spring of the year, on the fourteenth day of the Hebrew month of Nisan.

Normally, it will occur on our Gregorian calendar in March or April (this year Passover will occur on April 2nd).

While the Jewish people have celebrated the Passover annually since the time of Moses, *in reality, there was only one Passover.*

It occurred almost 3500 years ago in Egypt.

It was there, at that time, that a lamb was sacrificed, and the blood was applied to each door-post and lintel (or header).

When done in faith and in obedience to God’s command, that home was “passed over,” and the firstborn was spared.

All subsequent observances over the centuries have been memorials of that one-and-only first Passover.

*In precisely the same way, there was only one occasion when the Lord’s flesh was pierced and His blood spilled on the cross of Calvary for the sin of the world.*

The Communion is an ongoing memorial of that one momentous occasion.

\\ \\ *The events leading up to the Passover are some of the most dramatic in all of Scripture.*

The children of Israel were enslaved down in Egypt.

The lot of the Hebrews seemed helpless and hopeless.

It was at that hour in history that God spoke to Moses from within a burning bush.

It was a desert area – the bush was dry and sapless.

Everything normal and natural argued for the speedy consumption of that thorn bush.

But such was not the case.

The bush burned and was not consumed (Exodus 3:2).

From the midst of that burning bush, God spook to His servant.

God told Moses that He had seen the affliction of His people down in Egypt, that He had heard their cry for help, that He knew their sorrows.

And now, He was coming down to deliver them out of Egyptian bondage and to bring them into the Promised Land (Exodus 3:7-8).

It could have been argued that God owed them nothing, that He was no man’s debtor.

But not the true and living God; He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And to them He had solemnly promised that their seed would be as the sand of the seashore and the stars of the heaven – without number.

*God is a covenant-keeping God.

What His mouth speaks, His right arm of power performs.*