APPOINTED TIMES OF THE NATIONS - All The Bible Teaches About

An Appointed Time—Moed

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The "Seven Times"

It, too, was to be different from other days. The day of rest was always intended to bless mankind, and, according to Isaiah, the Sabbath will continue, for all mankind, into the New Heavens and the New Earth:. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience. What continues to wreck the concept of Sabbath is legalism.

Time and again it infiltrates the practice of a weekly rest and turns it into dull affair. God set aside a day for us to rest, to enjoy Him and His creation, and to do good deeds to others. Without such an appointed time, we would work seven days a week days a year. If we did not set aside the time, we could let our relationship with God slip away. By the time they are done, the blessing and joy are gone.

The day starts to speak of the sternness of God, rather than His loving-kindness. It loses sight of its roots in creation, rest, and fellowship with God. Instead, it becomes one more illustration of His awesome commands and our responsibility to obey them at all costs.

When Grandpa was a little boy, Laura, Sunday did not begin on Sunday morning, as it does now. It began at sundown on Saturday night. Then they all knelt down, and their father said a long prayer. They must go straight to bed, with no playing, laughing or even talking. Sunday morning they ate a cold breakfast, because nothing could be cooked on Sunday.

Then they all dressed in their best clothes and walked to church. They walked, because hitching up the horses was work, and no work could be done on Sunday. They must walk slowly and solemnly looking straight ahead. They must not joke or laugh, or even smile. Grandpa and his two brothers walked ahead, and their father and mother walked behind them.

In church, Grandpa and his brothers must sit perfectly still for two long hours and listen to the sermon. They dared not fidget on the hard bench. They dared not swing their feet. They dared not even turn their heads to look at the windows or the walls or the ceiling of the church. They must sit perfectly motionless and never for one instant take their eyes from the preacher.

When church was over, they walked slowly home. They might talk on the way, but they must not talk loudly and they must never laugh or smile. At home they ate a cold dinner, which had been cooked the day before. Then all the long afternoon they must sit in a row on a bench and study their catechism, until at last the sun went down and Sunday was over. A distorted view of the Sabbath, held firmly by the Jewish leadership, inhibited them from recognizing Him as the Messiah.

Sabbath controversies occupy all four of the gospels. To the Jewish leadership, healing was work and should not take place on the Sabbath. And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?

So, it is okay to show compassion on the Sabbath rather than rest. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Even those who accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath attended to the comfort of their own animals on that day. They just could not extend the concept to people. At creation, God rested and enjoyed the work of His hands. He gave mankind a day for rest and fellowship. He gave mankind a day when it was possible to do good deeds, because during the rest of the week finding the time to do such things is harder.

It should reflect love and joy. It should take on the characteristics of a holiday. To close this section, I want to relate the story of someone whose life showed a balanced concept of the Sabbath for the Christian. That man was Eric Liddel. The movie, Chariots of Fire, told the story about his giving up an Olympic medal opportunity, because a qualifying heat, for his race, was to be run on Sunday. Less known is an incident that occurred shortly before he died, of a brain tumor, in a Japanese internment camp during WWII. The camp conditions were crowded and the young children were constantly at loose ends.

There simply was nothing to do. Eric Liddel organized soccer games for the young people. They played on Sunday! Perhaps he had a change of theology, but I think that he found the balance between two scriptures. The first, Isaiah Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb.

God's Activity In The Nations

Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.

They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, both its head and its legs along with its entrails. And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. Now you shall eat it in this manner: For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the Lord.

The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. The first month is Abib. It suggests the singular expression of spring: For Israel, Passover means their birth as a nation. For this reason, although Leviticus gives only a few words to this holy day, Passover is the king of them all.

It is by reason of Passover that Abib marks the beginning of the sacred Jewish Calendar. When Moses commanded the congregation of Israel concerning this first Passover, they were still the slaves of the Egyptians. The day following this Passover meal, they were free. Passover is the holiday for remembering these things. The Jewish celebration combines sights, words, songs, and tastes to communicate the story.

The telling of the story surrounds a festive meal and contains these basic elements:. Although not mentioned in Exodus 12, the Passover in modern times and the time of Jesus included drinking four cups of wine. These cups stand for the four-fold deliverance spoken by God in Exodus. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I understand this as meaning that Jesus did not inaugurate something new when He established communion, but rather identified and extended an existing tradition to communicate truth about Himself.

In the Exodus story, there was no time to let the bread rise before the Israelites had to leave Egypt. Unleavened bread represents the speed of their salvation. It also speaks of sinlessness. I will have more to say about this in the next section, which is about the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

One interesting practice during the Passover celebration is the breaking of one of three pieces of unleavened bread. The first half is used immediately, but the second is wrapped in a cloth and hidden until after the meal. This is the bread that Jesus broke during the Last Supper. It speaks of His sinless perfection.

The second piece wrapped, hidden, and resurrected speaks of Jesus death, burial, and resurrection. Tasting the bitter herbs, i. Instead they commemorate the lamb with the roasted shank-bone of a lamb. The lamb represents protection against the last plague that befell the Egyptians. It seems that the Angel of Death would also have slain the first born of the Israelites, were it not for the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts. On seeing the blood, the Angel of Death passed over the house. From this the celebration gets its name. There are other elements in the Passover celebration.

Consequently the mixture looks a little bit like the mud the Israelites used to make bricks. There is some green vegetable like parsley or celery to speak of spring and hope. There is salt water to represent tears. There are 10 drops of wine dripped from the second cup to represent the 10 plagues on the Egyptians.

What the Gentile Times Really Are

The 10 drops lower the volume of wine in the cups and indicate that the suffering of the Egyptians reduces our joy. Sweet, bitter, and salty tastes for the mouth; dripped wine; broken bread; and so forth are devices to teach the deliverance of God in a unique way.

As I said before, it appeals to all ages. That is, He endowed them with new meaning, and that meaning was tied to Himself. At Passover, the Old and New Covenants meet. He is the lamb without defect. He is the broken bread. He is the cup of Redemption. The hand of God delivered from slavery in the past. On the cross, He delivered us from slavery to sin. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?

Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth 1 Corinthians 5: Allowing sin in our lives and the church has a corrupting influence. But we are unleavened, because Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Thus we see that Jesus completes the promise of Passover. Some would argue that Paul is simply referring to Communion.

Does not Exodus Along these lines note also Acts In any case, the observance of Passover is today growing among the churches. This is a good thing. It is a celebration of the salvation of God from slavery in Egypt and slavery to sin. To the young ones in our families, it provides an opportunity to present the gospel to our children at a very early age. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work.

But for seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord. On the first day you shall have a holy assembly, and another holy assembly on the seventh day; no work at all shall be done on them, except what must be eaten by every person, that alone may be prepared by you. You shall also observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.

Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is an alien or a native of the land. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is an extension of Passover. The celebration is simple. Before it begins, you pass through your entire house to clear out all leavening agents and foods made with leaven. Leavening agents are things like yeast, baking powder, baking soda, and sour dough. Leaven makes bread and rolls rise and become soft and fluffy.

For centuries the Jews have made a special event in the evening of this day. Crumbs of bread and other things are planted throughout the house. In the evening, the father leads the children through the house with a feather and dish to search for the last traces of leaven. When they find them, the father swishes them into the dish with the feather. After all remaining traces are swept away, they are taken outside and burned. For the next seven days, all food is unleavened, but the recipes are incredibly creative.

Whipped egg whites can add sponginess to cake recipes. Nevertheless, for seven days the diet reminds the household and the children that God delivered the Israelites from slavery. The first is the simple fact that the Israelites left Egypt in such a hurry that they did not have time to let their bread rise. The second is that the first several days saw them hurrying away, so that there still was not enough time to let bread rise.

There would be no safety until there was enough distance between them and those who would come after them. Then they came to the Red Sea. In this sense the Feast of Unleavened Bread marks the very first stage of the journey. It was a time of hurry and danger, and then the trap. We know, of course, that the Lord parted the Red Sea so that the Israelites could cross over.

When they do, you can tell them the whole story. Besides, young children get to pretend what it must have been like, at least as far as food goes, to live during those first days after leaving Egypt. Given that leaven also symbolizes sin, this feast is an object lesson in righteousness. As the family cleans the house and searches for all leaven, they play out the process of sanctification. For those of us who are Christians, this Feast of Unleavened Bread reminds us of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit as He searches out and frees us from the sin that inhabits our house.

As Psalm says,. Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way Psalm He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb one year old without defect for a burnt offering to the Lord.

Its grain offering shall then be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering by fire to the Lord for a soothing aroma, with its drink offering, a fourth of a hin of wine. Until this same day, until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. One of the days during the Feast of Unleavened Bread will be a Sabbath.

The day following this Sabbath is the celebration of First Fruits On this day, the first sheaf of harvested barley is brought to the Lord and waved before Him. The grain is then left for the priest and for the poor. No one is to eat from the new harvest until the wave offering is made.

There is no direct Jewish Celebration of this today. In terms of Christianity, it is worth noting that the resurrection of Jesus Christ occurred the day following the Sabbath. His resurrection corresponds to this wave offering. He is, Himself, a first fruits offering. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.

Most Relevant Verses

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death 1 Corinthians It is the promise that we will not see eternal death, but share in eternal life.

When He rose from the dead, we became able to share in the new harvest, which I believe is the Holy Spirit. First Fruits is such a simple holiday, and, yet, it has such significant meaning to us in the Church. Passover is our redemption, Unleavened Bread is our sanctification, First Fruits is our promise of eternal life and resurrection.

I have a personal First Fruits story to tell. I have for years looked upon the Old Testament as containing principles of righteousness living. This is not to be confused with legalism. It should rather be viewed as an attempt to view the Law as Paul did see 1 Corinthians 9: Anyway, I began meditating about the First Fruits offering and how someone who is not a farmer might participate. In my heart, I committed to a special practice to celebrate the event whenever I got a raise. The gross net increase of the first paycheck containing the raise would be a First Fruits offering to the Lord.

This was not to gain approval or special status. It was simply to say thanks and acknowledge that He provides for me every day. It is early and out of grid. IBM says that your next raise should not be more than such-and-such, but I am giving you more than that. IBM benefits did not cover them. My manager had worked out the raise to help our situation. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord.

You shall bring in from your dwelling places two loaves of bread for a wave offering made of two-tenths of an ephah; they shall be of a fine flour, baked with leaven as first fruits to the Lord. Along with the bread you shall present seven one year old male lambs without defect, and a bull of the herd and two rams; they are to be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.

You shall also offer one male goat for a sin offering and two male lambs one-year-old for a sacrifice of peace offerings. The priest shall then wave them with the bread of the first fruits for a wave offering with two lambs before the Lord; they are to be holy to the Lord for the priest. On this same day you shall make a proclamation as well; you are to have a holy convocation. You shall do no laborious work.

It is to be a perpetual statute in all your dwelling places throughout your generations. When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien. In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.

When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain Exodus Pentecost gets its name from the counting of fifty days from the Sabbath following Passover. This places the holiday in the third month Sivan of the Jewish Calendar. It coincides with the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai, which is what the holiday celebrates.

The most unique aspect of this celebration in the temple was the waving of two leavened loaves of bread before the Lord. This was the only leavened offering made in the temple! These loaves, like the earlier wave offering, are also declared to be a First Fruits offering. Perhaps the loaves were to look like the two tablets of the Law. The Jewish celebration of Pentecost often begins by staying up all night to read Torah.

They emphasize the Ten Commandments. In this way they remember the events that took place at Mount Sinai. Also, because of its association with the spring harvest, the Jews will read the Book of Ruth. This is the season for the cheese blintzes and apples dipped in honey. Pentecost completes the Exodus story. Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread tell of the escape from Egypt. Pentecost speaks of the giving of the Law, which is some respects became the Constitution for Israel, the nation. Perhaps Paul was even thinking of the wave offering of the two loaves when he wrote,.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit , even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body Romans 8: Since leaven is a symbol for sin, why is this offering different from all other grain offerings by specifying the inclusion of leaven?

They see in the loaves the Jewish and Gentile believers offered before the Lord as first fruits of what is to come. The Church is not complete without the Jews and the Gentiles. I find the argument compelling. To me, it is just one more example of the prophetic core in the appointed times. In this light, the practice of reading Ruth also foreshadowed the unity of the Jewish and Gentile believers. The first story is that of deliverance from slavery in Egypt and the giving of Law.

The second story is that of deliverance from slavery to sin and the giving of the Holy Spirit. Two stories with different emphasis and meanings. It should be noted, however, that there is no hint that the older meanings were either discarded or demeaned. In fact, the older meanings are essential to the new meanings. In any case, the following table succinctly shows the relationships:.

Following this verse are the commands concerning the holidays of the fall season. The first of these occurs on the first day of the seventh month of the religious calendar. To the ancient Hebrew authors this was the month of Ethanim. In the modern calendar, the month is called Tishri. In the case of this holiday, the trumpets announce the coming of the holidays to follow. The holidays that follow, therefore, are incredibly important. Perhaps, it is better to say that you did not want to be found unprepared when their day arrived. The trumpets remind the people that the Day of Atonement is approaching.

It is a time to reflect on the year and the state of your character and your relationship to God. Then, on the first day of the seventh month Rosh Hashanah , there is a special service that features an elaborate ceremony of trumpet blowing.

Commentary on the Daily Text of Jehovah’s Witnesses

The trumpets remind the Jews of at least eight things To prepare for the coming Day of Atonement by examining the life you have lived this past year. To celebrate the creation with God as its King. This is because, according to Jewish tradition, creation began on the first day of the seventh month. To remember that the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai with the loud blast of a shofar Exodus To rejoice in freedom from slavery. In the past, slaves were freed at the blast of a shofar. God had raised Jesus from the dead!!! He is the firstfruits offering. He is the firstborn from among the dead Col.

Jesus appeared to the disciples for 40 days after His resurrection Acts 1: He told them to wait for the Gift the Father promised which they had heard about from Jesus. Remember how God wrote the Law on the tablets of stone with His finger at Mt. The first day of the 7th month, a day of blowing!

A time of announcement ie: The King is coming. It is a day of complete rest. There is complete rest because Messiah has done all the work as High Priest to make atonement for sin. He entered the tabernacle made without hands with the once for all sacrifice of His own blood Heb.

The Israelites lived in tents in the wilderness for 40 years. The Tabernacle was to be built, a tent covered with skins, exactly according to the pattern God gave. God came down from heaven to dwell among men. God dwelt among the people and His glory filled the Tabernacle. The people saw His glory. The Messiah was born during the Feast of Tabernacles. He came down from heaven to dwell among men. He lived tabernacled among us. Passover The Passover lamb had to be without blemish Exd.

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