Fulfillment in Joshua

Ron Weinland

May 28, 2011

Today we’re going to cover a subject that has great bearing on the observance of Pentecost.  We’re addressing the subject in preparation of additional material that we’re going to be covering during a new series that begins on the Sabbath before Pentecost when we’re in the Netherlands.  I’m not sure how many sermons in the series yet, but it will begin in Europe on that weekly Sabbath and part 2 will be on Pentecost if there are more then they will follow accordingly.

Today’s sermon is entitled Fulfillment in Joshua, as there is a great deal of importance in some of the events that were fulfilled in Joshua’s day.  It’s good to understand this.  There’s a lot that’s gone into this in times past, things that people have become confused about, things that the Jewish world is fully confused about, information that’s there. The Church in times past became confused in some of it until Mr. Armstrong gave a specific sermon in 1974 when Pentecost was addressed and things were changed as far as our understanding of the timing.  And so much of it had to do with this incident, these things that took place in the time of Joshua, things that so many have rejected through time and things that so many even in the scattered Church of God have lost insight of and don’t understand.

We’re going to begin today in the book of Joshua as we start going through some of this story.  We have gone through some things of recent time, but this is with a different focus today than it was when we talked about how they came into the promised land, encompassed Jericho, and the process they went through as far as circling the city once the first six days, and then seven times on the seventh day and the incredible meaning of those things that we went through and discussed at that particular time.

This is after forty years of being in the wilderness, the children of Israel coming into, finally, the land that God had promised, the promise land, the physical promise land, to give to the ancestry of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob those things that He promised them so long ago.

I thought it would be interesting to note a couple of things here.  First of all, amazing, Joshua at this time was about 85 years old when they entered the promised land.  Moses died at that point before they went in and that’s about the age of Joshua at this time.  And the first thing of interest here is the name that God gave to this man – Joshua.  It means ‘the Eternal is salvation’ or ‘the Eternal’s salvation’.  Names have meaning!  Terrific significance!  God has named things through time with tremendous significance, of what it pictures, of things that it foretell oftentimes, and here is an example of that; a name that was given to him, talking about a salvation and a respect that was finally going to be given to Israel in the sense of that which was physical, going into a promised land, being able to inherit things that God had promised, that He’d told them that He would give to them.

It’s also the name that God gave to Christ.  We use the English term ‘Jesus’, but it was the Hebrew word ‘Yehowshuwa’ or ‘Jehoshua’ – that’s His name as far as the Old Testament Hebrew is concerned.  It’s the same exact name, ‘the Eternal is salvation’ or ‘the Eternal’s salvation’.  So again, very descriptive if you will, of Christ, of the Messiah, Jesus, God’s salvation to mankind; but again, we use in English here, it’s a spinoff of the Greek and the New Testament that’s translated into Greek.  This is the word that was used, it’s ‘Iesous’, that’s the word that’s used and the English is a spinoff of that particular word there.

Some people get all twitter pated, all twisted up inside saying, ‘Well, we should use the name in the Old Testament; ‘Yehowshuwa’! That’s the righteous thing to do.”  No it isn’t!  But we’ve had people, we’ve known of people, I’ve known of situations, especially the Messianic Jews, they get all excited about that and they think we have to go back and use some Hebrew name in the Old Testament.  Well you know, the New Testament, they used a different name; they used different names for God as well that were Greek names... and some people get upset about that.  Tough!  You know, if you read the Bible, God will give you the definition of what those names are, what they mean.

Also, this was right at 3,400 years ago when this event took place; 1,400 BC.  Incredible when you think about time and the things that took place and all the history that transpired.

Let’s begin in Joshua 1:1 and talk about some of this as we go through it, things to be learned from it. Then after the death of Moses the servant of the Eternal – of Yahweh, the Eternal God, the Almighty Eternal Ever Living God - different expressions you can use there for the same name, the servant of the Eternal it came to pass that the Eternal spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying, Moses My servant is dead; therefore rise up and go over Jordan, you, and all this people, into the land which I have given to the children of Israel.  So He’s talking to Moses’ assistant, his right hand man if you will, the one who remained faithful through that whole period of time; there were only two who remained faithful that God brought into the promised land who came out of Egypt.  All the rest of those who came out of Egypt died that were 20 years and older.

Verse 3 - Every place that the sole of your foot shall walk upon is what I have given to you, as I said unto Moses.  In other word, unto you the Israelites. God has chosen him to lead them now and He’s letting him know that, “You’re the one that’s going to lead the people of Israel and I’m going to place you in Moses’ position of authority over Israel.”

Verse 4 - From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea, speaking of the Mediterranean, all the way to the Mediterranean toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not be any man that is able to stand against you all the days of your life: Powerful the promises God gave here...but always hinged on one primary thing for Israel: IF... if you obey God.  If you don’t thing will go bad.  So it’s a matter of obedience as to whether or not they’ll receive certain promises at specific times.

So it says here, There shall not be any man that’s able to stand against you all the days of your life:  just as I was with Moses, so will I be with you:  So this is specifically zeroing in more for Joshua here and the job that’s going to be given to him, and He’s sharing and reassuring Joshua here that ‘just as I was with Moses’, the things that I did to uphold Moses, ‘I will be with you’.  I will not fail you, nor leave you.

That’s why He went on to say in...verse 6 – Be strong and of good courage: “Be confident in what I’ve given to you, in what I’ve said to you.”  Be strong and of good courage; and he was going to need it to work with several million people going into a promised land.  Incredible what took place here.  ...for unto this people you shall divide the land for an inheritance, which I promised unto their fathers that I’d give it to them. So be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all the law, which Moses My servant commanded you:  So many times when Moses, and times when Joshua, had to take a stand, of things that others wanted to do and they had to stand up and say, “No, this is what we’re going to do.  This is the way we’re going to walk.  This is what we’re going to follow – what God has given to us.”  And this is what God is telling him to be strong and very courageous in, in following Him and upholding Him and His ways, His truth and whatever is given to Him, regardless of the opposition, regardless of what comes his way.

Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left; so an admonition to Joshua, because just as God worked with Moses, it came from God through Moses to the children of Israel. Whatever God gave, whatever instruction was given, whatever came through Moses to be given to all the people...  And God is telling Joshua that “The same thing is true with you; everything that I give will come through you to the children of Israel, do not turn to the right hand or to the left.”  Just like what we’re told – don’t add to it, don’t take from it.  We’re to do exactly what God gives to us.  It’s never changed; it’s always been this way.

So He says, Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may prosper wherever you go.  So that you will prosper, so that you can be blessed; because if you don’t...see the other side of this has always been there as far as Israel’s concerned into the future, as far as what happened in the time of the judges, as what happened as far as the kings later on; started out shaky with Saul, and then finally David came along, God lifted up David, and then after that Solomon, and from that point on they had some tough times, most of the time, with different kings and so forth.  Only a few through time saw to uphold God’s way of life.

He’s telling them that you do these things so that you can prosper, and the same is told to us as far as the Church is concerned, as far as God’s way of life is, that we hold true, we hold fast to what God gives to us so He can bless us – because that’s God’s desire.  He desires to bless His people.  He desired to bless Israel!  A physical nation, not a spiritual one, but a physical nation – but God desired to bless them mightily and gave them promises in spite of them at times because of His name sake, because of His word, because of things that had to come to pass – like this nation of Manasseh.  God gave us this nation.

Was listening to Prime Minister Netanyahu the other day with what he was saying about Israel that was plainly spoken, so simple to understand and comprehend their dilemma; and thinking, “What an incredible thing!  ...just the Jewish people as a whole: some Levites scattered in there, some Benjamites and some others scattered in there as a whole, but primarily the Jewish people, Judah.  And the world is ignorant of it!  Think, “What a horrible thing!”  And then they talk in these different terms of this bond, this unique relationship with the United States, with Great Britain, and they don’t know why, they don’t understand the history of why there is such a bond and such a relationship!  They don’t understand something so simple and so basic. We’re all part of the same nation, Israel!  It’s incredible!  A little bit of digging, a little bit of ability, a willingness to acknowledge what is true in history, that some in Great Britain fully understand.  There’s a society there that understands who they are, that they’re descendants of Israel – Ephraim, another tribe.  And Judah was only one.  Incredible what you know, what we understand that was given to Mr. Armstrong so that we could comprehend things in prophecy – because without that knowledge you can’t go forward, you can’t begin to comprehend what God says about the end-time unless you know who Israel is.  That’s an awesome thing, what God has blessed us with, things that the world doesn’t understand that to us is so simple and so clear!  I hope you’re dumbfounded by that!  I hope you’re in awe of that!  Judah, the Jews.

That’s why I remember it as though it were yesterday, reading the book that Mr. Armstrong wrote, ‘United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy’, talking about the first time the word Jew is ever used in the Bible.  The Jews were at war with Israel; and that ought to cause people, religious scholars to stop and scratch their head a little bit at least, “How could Jews... at war with Israel...?  How can they war with themselves?  What does this mean?”  And they don’t comprehend that the vast majority of those twelve tribes were in the North.  They don’t understand what happened after Solomon’s reign, Rehoboam and Jeroboam, what happened in their day.  They don’t comprehend those things; they don’t understand the history of those things in the Old Testament at all.  We’re blessed to see it, to know that both groups were taken captive at different times.  Incredible knowledge and understanding.

God’s desire was to bless.  And so God has kept His promises even when they haven’t understood (speaking of Israel, not just the modern country called ‘Israel’), even to this day doesn’t understand that the reason this nation became so great is because it was prophesied to be so by God, of what would happen all the way to the end of the age, the last greatest nation the world has ever known.  And before that God said, ‘a great nation and a great company of nations,’ which was what Great Britain was until it wasn’t great anymore after WWII, after the United States, because of the dollar and because of what happened to the pound and on and on it goes.  Incredible!

Verse 8 - This book of the law should never depart out of your mouth; same as with us; God’s law, God’s way of life, that which the world says has been ‘nailed to the cross’.  They don’t understand He didn’t die on a ‘cross’ anyway.  Incredible!  ...never let it depart out of your mouth; it is your life!  The word of God should be our word. ...and you shall meditate thereon, in other words, think on it, think about it. That’s what you do when you meditate, you think about what it is you’re reading.  You stop and you think from time to time, you don’t just read it as a story all the time.  Sometimes it’s fine to do that, but other times it’s good to think about what you’ve read.  What is it saying?  What are we being told?  What can we learn from this?  ...meditate thereon day and night; and so he was told as a leader of Israel he had a job to do and he was to read and he was to meditate on it and think about it constantly, day and night in order that you might observe to do according to all that is written in it:  to check yourself, continually, to seek to be at one with God!  ...for in so doing you will make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.   Good lessons for all of us.  That’s how it comes, the blessings, good success; the closer we are to God the more at one with His word that we are.

Verse 9 – Now, haven’t I commanded you to be strong and of good courage? That’s what God tells us when we’re called!  Sometimes we don’t grasp that, obviously, we learn it as we go along. But as God draws you and calls you out of this world and you begin to see the truth then you have to make choices and decisions.  I have known of HUNDREDS who can’t hold, would not hold to those decisions...being called.  Many are called but few are chosen, few follow through, things that happen in people’s lives to pull people away – perhaps a job, perhaps tithing, perhaps family, because someone else doesn’t want or doesn’t believe or gives them such a hard time, a mate, whatever it might be, a parent, children.  It’s happened over and over and this has been repeated so many times in my lifetime alone – seeing things that have happened in God’s Church.

And so He tells everyone when you’re first called, when you’re first drawn; Be strong and of good courage; because this isn’t going to be easy!  God teaches us and shows us that this isn’t the way of the world, and the moment you choose God, the moment you choose this way of life you’re going to be cut off from the world!  That’s what it talks about in Revelation; those who are cut off from the world because of what they believe.  The world cuts them off because the world doesn’t want this way.  Religion, every religion out there hates the truth!  They truly do!  Talk about ‘loving God’ and ‘loving Jesus Christ’ but you go through the law...oh all the laws are good until you get to the Sabbath and then, “Oh, that’s been nailed to the cross!  That’s been done away with!”  They hate it because they have to make giant changes in their life from Sunday to the Sabbath, from Easter and Christmas to Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles and on we go.  Big changes and they realize that others around them are going to think differently around them.  So many can’t be strong and of good courage to do what is right, to walk this way.  We all have to go through that, don’t we? Thankfully we’re getting close to the end of that in the sense of what people have to do, what they have to go through.  A little over a year – amazing!

So He says, Now, haven’t I commanded you to be strong and of good courage and to not be afraid? Don’t be afraid!  Don’t be afraid of your employer.  What’s the worse he can do to you?  Fire you.  What’s worth more?  God’s truth?  God’s way of life?  Can God take care of you?  Well, it might be rough for a little while; you get tried, you get tested.  God will bless you beyond your wildest ability to imagine, beyond our ability to comprehend.  That’s why I say over and over again, those of you that have been drawn?  Those of you who have opportunity to live into a new age, you can’t begin to comprehend what’s on the other side of this, the world that’s coming, one world under one government, one world with one Church.  It’s almost unimaginable because of the chaos and the confusion and the way the world is today.

Haven’t I commanded you to be strong and of good courage and not to be afraid, and neither be dismayed: Don’t be broken!  Don’t let anything break you! Let God strengthen you, cry out to God!  He’s your strength, He’s our Petra!  Our belief at one point in time was that there was a place that everyone would go to at the end-time called Petra, over in Jordan.  Many people have gone there and looked at it, scouted it out, some laying claim on which caves they’re going to have.   ...because there was this understanding, it’s called ‘a place of safety’.  Not understanding that it’s about Yahweh, it’s about God Almighty, He is your place of safety through every hardship, through every trial. You’d think that’d be so simple to see and understand but we couldn’t because we understood the end of an age, we understood that tribulation was going to take place, and nothing has happened like we thought it was going to.  Just as with the apostasy, we had no ability to comprehend what was coming... lessons, lessons, lessons.  Follow God, follow where God leads; get rid of preconceived ideas and God will lead us.

Be... of good courage; be not afraid, neither be you dismayed: which means, don’t be broken, for the Eternal your God is with you wherever you go. Powerful what He was telling Joshua.

Verse 10 - Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the multitude and command the people saying, Prepare for yourself provisions; for in three days you shall pass over this Jordan, giving him a timeframe here, that there’s coming a time when you need to go through and do this because as soon as this is done, in three days you’re going to pass over the Jordan to possess the land which the Eternal your God has given you to possess.

Then after Joshua told them all that God had instructed him to say the people responded, notice; verse 16 - And they answered Joshua, All that you command us we will do, and wherever you send us that is where we will go. According as we have listened to Moses in all things so will we listen to you: and may the Eternal Your God be with you as He was with Moses. So this was their response to what was said, knowing that God had given Joshua this charge and that which was passed along to the people and the people responding to him in this manner.

Verse 18 - Whoever it is who rebels against your commandment and will not listen to your words and all that you command, then he shall be put to death: powerful words.  “We’re going to do what you tell us, as God told Moses and He worked with Him.  So as God tells you, and you tell us, we’re going to do it and if someone doesn’t they should be put to death.”  It isn’t ‘should be’; they said ‘they will be’.  So be strong and of good courage.  Incredible!

Joshua 2 – In the next chapter we have the account of the two spies that were sent in to scout out the city of Jericho and of course their encounter with Rahab and what took place there.  But let’s focus on one thing that she told the spies here. We know the story but there are certain things we want to focus on here; verse 9 - And she said to the men, I know that the Eternal has given you the land, and that the terror/ fear of you has fallen upon us, she’s saying, “This is what’s happened to us here in Jericho because of you Israelites,” and that all the inhabitants of the land melt because of you. And so all the people, as you’re coming into this land, all the people melt in front of you for we have heard... this is forty years later.  They’ve been in the wilderness for forty years, but the people didn’t forget the stories of what happened to Pharaoh and to an army and what happened to Egypt and what they suffered at the hands of God Almighty – and this is why they fear, because they’ve seen these blessings and other things that took place while they were in the wilderness that forty years too of certain wars.

...for we have heard how the Eternal dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt; and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were on the other side of Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And so this reputation was in front of them before they ever crossed over.  And so here are the spies in her city, Israel hasn’t come across the river yet but the people there fear, that’s why they shut up Jericho like they did.  They were preparing for war.  They weren’t going to surrender, they weren’t going to in any fashion or form give up what they believed, and so they were preparing themselves.

Verse 11 - And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted, within the city, within Jericho, and neither was there any more courage in any man, because of you: Awesome what she said here, for the Eternal your God, He is God in heaven above, those things that happened, she could see. God blessed her to be able to see it; something that should have been so clear to all the rest, but too much pride for all the rest.  But for her an ability to acknowledge God had to do this; God, your God, He is God, He is the God in the heaven above, and on earth beneath.  So she was very moved by all this, as even God was working with her.

So it hasn’t been that long ago when we covered some of the book of Joshua and focused on the crossing of the Jordan, talking about the river as it stopped flowing and so forth.  There’s so much that’s contained in this book of things having to do with this season of the year, having to do with Pentecost that are very powerful and need to be understood because there are a lot of people gone before you who stumbled at this.  Not a few, a lot!  A lot of people who’ve been deeply educated, in the sense of trained at Ambassador College, who’ve gone astray.  So it’s wise to know and wise to understand and wise to remember.

So again, buried within the story of Israel being brought into the promised land is great truth concerning knowledge that one must have, that one must know, when to obey God in the observance of the annual Holy Day of Pentecost, and this is how you can come to understand it.  The story of Joshua is the only way to know absolutely without doubt.

So again, the setting of Israel coming into the promised land is indeed the result of God’s promises to them and also the very specific instruction that He gave to them concerning this eventual occasion, because He gave them instruction about this a long time before that.  He told them, “When you come into this land...” there are specific things that they were to address.  So we want to focus on some of that story and notice the precise, the meticulous timing of this great event.  God is meticulous in timing, meticulous about everything He does, very powerfully so because He’s almighty and He blesses us with seeing and learning and understanding these things as well.

Joshua 3:1 - And Joshua rose up early in the morning; and they left Shittim and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and encamped there before they passed over. And it came to pass... and it’s not the word ‘after’, it’s ‘toward the end of’ is literally what it means, of the three days, that the officers went through the entire multitude; So if you remember the story I just read here a moment ago in Joshua 1:10, it talked about how in three days they were to go through and do these various things.

Verse 3 - And they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of the Eternal your God, and the priests of the Levites bearing it, then you shall leave your place, and follow  after it. So this is the first thing you’re going to see; all the nation of Israel encamped there and this is the first thing that’s going to take place that you’re going to be able to see.  And of course this is done in an orderly fashion, and those who were to watch this and the specific manner in which they were to follow, which they understood.

Verse 4 - Yet there shall be a space between you and it by the measure of about two thousand cubits: in other words nearly a kilometre, or just over a half a mile in length there.  So they were to keep their distance.  You know, God wanted them to be in awe of something that was taking place here and something that was not normally seen as a whole per se they would see, because if you remember how the tabernacle is set up and so forth and the high priest went in the presence only once a year; and now it’s being transported.  So again, a very unique thing here of what they could see, because all this was made visible to them because of what was going to take place, showing that God’s presence was there and what was going to take place.  Again, some very physical things for them to have a measure of fear and awe of God Almighty, on a physical plane not a spiritual one.

And so again, He told them, “...don’t go near it.”

Verse 5 - And Joshua had said to the people to Sanctify themselves: for tomorrow the Eternal will do wonders among you. And so here this is being told and Joshua spoke unto the priests saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. And the Eternal said to Joshua, This day I will begin to magnify you; so this is what God is telling Joshua now and giving him encouragement and strength because of what he is going to be doing for a long time to come; and so He’s going to magnify Joshua, He’s going to give Joshua strength and courage like He told Him in the very beginning – ‘Be strong and very courageous in what you do,’ and so He’s going to give him a boost here in a very powerful way and all of Israel as well, because they said some things.  They said, “What God has given you, what you say, we will do.” But knowing Israel, that doesn’t last all that long, some of the things they’ve done in times past – and so God’s going to reinforce that now with several powerful events as you know the story of Joshua here.

And the Eternal said to Joshua, This day I will begin to magnify you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that just as I was with Moses so I will be with you. So they’ve only spoken it so far, they’re moved by the fact that they’re there, but knowing Israel, knowing human nature, it doesn’t take all that long before all that can be lost; God’s going to reinforce it.

And you shall command the priests who bear/carry the ark of the covenant, saying, When you have come to the brink of the water of the Jordan, right to the waters edge, you shall stand still in the Jordan.  And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come here and hear the words of the Eternal your God. And Joshua said, Hereby you shall know that the Living God is among you, so again, reinforcing things before them, telling them that God Almighty, the Living God, the God who was with Moses, the God who’s been with us He’s with you today, and that without fail He will drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites...and any other ‘ites’.  God told them, ‘Don’t fear’ – that’s what Joshua’s saying to them in passing on what God had given to him and letting them know that God’s going to be with you and there’s nothing to fear.

Verse 11 – Look at how the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into the Jordan. In other words he’s saying, “Watch what God does!”  So that’s why everyone was to observe what was taking place as the ark went by and was carried down to the water’s edge.

Verse 15 - And as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water, (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest,) It’s amazing how you can read through a story and not grasp the incredible significance of what it says.  So someone might pick up on the fact, well, okay it was flooding – but the fact that it was the harvest needs to be understood, it’s paramount, it has incredible significance with this story here of a particular harvest that God wants everyone who reads this story to understand, because it’s the fulfillment of a great event, of something that God told them long ago in the book of the law, in Leviticus, a specific manner of what they were to do when this event took place.  And so it’s magnifying, if you will, this event, helping everyone to understand that this was an incredible thing that was taking place.  It was the time of flooding. Because during this harvest season (and it’s a spring harvest) the Jordan floods; floods continually.  That’s what it’s saying here.  And it was flooding at this time until...  I’ll just read it as it is....

...(for Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest,) That the waters... so it talks about them coming down to the edge of the water, the priests feet who were bearing the ark, ‘who bore the ark’, they dipped their feet just right in the water there.  It says that The waters which came down from upstream stood still and rose in a heap, in other words, backed up as a dam.  So this was farther upstream that others witnessed farther up, other people not a part of Israel, and so the waters began to back up, different from what happened when they went through the Red Sea because that was a sea and both sides had to be parted and they walked through, but this didn’t escape them at all in any way.  Gave them incredible encouragement, incredible boldness, because what had he just told them?  ‘No one is going to be able to stand against you.’  All the different ‘ites’ that we just read about, ‘God’s going to destroy before you; be strong’...not just Joshua, but for all of Israel, “Be strong and of good courage and receive what I’ve given to you, because it’s yours for the taking.”

And so it talks about how this rose up in a heap, or backed up in a dam, very far away at Adam, the city  is beside Zaretan: so the waters that went down to the sea of Arabah, even the salt sea, failed and were cut off: and the people crossed over opposite of Jericho. Incredible!  They crossed over just like they did when they went through the Red Sea.  Powerful, powerful event, stirred them up, excited them – so many of them, they heard the story and they weren’t there.  So many that came across, they weren’t there when they came to the Red Sea, but they’d been told the story a lot.  Now they get to see this!

Then the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Eternal stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel crossed over on dry ground until all the people had crossed completely over the Jordan.  Incredible!  So again here, something that’s easily overlooked because we tend sometimes, especially in the Old Testament, to read it as a story as well, because it is a story, it’s an awesome story of when the children of Israel went into the promised land, but it contains a wealth of understanding and knowledge and information that God wants us to glean, and awesomely important at that in this particular case.

So, again, it was the season of harvest – very important when it comes to God’s instruction for Pentecost.

Let’s go back to Leviticus 23 I mentioned a while ago and notice what it says back there.  We’re going through this now because I didn’t want to go through it on Pentecost, but to set the stage for some of those things, especially all those of you who are new, and all those of you who’ve been around for a long, long time – it does not matter, these things need to be deeply imbedded in our being, deeply imbedded in our mind and to be in awe of it, because a lot of people who’ve had a lot more education in God’s way of life, in God’s truth stumbled at this!  Don’t think you can’t stumble!  Lessons galore here, truly, for us to be humbled by and to understand the only way to receive the truth and the only way to hold on to what is true is to be alert, to be watchful, to be on guard, to be spiritually alert, to have God’s spirit – because when it begins to leave, when it begins to wane, when people begin to fall asleep they lose and can’t hold onto what is true.  Seen it happen in too many lives, especially in the ministry.

Leviticus 23:10...every Holy Day season we go through and we read about those things that are contained in this and God makes it very clear, as we’ve talked about and read those scriptures over and over again at the beginning of Leviticus here, where it talks about the weekly Sabbath and the annual Sabbaths and it says, these are My appointed seasons/appointed times.  Starts out in the first few verses that way, and that’s why I always like to point out the one word here that’s used.

Again, it’s so important that these things are deeply imbedded in our being, Leviticus 23, when a person first goes through here and it uses the word ‘feasts’.  That’s why I point out every time we have certain Holy Days and certain times when we read through these things, point out that in verse 2 it’s not the word for ‘feasts’. There is a word that means ‘feasts’, this isn’t used here though.  This is the word for ‘appointed times’, just like we have appointments that we keep.  We’re good at that today because we have little computers and little things we carry around in our pocket and our time is taken up.  Some people, every hour of the day, what you’re going to be doing, different appointments and so forth.

God makes these appointments.  He’s made them for mankind for the full 7,100 years of man, when the weekly Sabbath will be, when the annual Sabbaths will be; and He said These are My appointed times, that you’re to come before Me in holy convocations.  Powerful what God said here!  Says, Even these are My... goes on to say ‘feasts’ and says, these are My feasts.  Six days...again, telling about the Sabbath and making it very clear here....

Verse 4 – For these are the appointed times, that’s the word, not ‘feasts’ of the Eternal, even holy convocations, which means a commanded assembly, a time to come before God.  So people say, “Oh, but the Sabbath is ‘nailed to the cross’!  Christ did away with it! We don’t have to keep that old harsh law! You’re a legalist!”  I just have to shake my head sometimes at what man will do, how far mankind will go.  These are the appointed times of the Eternal, even holy convocations/ commanded assemblies, and so He just included in here annual Sabbaths and the weekly Sabbaths, which you shall proclaim in their, same word, not ‘feasts’ not ‘seasons, you shall proclaim in their appointed time.  That’s why we go through and talk about these things in Leviticus and then expound upon them.  At Pentecost I’ll be going through some of these verses even more so because that’s what God commands me to do.  He says you’re to go through these things, you’re to focus on these things, this is what you’re to look at, this is a part of it, this is a part of that story, this is what you’re to tell people at these times.  Incredible!

And then of course it starts out, verse 5, giving a day that is not an annual Sabbath.  Before you can ever enter into God’s Sabbaths, annual or weekly, you’ve got to accept this one here. That’s what people have to accept – the Passover.  I marvel at that!  I hope you do!  Isn’t it an amazing thing that people can read scriptures in the New Testament about a Lamb, the Lamb of God, but they can’t acknowledge that He was that Lamb for Passover, fulfilling the Passover day?  So why don’t we observe it?  “Oh, let’s keep Easter. Rabbits that run around and lay eggs...“  – teach your children lies, lie to them about God, lie to them about things like that.  Tell them lies!  That’s a good way to teach about religion.  Does God do that throughout scripture anywhere?  Does He say to give a nice little story that’s a lie and say perpetuate this to teach about Me?  Oh, absolutely not!  It’s heinous!  It’s disgusting!  Something that should be so simple to see, to understand, but people reject it, won’t accept the Passover, that He died for our sins.

The lamb’s throat was cut year by year by year to picture something that was going to happen in the future when One would have to come and die for all of mankind, the Lamb of God, the Passover who’s blood had to be spilled to the earth.  Someone who wouldn’t suffocate on a pole with his hands up there like this [hands extended over the head and together], and the legs having to be broken so that they couldn’t push themselves up to breathe anymore! Because you can breathe like this [arms extended out to the sides] they had to be like this [arms extended over the head and together] with their hands up above them, with a nail through each hand, one nail!  And the world teaches lies about that!  Sick!

Think, well, why do they come around and break their legs?  So they couldn’t push themselves up to breathe anymore, so they could be dead by the time the Sabbath was there so they could get them off the stake.  Amazing!  I get so upset with the willing ignorance sometimes of mankind, because there are religious people out there who know better.  They know that Christmas is an absolute bald-faced lie!  There are ministers out there who understand that!

We have to begin with Passover before we can enter into the other, the rest of the Holy Days, accept Christ as our Passover.  Again, something the world fully rejects and doesn’t acknowledge about Jesus Christ.  Would rather keep Easter or something that has absolutely no meaning or truth in it, period.  Nothing true in it whatsoever.  Incredible!

So in the particular story here then, in Leviticus 23, it goes through and talks about then the very next thing; it does talk about a Feast day, one of the first there in verse 6.  It talks about the First Day of Unleavened Bread, which is a Feast day, was a Feast day for the Israelites, and speaks of other Feast days as well and it is the word for ‘Feasts’ there.

Jumping on down to verse 10, notice what it says.  Again, in all the instruction that God gave concerning Holy Days this is something that He gave to them.  So awesomely important because it’s contained within information that was given to them about how to observe holy time, how to keep a holy convocation, when to keep a holy convocation and what to do on those holy convocations.  And so in verse 10 – Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When you have come into the land which I give unto you – you think that would be a no brainer!  You would think that’d be a no brainer for the Jews!  You would think that’d be a no brainer for some who were ministers in the Church of God!  To be able to acknowledge, “I can see, I can read the story when they came into the promised land.  So it says, when you have come into the land which I give unto you, you shall reap the harvest of it. The land was flooding; it was the time of harvest when they came in.  Do you suppose it has any significance?  Do you suppose that has any bearing? ...the timing?  ...and when God brought them in there?  Absolutely!  It all fits together in the way that God intended it to;

...and shall reap the harvest of it, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits; This isn’t a word for ‘firstfruits’.  It’s amazing how many things are mistranslated in scripture, and because people won’t do a little bit of digging, won’t go to a ‘Strong’s Concordance’ or ‘Young’s’ or someplace to see what some words mean.  To just do a little thinking and a little digging when it comes to the truth; and instead they come up with different ideas about what this is talking about.

But it says, then you shall bring a sheaf of the beginning, it’s the Hebrew word for the beginning of your harvest, so they were to have a sheaf of the beginning of their harvest.  This is important.  The reason I’m saying this to you is this is incredibly important to the story, that Rabbi’s, people who have studied the Old Testament inside and out, who know Hebrew.  I don’t know Hebrew, but I know enough to understand what is true here – and we do by God’s spirit too, that’s how we understand it.  But it isn’t that difficult, some things like this, to be able to see, to know what it says here.  ...a sheaf of the beginning of your harvest unto the priests: So the children of Israel were plainly told that when they came into the land that God was giving to them that they should do some very specific things.  So when is it they came into the land? You think they were concerned about doing some very specific things that God had given to them that’s written in their law about this moment in time?  You bet!

So in this case they were to bring a sheaf of the beginning of the harvest to the priests.  By Jewish tradition, by Jewish teaching, by all of it, and by much of what has been taught by different ones in God’s Church, different ministers who went off on different tangents and began to think that the Jews held truth... “We can learn things from the Jews.”  Big mistake!  It’s like saying we can go and learn truths from the Protestant world.  No you can’t.  That’s what God’s bringing us out of, the very thing that God is bringing us out of – false beliefs, false understanding of things.  It’s not understanding at all!

So again, it is this very specific time that God was giving them charge, or commandment, to remember when they were coming into the promised land, and the instruction that was given here concerning the method for counting Pentecost.  It’s a beautiful thing.  One thing about God’s word – there are people who have in times wrestled with certain things that they think might be in conflict in scripture, something that isn’t in agreement in scripture... Oh, it’s always in agreement, it’s just we don’t have the understanding yet of what it is.  We just don’t have the understanding yet.  There is nothing that contradicts anything in scripture, in God’s word; it compliments, it fits like a glove on a hand – perfectly!  Beautiful!  Awesome!  Inspiring!  Nothing out of place!  Everything always fits and is very moving and very inspiring when you see how incredible it is when it all fits together.

Joshua 4:14 – And on that day the Eternal magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel and they feared him as they feared Moses.  In other words, they were going to listen to what he had to say because they saw something here that’s going to stick with them, something that every one of them experienced, crossing over on dry land, and so many of them, into the hundreds of thousands who weren’t a part of leaving Egypt, who were born in the wilderness in those forty years...forty years and downward who never experienced the Red Sea experienced this!  And they were moved by it and they saw God working with Joshua.  Incredible!  And so they feared him as they feared Moses all the days of his life.

And the Eternal spoke to Joshua, saying, Command the priests who bear the ark of the testimony, to come up out of the Jordan. Joshua therefore commanded the priests, saying, Come up out of the Jordan.   God told him what to do, how to do it, what do to and what things meant and so forth.  He led him by His spirit.

And it came to pass, when the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Eternal had come up out of the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests' feet were lifted on to the dry land, in other words, out of the riverbed where the water was overflowing in the banks and where it was on the edge, as far as it was.  When they got to that point where they were passed that and now on the dry land where the water had not been before, that the waters of Jordan returned into their place, and flowed over its banks, as they did before. Awesome!  Awesome!

Verse 19 - And the people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day, a little more is added, tenth day.  What happens on the tenth day?  Powerful, powerful in meaning.  And on the tenth day of the first month, now we know the season of the year.  Now we know it’s in the spring.  Now we know it’s the spring harvest that God was talking about; and this fits everything that God gave to them back in Leviticus 23, the event that was taking place.  And they encamped in Gilgal, on the east border of Jericho.

Tenth day!  That’s when God told them in Exodus 12, when we read that in Passover season, that God told them to go and pick out a lamb on the tenth day and keep it until the 14th day.  Incredible – families would pick out a lamb.  And for children, when you do something like that and you set it apart in a very special way amongst all the other animals and you bring it in and you pick it out like this, you get attached to it, children get attached to it. People get attached.  You can get attached easily to an animal.  When I was a child I was with a lamb.  But it doesn’t matter what it is.  I don’t care whether it’s a chicken, whether it’s a lamb, whether it’s a dog, a cat, a horse – it’s easy to get attached to an animal, and in a very short length of time.

And then on the fourteenth day to be told that as a family you cut its throat, you kill it.  You would be attached to it, indeed.  We’re to understand what Jesus Christ did for us.  There should be an attachment, to understand that the Son of God, willing to die for our sins...indeed there should be a close attachment to understand what our elder brother did for each and every one of us.  Powerful what God gave here!

And so it was on this same occasion that they came across on this day.  And you know what they did on that day... they took a lamb.  They all picked out a lamb on that day after they came through, preparing for Passover because they were getting ready to observe it.

So again, very specific all the way through here, and a very inspiring, very moving story.

Joshua 5; let’s go on with part of the story here continuing in the next chapter in the events that relate to the instruction that God gave the Israelites that’s recorded in His instruction back in Leviticus 23.  Here’s where we begin to see some of these things concerning, again, His holy sanctified appointed times that we’re to observe, specifically Passover period and Pentecost and how to do it.  And so the timing here has been given very specifically to the Israelites.

Joshua 5:9 – and the Eternal said to Joshua, This day have I rolled away, in other words, a word that just means ‘removed’ the reproach of Egypt from off of you, wherefore the name of the place, this place, is called Gilgal; It’s a word that means ‘a wheel’ or ‘a rolling’, unto this day.  So again, God calls things what they are, has significance, has meaning and so the name was given to that area as they came across the Jordan.  And again, after forty years of being in the wilderness, finally...finally... finally, finally, finally, they came into the promised land.

And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho.  Now, again, important information that’s given here, telling when this took place, that they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho.

What I’m getting ready to go into right now can be a little technical for some, but it’s fully covered in the article on the subject of the publications page of the Church website.  And some of it’s covered in the ‘Passover’ article and some is covered in the ‘Counting Pentecost’ article, and some in both.  But I want to go through some of this for those who have known this for some time and for those who don’t, to pick up some of it and maybe go back and read some of this so that you can be more deeply grounded in it.

We have learned in God’s Church very early on – when the apostasy took place that things began to happen in such a way that there’d been many in the ministry who’d been wrongly taught by an evangelist in God’s Church who taught at Ambassador College.  There were many a minister who’d been taught by this individual, Dr. Hoeh, who looked up to him and held him in high esteem, who taught them 14th/15th Passover; which means that they believed that although the Passover was given for the 14th that in time it was changed to the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th and that the Israelites actually started observing Passover later on in the history of the kings, they began to observe it on the 15th.  But it was taught “But we still keep it on the 14th because that’s what Paul gave to us.”

Well, that’s not smart to teach something distorted and perverted like that because it’s like it’s saying basically that the Jews, what they’re doing today is correct and therefore this is why they do what they do.  To make a long story short that is just as bad and just as evil as people who will not believe what Jesus Christ said when He said, “The only evidence, the only proof I’m going to leave you that I am who I say I am, that I am the Christ, that I am the Messiah, is that I’ll be in the heart of the earth as Jonah was in the heart of the great fish for three days and three nights.”  That alone, in itself, condemns all of Traditional Christianity, everything the Catholic church has ever taught about Easter, that somehow what they observe when they call it ‘good Friday’, that somehow at the end of Friday, at the end just before sunset, that Jesus Christ was put into the earth.  How do you get three days and three nights to Sunday morning?  Kind of blows the mind and yet there are theologians and people who go into great length to tell how that you can read three days and three nights into all that.  It’s pretty tough to do!  So proves right there that they lie, that they distort what is true.

And all of us, I’ve mentioned it recently... What an incredible thing for you to grasp!  To me, one of the most exciting things is when I began to read that story, was to learn about the annual Sabbaths.  I’d never heard of such a thing!  And most people in Traditional Christianity have never heard of an annual Sabbath called The Feast of Unleavened Bread.  That the first day and the seventh day are High Days and that at the time of Christ this is what they were getting ready to observe.  And so in one place it’s even mistranslated because they didn’t understand, or didn’t want people to understand when it was translated out of Greek, and they didn’t translate it ‘Sabbaths’, that there were Sabbaths that week.  Sabbaths?  You only have one Sabbath a week!  That’s the way most people would think.  No, because there was an annual Sabbath that week as well.  It’s incredible what God has given to us to understand that they were getting ready for an annual Holy Day.  When they wanted to break the legs of the individuals, it wasn’t Friday the preparation day, it was Wednesday, a preparation day for the High Day that was going to begin, that was going to be that day at sundown all the way through Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  And at the end of the Sabbath – three days and three nights – He’d be resurrected.  Beautiful!  Awesome!  Proving that He was the Messiah.

Things that are very easy for us to take for granted that’s very precious knowledge and understanding, that the world is fully ignorant of, that gives you boldness and confidence and strength because you know the truth and God wants you to have boldness, courage, and confidence from what you know, truly.  Powerful things that very soon you’re going to begin sharing with people right and left.  When it says people are going to hold onto your ‘skirt’, the ‘skirt of a Jew’; do you know what a spiritual Jew is?  You.  You have God’s spirit.  That’s what it’s talking about in scripture in the Old Testament.  Things that are going to take place when people want to know, when they’re going to want to understand what is the truth, you have it to share with them.

And the Eternal said to Joshua, This day have I rolled away/removed the reproach from off you, and again calling it Gilgal.  Talking about the 14th/15th and going through this very specific information here on the word ‘at even’, and so I was going through the story here talking about how that when the apostasy took place, because of these things that began to happen, ministers began to teach, (many of them out there in one organization guesstimated that half of them believe this), ministers in God’s Church believed a lie about the Passover.  It’s as bad for them to believe 14th/15th as it is in Traditional Christianity to believe in Friday to Sunday.  God says what He says and it’s absolute and true.  Everything was done on the 14th day, fulfilled from the time the sun set at the beginning of the 14th until the end of the 14th, Jesus Christ fulfilled everything about Passover; nothing to do with the 15th that He fulfilled.  He fulfilled the 14th, Passover day.

And so individuals in God’s Church, who were a part of God’s Church came to a point in time where they would no longer accept what Mr. Armstrong gave in three basic scriptures in the Bible, that if people would just accept what it said in three basic scriptures in that booklet that talks about ‘Pagan Holidays or God’s Holy Days – Which?’  Mr. Armstrong had a heading in there to do with ‘Passover 14th, Not 15th?’  Which one is it?  What is it?  Making it very clear that there are three basic scriptures in the Bible that prove the 14th – nothing about the 15th.  And yet people became intellectual in God’s Church and went away from some of the things of the truth and began to go into Judaism and other things here; and that’s why at that point in time that God gave us deeper understanding of some of these words; ‘bane ha erebyim’, those of you who remember that, ‘between the evenings’, between the two evenings.  And we came to understand what that means, that every Sabbath has to do with observing something ‘between the two evenings’.  We learned what the word meant because of that observance, from what God said about the keeping of ‘the 9th day at even until the 10th day at even’ – it’s the Day of Atonement.  God’s very specific, at the moment of sundown on the 9th you’re to be fasting and you’re to observe a very solemn Holy Day, High Day, before Him in that respect, until sundown at the end of the 10th.  And we learn the meaning of words that are used in scripture in a very powerful way.

So God gave us additional understanding of some of these things having to do with the importance of the word ‘at even’.  But this one here has caused some to stumble because it’s used differently and I want to go through and read some of this out of that particular article, again just as a reminder here, to remember some of this.

In this particular instance, generally when you have this word ‘at even’ in the Hebrew, when it says ‘ba ereb’, it means like it did with Atonement.  It says ‘ba ereb’ on the 9th means ‘at the moment the sun goes down on the 9th.’  Just like the Sabbath, at the moment the sun goes down on Friday we know what begins – one day ends and a new day begins – but the word used specifically in Hebrew is this word ‘ba ereb’ and it’s translated here ‘at even’.  And so if you look at even on the 14th, my point being, is that if you looked at the word ‘at even’, if God were telling us to observe this ‘at even’ on the 14th it would mean at the end of the 14th.  ‘Ba ereb’ can only happen once in a day and it’s at the very end of the day, because it even comes on a ‘day’ it doesn’t come at night time.  This word here means it comes on a day, when the sun is down and evening has hit. The way God counts time is the end of one day and the beginning of another one with the setting of the sun.

And the point of all this in this particular verse here is because this is not an instruction for keeping Passover.  Other places are a matter of keeping instruction for Passover looking forward ‘ba ereb’ to observe something.  This is looking backward saying, ‘this is what the children of Israel did at this particular time.’  They observed the Passover ‘at even’ on the 14th.  I’m not going to drag this out and go into all this.  You can go back and read the article.  But it’s like keeping the Sabbath day.  If I’m looking backward (past tense) the word is used differently.  If I said, “You kept the Sabbath on ‘ba ereb,’ at evening,” you know what that means.  You start observing God’s Sabbath when the sun goes down – not on Saturday, but on Friday, because if you’re looking past tense and back you know what day it is, you don’t have to be taught that.  It’s a simple, basic thing.  And so that’s how it was given here, and that’s how it’s recorded.  So skipping through a lot of this, you don’t really need to go through all that as long as you understand it, and if you don’t, go back and read the article, study it.  But if I said I kept the Sabbath on the 7th day of the week ‘at even’, you being a Sabbath keeper know exactly what it means looking back in past tense, and that’s how the word is used here in this particular occasion in Joshua.

Let’s go back to Leviticus 23 and pick up some things here that we need to understand about what’s taking place at this moment in time as well.  We’ve gone through so much here recently about Passover that God’s word is very, very clear, it’s to be kept on that day, in that day and only in and on that day, not on any other day.

Leviticus 23:10 - Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you have come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest of it, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits/the beginning of your harvest unto the priest:  Beautiful picture here!  Here is a sheaf that pictured Jesus Christ, the Wave Sheaf, it’s about Jesus Christ.  It’s something else that Jesus Christ was going to fulfil.  Beautiful scriptures and we’ll talk a little bit more about this later on in Pentecost.

But again here, it goes on to say - verse 11 - And he shall wave the sheaf before the Eternal, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after, in other words, the day after or the next day, the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. So there’s going to be a Sabbath, and when you come into the promised land there’s going to be a particular Sabbath and there’s going to come a time when you’re to wave the sheaf before God, the beginning of your harvest.  You’re to bring it before God and it’s to be waved.  Now, God isn’t through here in giving instruction, there’s more to be given here.  The wave sheaf had to be waved on a Sunday, always on a Sunday, couldn’t be any other day of the week because this is after the Sabbath.  It was always to be done on the 1st day of the week.  And again, it’s important to note here that the wave sheaf was focal to the timing of counting of Pentecost here, and this sheaf was not waved before God every year on the day following the annual Sabbath; because some, including some Jews, try to say it’s after the 1st Day of Unleavened Bread, the next day that they’re to wave it, because it’s talking about an annual Sabbath.  No it’s not.  If it were that way you wouldn’t have to count.  Do you know why?  Because on the calendar it would come on the same day every year, the 6th of Sivan.  You wouldn’t have to count 50; it’d be the same day.  And there are some Jews who observe it on that particular day because that’s what they believe.  They don’t understand.

So again here, it would be a specific date if that was the case and God wouldn’t have to tell us to count fifty, from where we get the word ‘Pente-cost’ in Greek – ‘count fifty’; which also has other names for it as well that we’ll discuss on the Feast of Pentecost.

But again here, this instruction becomes quite specific regarding the count that centers around the weekly Sabbath and not the yearly Sabbath.  So let’s go on and notice....

Verse 12 - And on that day when you wave the sheaf, in other words, on the day after the weekly Sabbath, you shall offer a male lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Eternal. So many things that picture Jesus Christ and what He was going to fulfill and what is offered up before God in different ways at different times.  Here is a very unique offering that’s given up before God, and here is the sheaf that’s waved before God that pictures Jesus Christ.  Everything the high priest did on the Day of Atonement pictured Jesus Christ – beautiful things that God’s given to us in the Bible -  everything that happened inside that last room of the tabernacle, the Holiest of Holies.

See, I talk about them and I become inspired by them because they’re deeply inspiring; what we know and what we see!  The world doesn’t see and doesn’t know, they don’t understand the tabernacle and what it pictures, things that mean so much to us!  Incredible what we grasp, that pictures what God is doing as far as we’re concerned, as far as the world’s concerned, as far as the 7,100 years of time for man.

Verse 13 - And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Eternal for a sweet savour: every one of these words having incredible meaning spiritually for us, and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of a hin, a measurement here. And neither shall you eat bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day, that very next day that it’s been talking about, the day of the wave sheaf, until this offering takes place; that’s what it goes on to say ...until the selfsame day that you bring an offering unto your God: that offering was brought after they waved the sheaf before God, the beginning of the harvest.  Beautiful what it says here!  Again, on the day after the weekly Sabbath, on Sunday ...it shall be a statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings.  Awesome here what it’s telling them: when you come into the promised land...  Do you know what they were doing up to this point in time?  Manna, manna, manna, manna, manna – cookbooks with ‘101 Ways to Cook Manna’.  They had manna for a long, long time; only on occasion there when they were murmuring and complaining that they had some quail, some other things happen.  But as a whole that’s a long time...murmur, murmur – they did it, they murmured.  Course there were those who were born there.  You know what?  A lot of them, into the hundreds of thousands, into a few million, grew up never knowing anything else, and when you don’t know you don’t know.

We were talking here earlier about how hot it is and air conditioning and what we have today that when I was young you didn’t think about in the same way because we didn’t have this.  We were talking about old cars.  One person didn’t even know about these little windows in the front, because they’re younger, and these little windows you could tilt in toward you, because if you’d open them up they’d blow the wind on you and that’s how you got cooled off when you were driving down the highway.  They don’t have those on cars anymore because they’re obsolete, because we have air conditioning.

They grew up eating manna.  When they were on the other side of the Jordan they were still eating manna.  That was what they were eating!  They still had a process every day, except one, that they went out and they found manna. And a lot of their day, a lot of the routine in the family was going out and gathering food, every day and on Friday you could collect twice as much and it would last through the Sabbath because they were not to go out and collect it on the Sabbath.  And if you didn’t obey God they learned.  They learned what happens when you don’t obey God.  So the story about manna in the Bible is an awesome story!  And so all the way up until this point in time when God says, “When you come into the promised land there’s something you’re to do on a particular moment in time, in a time of harvest, and you’re not to eat anything of that harvest until something happens.”  Incredible!  There’s a sheaf that you’re to offer up before God on a particular moment in time, “and you’re not to eat of any parched corn, you’re not to eat,” (talking about various grain here)...talking about “no green ears, no green... nothing green that’s available to eat there that’s been planted to be harvested at that time of year in the spring.  You’re not to eat anything of this harvest until this event takes place.”  Incredible story!

And you go through this and you hear this sermon and you think, “Well, this is simple!”  A lot of people stumble because of different ideas and concepts they have about what it says here, because they won’t accept a plain story, the plain truth that God gives here in these verses.  It’s a beautiful story, fits together like hand in glove.  It’s a beautiful picture, inspiring story, awesomeness in how it all fits together with what God commanded, what God said, and what is taking place.  This is an incredibly historic event for them!  He said, “When you come into the promised land – when you come into the land that I’ve given to your fathers to possess this is what you’re going to do.”  And there are people who are of a scattered body and Jews who ought to know better, who deny this event as being the fulfillment of Leviticus 23. You think how on earth can you do that?  How can you be so brazen and dumb to do so?

The timing, as we covered in Joshua 5:10 was Passover season.  We know they came across at a specific moment in time here.  They...encamped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month, they observed God’s law, they did what God said when the fourteenth came.  Because when they came through on the tenth it made it very clear, we know what happens on the tenth, they took the lambs, they set them aside, on the fourteenth day ‘at even’ they killed them and they roasted them with fire and ate them in the exact way God told them to do the lamb through time, all the way through the Old Testament they’d eat it the same way, every time, at the beginning of the fourteenth.  And then this incredible event!

Joshua 5:10 – And the children of Israel encamped at Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho.

Verse 11 - And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after/the day after the Passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn in the selfsame day.  Rotten translation!  It’s a disgusting translation inspired by the Jews, inspired by Judaism because they want to perpetuate a lie.  They themselves who won’t accept the Passover, they themselves who changed the timing of Passover, they themselves who after the time of Christ changed the timing of Passover and how it was to be observed amongst themselves. Think there was any plot and planning in all that by the high priest and by the priests of their time?  Just as much as there was by the Catholic church.  Sickening what mankind does, turning away from God, teaching their own ideas, because even at that time you have to understand Jesus Christ condemned all Judaism, just as much as all Traditional Christianity is condemned today – every bit of it!  No difference!

And so when He came on the scene that’s why they hated Him, that’s why they wanted to kill Him!  That’s why they hated Him with a passion – because He spoke the truth and they didn’t like the truth.  They hated the thought that someone would come along and claim that He was the Son of God, that He was the Messiah.  They hated that with a passion!  And so to give a little insurance to help in time it was easy for them to begin to twist and distort certain stories in the Old Testament, to say, “Oh look, they started observing Passover at the end of the 14th and into the 15th day.”  And so they misrepresent scriptures in Deuteronomy and other places, willingly so.  Now some don’t today because they don’t understand, just as Traditional Christianity didn’t understand that they’re just following the traditions of what was taught them.  Just like the Catholic church – there are people out here who hate the Catholic church.  Church of Christ has no love for the Catholic church.  There are people who hate it.  The Baptists, they do not love the Catholic church.  And on and on you can go down the list and yet every major doctrine they have came from the Catholic church.  Isn’t that an amazing thing?  Christmas – the ‘mass’ of Christ.  Who has ‘mass’?  They do!  That’s where it came from!  Just a little bit of history, just a little bit going back and looking at what happened in 325 AD when the Catholic church chose to change Passover to Easter.  Incredible!  And they chose to follow a sunrise morning service on Sunday when they teach that Christ was resurrected, so they could hold onto the day of the sun as their holy day, week by week by week.  Because all these happened at that period of time; turning away from the weekly Sabbath and turning away from Passover; things that are written in history that people willingly ignore.  Incredible, incredible – it really is baffling and yet it isn’t.

And so there are things misquoted from the get go that are wrong, because a lot of the things that happened in the Old Testament... you know where people have gone to get their translations, their ideas about translating it? The Jews who know Hebrew.  Big mistake!

It says in the King James Version that they did eat of the old corn of the land.  I’m going to read a little bit here because I’ve taken this from that article that I want to get right here as it’s stated because it’s all incredible information.

[1] Many things that have been accepted by commentators and historians as factual are actually a matter of Jewish tradition.

...and not based on what is true.  Jewish tradition teaches that rather than this occasion being the fulfillment of Leviticus 23 and instruction God gave to them when coming into the promised land, that rather, this was simply an occasion of coming into the promised land and taking of the ‘old grain’ from the inhabitants (previous harvest) and taking their grain.  That’s why it’s called ‘old grain’ (which is not a proper translation of Hebrew whatsoever), taking the ‘old grain’ from the inhabitants of the region and eating it at this particular time.

They so deny this as being a fulfillment of Leviticus 23 that they twist and distort the very words of Hebrew into English and other languages in order to say something totally different, to give credibility to their beliefs; just as what they did in the New Testament when they translated Easter in one.  And when I wrote in that book there that you can’t find Easter in the New Testament (Mr Armstrong wrote the same thing), it’s not that difficult to go back and see; and people get upset.  Some people write in and say, “Oh yes it is! I found it. Here it is - here’s the verse!”  Used to just send back to them, “Go and look up the word in the Greek language, it’s not the word for Easter in the Greek, it’s the word Passover.”  Willingly mistranslating things in order to hold onto their traditions and their beliefs.

So again, in Jewish tradition this is connected to instruction of Leviticus 23 of the wave sheaf and the Days of Unleavened Bread.  That’s why they don’t accept that and that’s why the mistranslation of ‘old corn’ is used in this particular verse here, because in Jewish tradition even though this is connected to it they don’t accept the wave sheaf taking place at this particular time.

Going on...

This word in Hebrew has nothing to do with something being "old."

Yet even Strong’s claims it is a word that means old corn or that which is stored over.

So you can have both expressions.  Where’d they get that?  They got it from the Jews because they believe what they said about it; and it doesn’t mean ‘old’.

The Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Brown, Driver and Briggs...

Extremely well known, incredible reputation of everything that’s quoted out of there as far as being accurate all the way through.

...gives the true definition of this word as being "produce or yield" of the land.

That’s what the word means, nothing to do with the word in Hebrew for ‘old’, but a word that means ‘produce or yield’ of the land.

Gesenius’ Hebrew~Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament by H.W.F. Gesenius, gives one of the best meanings of this word as "produce" or "offering of the land." It does concern what the land "offered up" that [particular] year.

So again, it’s about the offering of the land, what the land offered up in that particular year.  That’s why I wanted to make sure I read that because I knew I would mess that up.  Strong’s even messes it up, that’s why I read this comment.  You have to go to a lot of other Lexicons and places that Hebrew is translated because this is one area where even the Strong’s has it wrong.

Such an idea that’s based on the premise that this is the old corn of the land lends itself to the willing interpretation of these historic events.  Then they can erroneously conclude that this is a Passover that falls on a day of the week other than the weekly Sabbath. [paraphrased]

And that’s something that they don’t like.

Such reasoning denies that this Passover and the period of Unleavened Bread fulfills the instruction God gave in Leviticus 23. [paraphrased]

So let’s go on here and read this again in Joshua 5.

Joshua 5:10 - And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho.  And they did eat of the old corn of the produce of the land on the morrow after/the day after the Passover, it’s important; it’s powerful, because this tells everything about how to count Pentecost then.  Something that some have tripped up in, an individual, the ‘Church of the Great God’ they call themselves, one of the splinter groups early on of a group that’s scattered out here misinterprets every bit of this; counts and observes Pentecost when this happens... which this event happens that I’m going to talk about here, they are off a whole week off.  Incredible!  He didn’t accept what Mr. Armstrong taught about it even back in 1974.

And it goes on to say here (I’ll come back to this in a moment)...and they did eat of the old corn/produce of the land on the morrow after, in other words, the day after the Passover, so it’s very specific here, unleavened bread, the word for ‘cakes’ here is about bread.  It’s important to use the word ‘bread’ so that you can understand something here in a very powerful way – unleavened bread!  What do you do after Passover?  What do you do on the day after Passover?  You must eat unleavened bread, ‘cakes’ if you want to call it that, but that kind of takes away from some of the meaning in English to a lot of people.  It’s unleavened bread.  You have to eat unleavened bread for seven days God says, and so that’s what they did.

Where did they get the grain?  Well, they like to say it was the ‘old grain’ and that they went across and took it away from the inhabitants of the land there.  No they didn’t!  They went out and they harvested what was there.  That’s why God’s very specific, ‘When you harvest the land’... ‘When you go and receive of the harvest of the land’ ... ‘all these things that you’re to have’... and it goes on to say, and parched corn, parched grain.  We think of corn on the cob.  We’re talking about grains, whatever it is that was there that they were growing, and it wasn’t like what we’re accustomed to when we talk about corn, the grain and such.

And again here, when it’s talking about something like this, this was a feast to them in itself.  They weren’t eating manna.  On this day they weren’t eating manna.  On this day they were able to begin to eat of the produce of the land, whatever the land produced that particular year, and they did it in several ways here as it talks about the things that they ate. And God told them, ‘When you come into the land...’ and He mentions three different things here.  “You’re not to partake of these until you’ve done one major thing, and that’s to take the beginning of that harvest of that year and wave the sheaf up before God.  Then you can eat of it.”  They were following God’s instructions.  It’s a beautiful story of a fulfillment here of them following perfectly what God gave.

So on Sunday, the day after the Sabbath – because the wave sheaf had to always be offered on a Sunday – shows when this particular Passover was, very clearly so, when the fourteenth was.

Let’s go back and notice this in Leviticus 23 again because it’s so simple.  The only possible day when they could eat of the produce of the land was after the wave sheaf had been offered up before God during the Days of Unleavened Bread.  See, the thing about counting Pentecost is that God tells you how to count it.  Let’s notice, let’s read it; very specific on how He says to do it and it’s very clear it’s about the weekly Sabbath.  It has nothing to do with the annual Sabbath of the First Day of Unleavened Bread.  You think, “Why do you keep saying these things, going over it?”  They’re important.  God means what He says and they’re beautiful, they’re a fulfillment.

Leviticus 23:10 - Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you have come into the land which I give unto you, simple, basic – this is when they came into the land; and shall reap the harvest of it, they came in during the time of harvest.

One of the things I really wanted to do when we went to Israel the first time was to go to this particular area of Jericho because of where it’s located.  See, what some have taught and what Judaism has taught and what many in the Church began to believe was, and why they couldn’t accept some of this is because of something that’s stated here about the wave sheaf and how that this couldn’t be a harvest at this time of year for grain.  I wanted to go there because of my harvesting background, cutting wheat and so forth, going with the different groups that have cut wheat starting in Texas or Oklahoma and going all the way up to Canada year by year in the summertime, and I wanted to go there to see what the produce of the land was at that time of year.  Because the concept was that you couldn’t harvest the land until you took a piece of wave sheaf, cut a piece of crop, brought it before God – that you couldn’t start the harvest until this was done.  But the reality is if you’ve ever done a harvest then you know that you want to start cutting it as soon as it’s ready.  You want to cut it as soon as it’s ripe; you want to do the harvest.  You don’t want it staying in the fields.

So I wanted to go there and see what it was like during the time of the Passover because that’s when we were there.  Amazing!  Many of the fields on the higher elevations were already cut. Why?  You don’t leave it in the fields.  You don’t leave it there to be overrun by weeds. You don’t leave it out, especially in the Midwest of this country and allow hail to ruin it.  Farmers are anxious, they don’t want it to be rained upon.  They want to get it out of the fields as quickly as they can.  The reason I wanted to go there is because the harvest even happens sooner, happens well before Passover.  That’s when it starts because they’re below sea level in that particular region.  Some of those areas are below sea level when you get in that area and because of the heat farther inland it actually ripens much faster there than it does up in the area between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem.  So I found all that out anyway, I didn’t have to see it.  For me it meant a lot because of what people in the Church and some who have gone astray have said in times past regarding what happens at this time of year...because they had no knowledge; ignorant of harvests and what took place at that time of year.

So He says, when you come into the land that I give you, you shall reap the harvest of it, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits/the beginning of your harvest...  He didn’t say you can’t start harvest until after the wave sheaf.  He says just bring a beginning.  That’s why the word beginning is so important here, bring a beginning... When you start harvesting and you start out there that day, take a batch, a sheaf, bind it together, take it and reserve it for a specific day to be waved before God.  That’s what they were instructed to do.  It wasn’t that they couldn’t begin harvest until this moment in time.

Some of you who are new wonder why I go through all this... because that’s what is taught out there, that’s what is taught by Judaism, that’s what’s taught by many who have separated from our past, who’ve gone astray.

...you shall take a beginning of a sheaf of your harvest into the priest and he shall wave it before the Eternal to be accepted before you on the morrow after, in other words the next day after the Sabbath, not the annual Sabbath.  It has to be the weekly Sabbath as you’ll find out as we go along here.  ...the priest shall wave it...

Verse 12 – And on that day when you wave the sheaf you shall take that male lamb, so there’s an offering before God... but zero in on verse 14...

Verse 14 - And neither shall you eat bread, in other words, that which is made from flour, ground grain, nor parched corn/grain, in other words that which they would actually... I don’t know how you say this, roasted, whatever... something that’s partially green but not fully ripened would/they could eat of it.  I don’t know how that’s prepared and cooked but that’s what it’s talking about, parched grain, in other words it’s something that’s not turned, it’s not hardened yet.  The hardened stuff you grind, the other stuff you can still eat but it has to be prepared another way, of different kinds of grain, nor green ear, the word having to do here with garden growth, that which is fresh, in other words green produce, is what the word literally means, until the selfsame day, the very day, the very same day that you bring an offering unto your God: a very specific moment in time.

I want to go back here just to read this, Leviticus 23, going on a little bit farther.  You know what it goes on to talk about?  How to count, and it talks about when to begin that particular count.  And so as you go through some of these verses and you see what God says here; verse 15 - when you begin to count forward to Pentecost you start at a moment in time, not from an annual Sabbath, from a weekly one.

Verse 15 - And you shall count unto you on the morrow after/the day after the Sabbath, it’s a weekly Sabbath.  And you shall count how many Sabbaths? ...seven Sabbaths... it can’t be annual Sabbaths, that’s all you have in a whole year.  Seven Sabbaths – so it’s very clear here when you go through the instruction that God gives.  And how Jews can say that this was an annual Sabbath when it goes on to show you that you have to count seven Sabbaths... you have to go through a ritual or a routine of making sure that you counted seven Sabbaths, and then on the day after that seventh Sabbath, which is a Sunday, it’s Pentecost - count fifty!  It’s beautiful!

Just making sure that you had that deeply embedded in your mind.  It goes on to show here that it’s talking about a weekly Sabbath.  God didn’t leave it out here dangling somewhere.  All this is in preparation for our keeping of Pentecost that’s coming up and our going into it even in another area here, but picking up from where we leave off today.

So, again here, God giving them very specific instruction here of what they should eat and what they shouldn’t eat.  But again here, a case in point is that it’s what these verses say concerning the produce of the land, that they were not told that they could not harvest until after the wave sheaf, but that they could not eat of the produce of the land until after the wave sheaf.

Joshua 5:12 - And the manna ceased, beautiful picture, because up until this point in time that’s all they ate.  When they crossed over on the tenth day they were still eating manna, on the eleventh day of the first month they were still eating manna, on the twelfth day they were still eating manna, on the thirteenth day they were still eating manna, and at the end of the thirteenth day at sundown they killed the lamb and they were still eating manna.  They had a lamb that they could eat as they observed Passover, and so they... went through here and talking about this as they kept this particular time before God (if you will), of time that God commanded, and that was on the weekly Sabbath because the next day it says what happened here, what took place in these previous verses here of something that took place.

And the manna ceased on the morrow after/the day after they had eaten of the old corn of the land/produce or yield of the land, neither did the children of Israel have manna anymore; What it’s showing here is Passover happened on a weekly Sabbath and it talks about how that after the Passover day they ate the unleavened bread, they cooked things from the grain they ground, they ate parched corn, they ate parched grain, they partook of the green produce of the land at that particular time, and that means that they’d offered up the wave sheaf earlier in the day.  Now they were able to eat of that, because the day before they couldn’t eat it, they were still eating manna.

And now, beautiful picture here, Sabbath – Passover – eating manna; Sunday – the wave sheaf – First Day of Unleavened Bread, they were able to feast before God eating of the new produce of the land, of all the new produce of the land.  The next day, a day that they would normally go out and pick manna again, Monday, because you couldn’t pick manna on the weekly Sabbath and you can’t pick manna on a High Day.  So they had two days there, the second one happened to be a day that they could eat of the produce of the land.  And it says, the next day, the second day of Unleavened Bread, the next day being Monday they could have gone out and gathered manna again, but there was no manna.  It was the end of it.

And the manna ceased on the morrow after/the day after they had eaten of the old corn, again, not the ‘old corn’ but after they had eaten of the produce of the land, the yield of the land.  Neither did the children of Israel have manna anymore, but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.  Specifically here meaning the fruit of the land of that year; that’s what it’s talking about here.

Again, this material is largely covered, but in a different format and a focus on the article on Pentecost on the publication page of the Church website. Awesome, awesome story, awesome picture here of what God gave.

Joshua 5 makes it clear that they came into the promised land.  The day following the Passover is when they ate of the yield of the produce of the land therefore the Passover had to be the weekly Sabbath of that year.

I’m mentioning all these things because this is important, because there is a specific point in time that you count Pentecost starting with the Sabbath.  Here is a Sabbath that happened with Passover, but it still happened before the Days of Unleavened Bread.  So Passover can fall on different days of the week, and the reason this is so important is because of how you count Pentecost.

And this resolves one of the major problems and issues that some in the scattered Church of God have with how to count it. God makes it very clear that the wave sheaf has to be offered inside the Days of Unleavened Bread, because if you count the Sabbath that would come next (which some do), it would fall on the Seventh Day of Unleavened Bread, the First Day being Sunday like it was in the story of Joshua, the Seventh Day would be the Sabbath.  And the day that follows that particular Seventh Day, the Sunday, the Feast of Unleavened Bread is over; and to say that you waved the sheaf after the Days of Unleavened Bread has no meaning in the plan of God, it’s outside of what the Days of Unleavened Bread picture.  What do the Days of Unleavened Bread picture? Being unleavened.  Jesus Christ was unleavened, and it falls within that period of time, that everything you count concerning Him and concerning the firstfruits will lead up to that particular point in time that we’ll talk about later here.

Very important here because this is what settles it of how to count it.  You can’t go anywhere else in the Bible to know how to count, when to begin your count; that in a particular year here that it’s the wave sheaf that has to be within the Days of Unleavened Bread, and we’ll talk about that more on Pentecost.

So this Passover that took place was on a Sabbath; the following day was when you have to offer the wave sheaf, and the only way you know it is because this is when the Israelites did it. And because of that God has shown in Joshua how to count Pentecost on those years that Passover comes on a Sabbath before the Days of Unleavened Bread. I hope it’s clear.

Things have been given to us that sometimes is easy to take for granted and sometimes it’s good to delve into things a little more deeply because you never know... you never know when someone’s going to come to you, or ask you about this.  We have several thousand that are to come back to us before this is over, at some point.  We understand we have a few thousand, maybe several more.  We know we have around 3,000 at least that God’s promised that are going to be a part at this end-time who were a part of the apostasy, who were baptized before the apostasy.  It’s talking about them in Ezekiel and other places.  And so God has promised that we’re going to have at least that many.

And so some of you, especially some of you with that past, you need to know these things, you need to know it inside and out, because if you can’t answer them, if you can’t help them, if you can’t help some from that one particular organization that’s out there that teach this, and others who teach this of a scattering.  What would it mean if they came to you and you didn’t have the right answers for them and you couldn’t help them?

So understand sometimes, when we go through things in a sermon maybe we don’t understand the seriousness of something and how God expects us, because of what He’s given to us... and ‘to whom much is given, much is expected,’ truly!

Take these things to heart, very powerful stories that are taught here of things that God wants us to understand, wants us to grasp.  For those of you who are new, it’s great if you understand it and learn it now, but especially those of you that have been around who are part of the remnant – because there are more to come to you than to anyone else – those of your past, those who have known you and know who you are.

~~~end

1. Counting Pentecost, The Church of God – PKG; Publications

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