Pentecost – Pt. 1

Ron Weinland

June 11, 2011

Since Pentecost is tomorrow it’d be good that we begin a series that leads us right through Pentecost.  I’m not really sure how many parts there will be in this series at this point but there is so much meaning contained in Pentecost as an annual High Day, as the third of God’s Holy Day of the year that we’re observing tomorrow.  And what is such an awesome thing is that it covers an incredibly large span of time.  So that’s kind of some of the focus we’re going to have at this Pentecost season, that Pentecost covers an incredibly large span of time and we haven’t really focused on it in this way in the past.  When you look at Passover and Unleavened Bread that’s observed, the two High Days especially, and you look at its meaning, it was given a partial fulfillment as far as the meaning was concerned (which is foreshadowing an ever greater fulfillment) when it was first observed by the Israelites, obviously before they began their Exodus, at the time they began their Exodus then in coming out of Egypt.  Then, on a single day, when you look at the Days of Unleavened Bread, we understand it’s a picture of things of us coming out of sin and so forth, but as far as it’s actual fulfillment and some of the things contained therein, a little unique, a little different in that respect compared to Passover which had a single day to be fulfilled.

It’s an awesome thing when you go through and look at some of the Holy Days here and you look at their time of fulfillment.  Again, the original Passover that foreshadowed a later one, again, there were things that happened at that time that were important in God’s plan, that foreshadowed something that would happen later on with His own Son who would die.  But the actual fulfillment of Passover was in a single day.  And then of course you can go on to the other Holy Days and look at those as well and we can go and look at the Feast of Trumpets, as an example, we’re in that period of time of it’s fulfillment because of the Trumpets.  And so we look at a period of time for the fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets.  You can go on and look at Atonement, look at the Millennial period that’s pictured in the Feast of Tabernacles and we look at a thousand years to fulfill that period of time, and the Last Great Day, one hundred years.  But Pentecost is really incredible; it’s quite unique in God’s plan.

In times past if we would have focused upon this and asked some questions about Pentecost and asked about its fulfillment, a lot of people would have considered perhaps the beginning of its fulfillment, like the children of Israel coming out of Egypt, but some of its fulfillment is contained when God gave the 10 Commandments at Mount Sinai.  And it might be good to start there today just looking at that period of time because that period of time and the period that continued on from there isn’t the period of fulfillment for Pentecost, it’s only a part of it.  There’s far, far more to it than that.

So I don’t know how many of you understand that or know that, but again, concerning this period of time of Exodus 20, it was a period of time that God brought the children of Israel together to give them the Commandments, a way of life to live, the only way of life to live in a right relationship with God and a right relationship with one another. God spelled it out to them, but He spelled it out to them on the Day of Pentecost.  And the reason this is so important is because of what happened later on in 31 AD when God poured out His spirit.  Because the whole history of Israel, the whole history of Judah, is that man cannot keep God’s law without God’s help!  So just because you’ve been given the law as a people, as a chosen nation of people, which they were in how God had to work with a family beginning with Abraham, it didn’t mean that they could follow God.

God said He’d chosen Abraham for a special purpose and that out of him would come also the one who would be the Saviour to the world, the one who would be the Messiah, and those prophecies that are contained therein from that period on.  God then worked with Abraham and there are things that he responded to God with until the time Israel was large enough to become a nation, and God brought them out of Egypt to begin to work with them as a nation; brought them up to Mt. Sinai and gave them the 10 Commandments.  It’s an awesome story!  But to understand that it happened on Pentecost has great meaning.  Again, God giving His law, His way of life to be lived, what mankind is to live by in order to have a right relationship with Him; because it’s about Family.  God’s purpose from the very beginning, even in the beginning of the giving of God’s law. Notice....

Exodus 20:1 - And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Eternal your God, Yahweh, the Ever-Living One, the Eternal One, your Elohim, your God!  Again, we understand ‘Elohim’ to be a Family and a uniplural word like family.  And He goes on to say here, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Out of captivity!  And all the stories, all the lessons, that are learned in that.  If you take the Days of Unleavened Bread, and we understand the meaning of that then in a very powerful way, God is bringing us out of Egypt spiritually, out of bondage. We begin a long journey.  We don’t leave right away. We don’t leave right away.  There was a time in God’s Church where we had the concept in essence that if you were baptized and you died the next day or died the next week that you’re going to be a part of the 144,000.  Not true!  Not true!  A person who’s had a week of life of baptism is not prepared to be in God’s Kingdom, has not been tried and tested to be in God’s Kingdom!  Two weeks, a month, a year... takes a lot more time to be moulded and fashioned, to be tried and tested, for the mind to be moulded and fashioned in order that God can say like He did to Abraham, “Now I know you!”  In other words, for the mind to be changed and to be moulded so that it can be changed from physical to spirit, or to be resurrected later as spirit.  It takes a long time.

And so those analogies shouldn’t escape us, of time length involved, and some of those things as far as a journey is concerned.  Israel was different, very physical, with all the things that happened to them.  But we have a long journey leaving Egypt, coming out of Egypt, coming out of sin.  We understand the picture of what those things foreshadow, what they picture in time for God’s people.  And so He says, I am the One who’s brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, a long journey to fight sin, to conquer and overcome sin; and you don’t conquer it until God does say that to you.  You don’t conquer it, candidly, until the change comes, until you are able to shed this and become spirit – then you have conquered it, you have overcome it.  Same words are used in the Greek language there when you read in the New Testament, talking about conquering or overcoming: it says to overcome, that’s the same word.  It’s a battle, it’s a fight.

And the thing about it is for many of God’s people in times past they quit fighting.  You can’t ever quit fighting! When you quit fighting you begin to fall asleep, you become sluggish, you are able to be deceived, you are able to be led away from the foundation, from the truth that God gives to you, you become weak spiritually and you can’t fight anymore. If you let down you begin to become spiritually weak and quit the fight.  You have to fight day in and day out.  And that might mean, and does mean in large part, you have to repent day in and day out, you have to come to see what self is like.  You have to come to understand human nature, to understand why God takes us through this journey.  Because we can’t be a part of God’s Kingdom with this kind of selfish mind.  And so we grow in character and we say, “I reject this!  I do not want selfishness!  I loathe it!  I loathe what is in the deepest part of my being, ‘Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’.  Pride and haughtiness that’s in human nature because of the ‘get way’.”

Mr. Armstrong explained it in simple terms – give and get.  World leaders understood that!  He didn’t have to quote scripture.  He said there are two ways of life, give and get, and he says man’s way is get, and they understood that!  Many of them agreed with him, nodded their head!  They didn’t change, but they agreed.  And some people criticized him because he didn’t quote scripture and ‘preach’ to them.  That’s not what it’s about.  That’s not how God works with mankind until He calls you.

You shall have no other elohim before Me.  Interesting word He used.  It’s not the English word like we consider it, ‘elohim’, means in part the same thing but it’s interesting to note what He used because of what Satan began to do - you know what Satan began to do with the very first...and you go through and you look at different things he’s done with mankind and the deceptions of religion – families.  Look at some of the ‘families’ that are supposed to be gods, when he began to mock and find fault with and deceive mankind, to take mankind farther and farther away from Him.  Many of them had to do with families, brothers, sisters and so forth.  In Egypt it was family – god family.  It wasn’t just a single God.  Satan wanted to get away from that concept as quick as he could, that there was only one Great Almighty God, and so he went into the deception of families and all the perversions and distortions that all these different god members had.  He hates the idea of Family, when God began to reveal that to him, most assuredly the grounds of why he began to turn against God, when God let him know that something was going to be greater than him, because he was created as a part of God’s creation with great power, ability and beauty as a spirit being.  Incredible that mind and what began to work in his mind, the jealousies, the envy.

So the first thing God told the Hebrews, and they understood this because they were being brought out of Egypt, is that there is not a family of all of these various gods but rather that there is ONE God.  Interesting when we went to Cairo and went through a museum there, there was only one Pharaoh in time who said that there is only one God.  That was so bad to the Egyptian people he had to move to a different area. He made his capital in a different part of Egypt because it wasn’t well received that a Pharaoh would come along and say that there is only one God.  Interesting!  History is interesting with the things we go through, the things that God has brought us through. So on this Day of Pentecost with the Hebrews God was revealing something so basic and so important for God’s people because those that God would begin to first work with, this is where they had to begin.  You have to know the law of God!

When you are called into God’s Church, when you begin to be drawn, you begin to be drawn to the Sabbath, the truth of the Sabbath day – not just the weekly Sabbath. You’re brought to terms with God’s annual Sabbaths because when you go to Leviticus 23 and start reading it, it sets out a picture here of the weekly Sabbath and the annual Sabbaths, and God says you’re to observe these periods of time, My holy convocations.  Incredible what we begin to learn!  And so we have to come to grips with that!  What are we going to do?  Are we going to reject Christmas and Easter and understand them for what they are and not hold onto them because we don’t want to have to address it in our families?  “I’m not giving gifts and presents anymore, or receiving gifts and presents from others anymore and all the things that are connected with that.”  And so we make those choices very early on – hopefully quickly! The faster we conquer those things the better off we are, truly.

And so anyone listening out there, the faster you conquer these things when you begin to be drawn, when you begin to be called, whether you’re holding onto them or not, what are you willing to give up?  Are you willing to leave Egypt?  Are you willing to obey God?  That’s what people are asked in essence; are you willing to obey God? And this is where we start.

We don’t start with ‘honour your father and mother’, verse 12, or ‘you shall not murder/you shall not kill’, or ‘you shall not commit adultery’.  As a whole we don’t begin there.  Now there are things in life that we begin to change as far as that which is the way we think and the way of life we live with people around us, in society around us.  But God begins where we have to begin – with Him.  You want a right relationship?  If you want to live right you’ve got to begin in a relationship with your Creator, with your Sustainer, with the one who made you, the one who gave you life and gave you purpose of why you’re alive – which is Elohim!  It’s a beautiful thing, truly is.

So it goes on and warns about these various things, the four things that we’re to do.  You want to have a relationship with God?  You do it God’s way.  It’s an amazing thing!  I don’t know what it’s like around here locally with the Catholic church as strong as it is and some other types of organizations that aren’t as large as the Catholic church throughout Europe, but in the United States, especially in the South with all the types of Protestant Traditional Christianity that’s there, the concept, the ideas about God and that God’s working many different ways to save people and all the confusion that’s there – it’s a horrible sick thing!  “And this Old Testament stuff, especially verse 8, that’s been ‘nailed to the cross’.  You’re free from that; you’re free from that bondage.”  That’s sick, perverted!

And yet that’s the thing that God brings every one of you to confront.  You have to make choices.  Are you willing to obey God on the Sabbath day?  At sundown on Friday to not work any longer, to change your lifestyle, that if you’re used to going out to sporting events on Sabbath, football games, soccer, whatever you have here as well, the different things that people have that they go out to or watch on TV – no more.  You quit doing those things because you want to honour God, because you want to have a right relationship with God.

So again, in order to come out of Egypt, to be brought out of Egypt, God gives you the way to do it; it’s to have a right relationship with Him, with your God!  If you want to come out of sin you have to have a right relationship with God.

And so a tremendous story of what took place on Pentecost.  God gave His law of how to live and Israel was witness throughout that entire period of time that you cannot obey God without His help.  It takes more!  That’s why Pentecost in 31 AD has such meaning; you have to have God’s help and you have to have God’s calling and God has to determine when you’re going to be worked with.  That’s what God has done through time.  God is determining already those who are going to be worked with during the Millennium.  You can’t understand that, its way beyond your mind to comprehend that God has already been preparing millions and millions and millions of people for His Family into the Millennium.  He is determining already those who are going to be called out of The Netherlands, those who are going to be called out of Belgium, out of Luxembourg and different areas throughout Europe here, of who is going to be worked with, who is going to be called, who He’s going to draw, who He’s going to awaken, who He’s going to shake – just like He did you!

And we don’t grasp that because we’re a small group of people.  Worldwide, the largest it was at any point in time was 95-97,000 people who were baptized, not anywhere close to 144,000 and the ideas and concepts we had at that time.  And even when we were as large as we were we were still very small!  But to comprehend that God could work with millions at the same time?!  You can’t comprehend that!  See, I can talk to all of you by me talking, but if each of you were to start talking and having a conversation with me, I can’t do that. I can only handle one at a time.  One at a time is my limit!  If there was just two talking at the same time you might catch a few things here and there; it’s confusing!  With God it’s not confusing!  God has the power to communicate, to deal with, to work with, to mould and fashion millions upon millions upon millions of minds at the same time, and you can’t comprehend that!  I can’t comprehend that!  I believe it more than ever; understand it more than ever in the sense of God’s word and God’s plan and what God is doing.  All you have to do is look out there in the universe and see how great, how majestic God Almighty is and what He’s brought into being!  Awesome!  Awesome!  One time I gave a sermon talking about the amazing vastness of Space, the Milky Way Galaxy and that there are a hundred billion stars with untold planets around all those stars.  Just talk about the hundred billion by itself in one galaxy and then you go into the - we don’t even know - hundreds of billions of galaxies?!  Your mind can’t comprehend that!  I can’t comprehend the Milky Way Galaxy with a hundred billion stars!  Numbers so vast!  And you see galaxy after galaxy out there, some of the beautiful pictures that Hubble Telescope brought back that you’re able to look at.  Awesome!  And God created all, and brought it all into being; such vastness, such power, such might, you can’t comprehend it!

As I was saying one time in a sermon, I talked about a guesstimation of how many billions of galaxies they think there are and how many billions on average they think there are of stars within each galaxy and made the comment that if you were able to go to each sun (you’re going to be at each one), and see that particular solar system with that star and those planets that are around it, and you’re going to go there and spend five seconds of time and you are going to be able to go from each one through time... how long would it take you to see the entirety of God’s creation?  Trillions of years!  Trillions of years to visit things that fast, that rapidly!  God knows them all by name.  How many people do you know by name?  It’s pretty tough after a while, unless you have constant contact with individuals. We’re at a point now where we’re not that large and I’m having difficulty at times with people’s names because we don’t see everyone all that often.  But if you see someone day in and day out, that’s a different thing, you can get to know far more people.  But over a span of time it makes it more difficult.  We’re so limited and we tend to think that way about God!

So how awesome is it to understand that God’s in control and He does the calling.  That never changes!  God knows the best time, and not only that but He has a plan for fitting everyone into that plan, of when to call people, of when to draw them.  Now how we respond, that’s up to us.  How we respond to God?  That’s up to us.

And so again, what an awesome story – God giving the law, a way of life to be lived through time, and then the power to live it – all contained within the meaning of this time.  And then those who are first as a part of that plan to receive the law, His way of life and to live it by His help with His power.  It’s a beautiful story, it’s a beautiful picture.

So again, Pentecost goes way beyond just this period of time when God was bringing them out of Egypt.  Let’s turn over to Leviticus 23 where we always begin with the Holy Days to discuss these things, to focus upon these things, to focus upon this period of time, understanding here fully how Pentecost got its name – because it wasn’t known that way until the time of Christ, after the time of Christ, primarily because of the Greek language and because of the instruction involved there of how to know when to observe it.  It’s always been known as the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Firstfruits, but as a whole - Feast of Weeks.

Leviticus 23:5 - In the fourteenth day of the first month at even, between the evenings – God’s very specific, something that was to be fulfilled between two evenings of an entire day, is the Eternal’s Passover. It’s God’s Passover given to mankind. It’s His own Son.  And so again, Passover is the beginning of salvation, of God’s plan to create His own Family; it starts there.  It’s not a High Day!  It’s such a beautiful picture, it is!  You can’t even start in the plan of what the Holy Days picture; you can’t even start with the High Days of the Days of Unleavened Bread, of coming out of Egypt, of coming out of sin until you’ve received the Passover!  Awesome picture, truly is!  Not a High Day but a command of God that before you can enter His holy time, His Holy Days and have a relationship with Him, you must receive His Passover and do it exactly the way He says.

That’s why Passover has been such a controversial thing in God’s Church over the last fifty plus years, because of different ones who tried to lead people astray, who were open to communication from another being, who lifted themselves up above Mr. Armstrong and wouldn’t accept what Mr. Armstrong taught them, who began to think they knew a better way, that the Jews somehow understood Passover better... because surely we can’t!  Such dumb, narrow thinking sometimes!  I become so perturbed with what ministers have done in times past thinking that somehow you can get information from the Protestant world, go to their commentaries and learn about God.  That’s a bunch of bull!  Or that you can go to Judaism!  Jesus Christ condemned Judaism 2,000 years ago and it didn’t get better after that, it got much worse...much worse!  That’s when they began to change Passover – shortly after that Passover itself.

And so for God’s people to go to the Jews, to Messianic Jews, to any kind of Jews, to go to anybody in Traditional Christianity...you’re on your way out the moment you think that way and you’ve yielded yourself to Satan.  I tell you these things because they can still happen to you in the Body, in the Church, even in this last year of time!  Every year... every year people leave. Every year I’ve been in God’s Church people leave God’s Church for whatever reasons.  Always be on guard.

Verse 6 - And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast, first place ‘Feast’ is used in Leviticus 23 that means feast.  ...the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the Eternal:  We’re to become unleavened!  We’re filled with leavening! We’re filled with that which puffs up.  I love the examples in scripture!  It’s awesome what God has given to us to comprehend – things so basic!  A loaf of bread, it puffs up. It’s got a lot of air in it compared to not having air.  When it doesn’t have air it’s a matzo, or it’s a flat bread, or its unleavened bread, it’s a flat piece of bread that we eat. Not the same as something that’s nice and fluffy and you can spread your butter on or toast it.  Try to toast a matzo!  Doesn’t work the same!  But the air that’s in between it and puffs it up, what a beautiful picture of pride.  Just a bunch of air!

I hope you love God’s truth and God’s way of life.  When I get up here and speak I can’t help but become excited by things I have said year in and year out over and over and over again.  If it ever gets to a point where it begins to be dull with you, you’re in spiritual trouble, truly!  You’ve got to love God’s way of life, and when you don’t, cry out to God to love it.  When you don’t feel that you love God like you should, cry out to God!  How often is that?  “Father...” I asked that this morning... “I come so short of what David was like, a man after Your own heart.”  I believe that with all my being, and David had problems, but he was a man after God’s own heart.  God was in his forefront of his thinking, in his mind constantly!  I fall short of that and I ask God for help. I want to be like that, a man after God’s own heart.  Whenever you feel yourself falling short of those kinds of things, cry out to God that you want what He offered in Pentecost in the wilderness when He gave the law, that you love His law, that you love His way of life, that you love Him, that you ask for help to love Him, that you ask for help to love His Son, that you ask for help to love-His-way-of-life-with-all-your-being, that you ask for help to love one another, to love those whom God has called without exception, without harsh judgment!  Let God do His work and don’t get in the way!  Amazing!

...And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the Eternal; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. That seven that we see over and over and over again, a number that God uses for completeness, that which is complete; to completely come out of sin!  And we don’t do that.  We work on it, we strive, we fight, and that’s what we have to do until the day we die or until the time our change comes.  You have to fight to come out of sin day in and day out, to repent before God.  Beautiful picture; seven days.  We have the seven day week with the seventh day being a day of completeness, God showing His complete plan in that, seven thousand years for mankind and the hundred years we understand to bring most back to life a second time.  The number who could potentially be in God’s Kingdom will all be born in the first seven thousand years, because after that there is no more birth in life.

Verse 7 - In the first day you shall have a holy convocation and you shall do no servile work therein. But you shall offer an offering made by fire, again, a beautiful picture, ‘made by fire’.  We understand what that means!  The symbolism contained in fire for us is one of trial, test, hardship; and so we’re willing to offer ourselves and our lives before God, that whatever we have to go through so be it.  And this way is not easy, not in this age!  It’s much easier in the Millennium.  It’s much, much, MUCH easier in the Great White throne – night and day and beyond.

...you shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Eternal seven days: How long? ...until you’re complete!  ...until you’ve completely done what you need to do to yield yourself to God.  ...until your change can come.  That’s how long you do it!

And in the seventh day is a holy convocation and you shall do no servile work therein. So again, this has been God’s instruction of when and partially how Passover and Unleavened Bread is observed, but there’s so much more in the midst of the Feast of Unleavened Bread that reveals whether anyone can move forward with a continuation of salvation to become a part of God’s Family.

Verse 9 – it goes on into the plan, into the revelation - And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you have come into the land which I give to you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then you shall bring the sheaf of the ‘firstfruits’ – again, it’s not the word for ‘firstfruits’; nothing about fruit in this word at all in the Hebrew language.  It’s the word for ‘the beginning’.  ...from the beginning of your harvest.  I mention these things over and over and sometimes these things sounds technical but some of the things we get into are technical because God’s word is exact. And I mention these things because these are the things that I have lived through in my time in the Church of God where people have twisted and distorted to say they mean something else.

Here is one where they’ve accepted what Judaism teaches, because we think that somehow we can’t understand Hebrew.  Well, I don’t speak Hebrew, but with God’s spirit He’ll reveal the truth to you in Hebrew and in Greek, whatever language it is in, whether it be Dutch, English, French or something else. It doesn’t matter what language it is God will reveal the truth to you in His time and His way through the power of His spirit, to help you understand things, where you don’t even have to speak something fluently, but to have enough knowledge.  We have enough knowledge today to be able to go into and read the studies and works out there that have been done in Strong’s and Young’s Concordances and some of the type of study I mentioned last Sabbath.

You shall bring the sheaf of the beginning of your harvest unto the priest: and the reason this is so important again is because the beginning of harvest, not like what the Jews have said, not like what the Church of God and some believed at one time… Mr. Armstrong came to understand what this was in 1974.  That’s when he came to understand what this meant, that some rejected and then some went back to the old in time.  The harvest begins before Passover in the region of Israel and God wasn’t telling them to let your harvest and the things you have out here in the field that you’ve worked hard and planted, to rot, to go to waste.  He says, bring it in, but you can’t eat of it until you’ve offered the wave sheaf.  And this is an awesome part of the story of Pentecost that people have robbed themselves of, of not grasping the beauty of God’s plan.

And so He says here, You shall bring the sheaf – picturing Jesus Christ!  It’s all about Jesus Christ!  Passover was about Jesus Christ!  The wave sheaf is about Jesus Christ!  It says, You shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits/the beginning of your harvest unto the priests:  And he shall wave the sheaf before the Eternal; the priest had this ceremony of waving the sheaf before God Almighty to be accepted for you: Our Passover!  He had to die and then He had to be accepted; and what that means is a beautiful picture.  It’s awesome!  ...to be accepted for you on the morrow/the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.  He always waved it on a Sunday!  And as we went through the series recently and talking about it, that Sunday always had to be within the Days of Unleavened Bread!  Always!  That’s why I mention and made in some things maybe seem complicated again, and they are to a point; that Passover, when Passover and the next day that follows it is the First Day of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Unleavened Bread – Always on those occasions the wave sheaf was offered on that day, on that Sunday.

If Passover falls on the Sabbath, the very next day is the wave sheaf.

And you shall offer on that day when you wave the sheaf, of a male lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Eternal. So again here, a male lamb – always being reminded in every one of these all the way through, and so in this particular occasion also here that this male lamb had to be offered, had to be a male lamb without blemish.  What is that all about?  It’s about Jesus Christ; male lamb.

Always being reminded, Passover’s just barely passed, here’s the wave sheaf in that period of time during the Days of Unleavened Bread. An offering up, being reminded again this is about Jesus Christ over and over again here at the beginning.

More specific instruction here, verse 15, dropping on down...And you shall count unto you from the morrow/the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; so whenever this sheaf was done God gave a specific time here of how to count – ‘pente’ and ‘cost’ – Greek for ‘count fifty’.  And we observe it year after year.  And what an awesome Pentecost!  It’s almost difficult to grasp and comprehend what God can do, how God can do it, what God will bring to pass. And we march forward in faith that we’ll be talking about later on, like everyone else who’s gone before us, always.

And you shall count into you the morrow/the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; in other words, from that Sunday, seven Sabbaths shall be complete: So you count seven days, another seven days, every time you come to a Sabbath...from Sunday to a Sabbath – God’s very specific!  It’s amazing to me how people twist and distort these things and come up with other ideas, but people have in the past and still do.  We even did until God revealed what all this meant.

...seven Sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow/the day after the seventh Sabbath, again, very specific; count seven Sabbaths, but that’s not enough, you need one more day in there.  After the seventh Sabbath, that next day, you shall number fifty days; and you shall offer a new meat offering unto the Eternal.  Passover and The Days of Unleavened Bread are tightly connected to Pentecost in such an awesome way that God had us count.  He didn’t give us a specific day like ‘the fourteenth day of the first month’; Abib/Nisan, or the fifteenth day, or the twenty-first day but He did tell us when the Day of Pentecost should be only by the correct counting of it, by obeying Him meticulously so, to do it exactly the way He said to do it in order to be a part of His truth, of His way of life.  So again, there is only one true way to count it!  Incredible story!

Let’s go over to Deuteronomy 16.  Again, since this is the season of Pentecost we are immersing ourselves deeply into the meaning surrounding the complete fulfillment of the Day of Pentecost which covers, again such a long span of time, the longest of all God’s Holy Days.  A beautiful picture!  We started looking briefly at some of the instruction of how God says we’re to count so we can know the exact day God commands us to observe it, but we’re going to look at a particular example here, again, digging a little deeper; understanding this is the last one we observe until Jesus Christ is here.  Incredible!  What an incredible day that will be!  You won’t be observing it like you’re observing it today.  It’s going to be a very unique day for you, doesn’t matter who you are.  For some it’ll be awesomely unique, ‘a change in a moment in the twinkling of an eye’ just after the day has begun Jerusalem time after sunset on the Sabbath day, the next day being Pentecost, and Jesus Christ in the heavens above.  Mankind can see something in the atmosphere they don’t understand, in a massive way, that’s going to make everything that Hollywood ever put together look puny.  And God says the whole world can see it!  Powerful!

Deuteronomy 16:1 - Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover unto the Eternal your God: for in the month of Abib the Eternal your God brought you forth out of Egypt by night. It’s a simple scripture.  It’s one of those I’ve mentioned that Mr. Armstrong gave.  He never had to go into what we had to go into in the articles that are on the internet there about Passover and Pentecost and all the things that are given there that are indeed a little complicated but very, very specific, because of what happened to people in the Church of God who began to reject three basic scriptures that Mr. Armstrong gave, and this is one of them, to understand when the children of Israel came out of Egypt.  I scratch my head thinking about this one here, because there are some who began to twist and distort this.  They didn’t come out of Egypt on Passover night!  Dumb!  What did God tell them to do?  “Stay-in-your-homes!  Stay-in-your-houses! Stay in your dwelling until the morning.  Do not come out or you are dead!”  You think they obeyed that?  That’s why some of the stories sometimes, the ‘10 Commandments’ and some things that take place some times and people don’t understand that Moses and Aaron did not go to Pharaoh again.  Pharaoh sent word to them, “Get out of Egypt!  Get out of Egypt!”  And so some have this concept that Pharaoh received Moses again.  Not so.  Moses told him the last time they spoke, “Indeed you have spoken right.  You will never see my face again.”  So you can understand by those things, indeed, God’s word is true and they didn’t come during the night time to go see Pharaoh and Pharaoh kicked them out of Egypt at that point in time.

These are little things!  Little things that people in God’s Church have stumbled at.  Little things that people have rejected, thinking that they understand more than what God gave to them when they were called, thinking they understand more than how God works in God’s Church!  There is one way that God has always worked in His Church, and if we don’t learn that we will never learn.  It doesn’t matter who it is, that’s not what it’s about!  It’s about God and His order and the way He does things!  Never changes!  I had to go through some knocks to learn that.  Voting in the environs in the Church was one that doesn’t work.  You can call it whatever you want to call it like ‘Living’ does.  You can call it all kinds of things but if one isn’t making the decisions and the choices that is coming from God Almighty from His Son, candidly, it is how it works, through the power of God’s spirit, how God’s spirit works, then it’s not of God.  But many in God’s Church have stumbled at that, thinking that all of a sudden they understand better.

I think sometimes when I tell some of these stories it’s hard for us to believe that.  If you’ve been around one year, two years, three years, I think it’s hard for you to believe some of these things that have happened in God’s Church.  It’s difficult to comprehend it.  You might say, “I believe it.  I see it.”  But you don’t fully until you’ve lived it, or until you’ve brushed up against it, or whatever, to comprehend what man is capable of with God’s spirit, what you’re capable of rejecting, what you’re capable of deciding and judging on your own and thinking that somehow you can determine by your own intellect, or because you understand...  and many people, thousands, tens of thousands of people have stumbled at that.  It’s sad.

Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the Eternal your God: for in the month of Abib the Eternal your God brought you forth out of Egypt by night. They didn’t leave Passover night, they left the next night.  And if you go back in the story they had 48 hours that were packed with activity.  You ever stayed up past 24 hours?  Have you ever stayed up 48 hours?  They had high adrenalin!  They had very high adrenalin!  They were what you might call ‘pumped up’, and it wasn’t on these little drinks that are loaded with caffeine.  They were indeed excited!  They knew that many had died that night, Passover night, and the next day they witnessed what it’s like to go out and ask of the Egyptians anything they wanted.  Livestock, gold, silver, carts, transport, whatever to load things on, cooking things – whatever you mention – clothing...they asked and they received.  The people of Egypt were anxious to get the Israelites out because they came to a point where they believed that they were all dead if the Israelites didn’t leave, and that’s exactly what Pharaoh’s advisors told him.  They said, “Let them out or we’re all dead men!”  And the people of Egypt understood that, they believed that with all their being!  They’d already witnessed all the plagues that took place over a very SHORT period of time, and then finally a great plague that took place when all the firstborn, everything living that was firstborn of animal and mankind in Egypt died that night, that was left.

Going on, it says brought you forth out of Egypt by night.  Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover... many, many, Many, Many people in God’s Church have stumbled at this verse thinking they understand something different than what was given to them by God’s apostle, Mr. Armstrong.  Many people stumbled and they began to think this is talking about Passover night.  It isn’t.  And something so simple and so basic would reveal it.  Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover – they never sacrificed the Passover lamb!  It wasn’t a sacrifice!  Intelligent people in God’s Church, evangelists who served Mr. Armstrong, who were taught by Mr. Armstrong at Ambassador College stumbled at this.  Be careful!  Always be on guard!  Some very intelligent people, far more intelligent than what I am, have stumbled at this, truly.

Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover unto the Eternal your God; So what is it talking about if it can’t be the Passover?  The Passover was not a sacrifice!  The Passover was something different. They killed the lamb but it wasn’t put on an altar before God, it wasn’t offered up before God on an altar.  God said, “Stay in your home and eat it roasted on fire...and in the morning nothing is to remain of it, burn it all, whatever’s there, but you eat that night.” So He’s very specific in what He told the Israelites!

And so again here He says, Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover unto the Eternal your God, of the flock... well, Passover was of the flock, it was a lamb or a goat like God gave instruction there in Exodus 12, and the herd (?) this ought to be a tell-tale sign!  This ought to... you’d think, surely somebody would get it!  This isn’t talking about Passover night!  Ding-Dong!!  Where are the bells going off?  It’s of the herd; you couldn’t sacrifice a calf, a cow, a bull!  That’s not what it’s about here!  ...on Passover night?!  No, you’re supposed to take a lamb, kill it and eat it. This is about sacrifices, and when are sacrifices done before God in the Passover season?  All through the Feast of Unleavened Bread; most of them on the First and the Last.  Those things were done on the High Days.  The First Day of Unleavened Bread is the Feast of Unleavened Bread – we just read that in Leviticus – and it’s on that day that animals of the flock and of the herd were put on the altar and sacrificed, given to God, offered up before God.  And a certain portion of them, large portions of them the children of Israel were able to eat and partake of!  That’s why it’s called a ‘Feast’; they feasted in a very powerful way!  But they began the killing before they were put on the altar.  They began on the preparation day of Passover.

Passover is like a Friday in a sense of the Sabbath.  The Friday is called a preparation day for the Sabbath.  You take care of certain tasks and so forth more on that day so that you can enter into the Sabbath without work and activities.  You can’t go out and mow your lawn on the Sabbath.  You better do it on Friday if it needs to be mowed, or you just wait, let it grow until Sunday; or other chores or other things of that nature – washing clothes, you better have it done by Friday.  If you don’t, you better get it done quickly on Friday if you need something clean on the Sabbath that you don’t have, to do all your wash and all your ironing of all your stuff – get it done on Friday the preparation day.  And this was a preparation day for the First Day of Unleavened bread, and so they began to prepare animals to be offered upon the altar, and that preparation began with the killing of animals, slicing their throat, taking off the hides and so forth, the things they did, cutting the meat up and preparing it in the different ways that were taken care of on a particular time as soon as the sun was down.  So a lot of animals were killed before sundown, but they couldn’t be offered on the fire, they couldn’t be put upon the altar until that Holy Day was there.  And that’s what it’s talking about.

And somehow this confused some of the people in God’s Church; it confused Judaism too, they didn’t understand the sacrificial system.  You think of all people, the Jews surely understood the sacrificial system?!  And they didn’t.  That’s why you don’t go to the Jews for anything in understanding!  You don’t go to the Protestants for anything in understanding.  You sure don’t go to the Catholic church for anything in understanding.

Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover unto the Eternal your God, of the flock and of the herd, in the place, another great clue for anyone who studied anything about God’s word... in the place which the Eternal shall choose to place His name there.  Where’s that?  We use this when we talk about Holy Days and the Feast.  You realize we’re meeting here because this is where God’s placed His name?  This is where it was decided we would meet together on a High Day!  It was far more explicit in the Old Testament where this was done. It was wherever the temple was.  In the wilderness when it went from area to area when they travelled, wherever the temple was and the Ark of the Covenant that was in that last part of the temple – wherever that was that was where they offered up sacrifices before God. They didn’t go out and do it in the field somewhere.  They didn’t go off and decide to do it someplace else in some other area.  They did it where God placed His name and God placed His name there for the services that were to take place.

Later on within the Church we came to understand what that meant when we had different Feast of Tabernacles locations – like this year we have it in specific areas, so if you want to go to a location where God has chosen to place His name there, wherever God’s people are brought together, if you can, and if you can’t then God will be with you.  We understand that in this end-time.  But as a whole we’re to strive to be, as much as lie within us, to be with God’s people in fellowship on the High Days and on that particular season of the year.

And so again, whatever is decided, that is what is done; and when it was decided at one time (in 2008) that you should keep four days of the Feast of Tabernacles on your own, in your own area, in your own home, perhaps with others that are close to you, and then the next four days together in an organized location – that was the organization of the Church, that’s where God placed His name. And if you did otherwise...

But it’s not in ‘your homes’ when it was done like this during the Old Testament.  When you offered up sacrifice before God it had to be at the temple.  We are the temple so worship today is a lot different for God’s Church, we understand that.  This is where God places His name, it’s in you, it’s in your life!  But in the Old Testament it was in a specific location, that’s why that expression was used, ‘in the place the Eternal God chooses to place His name.’  And so that finally ended up being in Jerusalem; that’s where God placed His name for people to worship, to offer up sacrifices before Him. The point is it’s not in their homes.  There was only one thing that was allowed in their homes – eating the Passover.  When Passover comes you’re to kill the lamb, roast it and eat it on Passover, in your homes, and if there aren’t enough to eat the lamb then you invite some friends, relatives, next door, whatever it is to come in and eat it with you – enough for one lamb.  Very basic instruction.  It wasn’t sacrificed at the altar.  Doesn’t it seem clear and simple to you?

How on earth did many ministers, even evangelists and different ones stumble then?  That’s why it’s always wise: be on guard all the time, seeking to be close to God.  You can stumble just as easy as they did.

You shall eat no leavened bread with it; Beautiful picture! When do you start eating unleavened bread? On Passover you can still eat leavened bread, but when it comes to the Days of Unleavened Bread it has a name, ‘Unleavened Bread’.  During the Days of Unleavened Bread you’re to have no leavening.  You shall eat no leavened bread with it; Why?  Because it’s sundown on the High Day.  During Passover, concerning God’s instruction, we can still have leavened bread.  You can still have your last subway, or your last hamburger, or your last sandwich, if you want, on the Passover Day.  But when sundown comes it’s not to be anywhere around – no leavened products, no breads, products that are breaded.  Not like the Jews who have certain sodas you can drink and you can’t drink because they deem certain ones to be leavened.  When’s the last time you made bread with a can of Coke?

You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; what seven days?  The seven days of Unleavened Bread!  So simple, so basic!  It’s hard to imagine sometimes that people stumbled at these things, people who’ve been in God’s Church for many, many, many years!  ...even the bread of affliction; for you came forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: and by this you are to remember the day when you came forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.  And you know what?  We are too!  When God began to draw you, began to call you, began to work with you, or if you grew up in the Church, when you came to that point and that decision, you’d determined this is my way, this is God’s way, that’s my way, that’s what I want, I choose this, I want to be a part of the Family of God, I want God to live within me, God’s spirit.  When those things happen – God says never forget – always remember that and the process you went through of coming out of Egypt.  I will remember for eternity I’m sure, my coming out of Egypt, things that I’ve lived through, things that I’ve seen in my time in God’s Church: the apostasy and all that was related to the apostasy – an incredible moment in time as far as history is concerned in God’s Church at the end of 2,000 years and all that was contained with it.

Verse 4 - And there shall be no leavened bread seen with you in all your coast seven days; we’re to get rid of it all.  We’re not to do as some Jews do, give it to the neighbours who aren’t Jews and then go back after the Days of Unleavened Bread and get it back from them.  God says you’re to get rid of it.  You can give it away but it’s permanent.  I’ve addressed that in times past.  You can give the bread away and give all the yeast away and give it to the neighbour, that’s fine, it’s not on your premises anymore, it’s not a part of your home anymore, it’s theirs.  They don’t understand, that’s fine.

So again, it’s not to be seen with you in all your coast for seven days; neither shall there be anything of the flesh, which you sacrificed, pointing out again that they didn’t sacrifice the Passover lamb – it’s not about the Passover lamb; the first day at even, remain all that night until the morning.  So they had to do the same thing with those things that were a matter of these particular sacrifices. You must not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates, and just because it’s stated this way some thought it was the Passover!  It’s not a sacrifice!  It’s talking about the season of the year, it’s talking about the Passover season, it’s talking about especially that which you start on Passover.  You start to kill the animals on Passover, that’s why they’re referred to as Passover sacrifices, but at that time any good Israelite understood, the Levites understood, you offer it on the altar after sunset.

You shall not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates, you can’t do this in your homes, you cannot build an altar before God and put an animal up there and sacrifice it to God.  You have to bring it to the priest’s at the temple where God has set His name to offer it up.

We go through these things meticulously so to show that God is very exact in everything He does and He gives to us.  The universe isn’t out here by random chance.  It isn’t something God just threw out there.

...but at the place which the Eternal your God shall choose to place His name in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at even, this isn’t at sundown on the First Day of Unleavened Bread, at the going down of the sun, at the season, in the Hebrew, at the time that you came forth out of the land of Egypt. And you shall roast and eat it in the place which the Eternal your God shall choose: and you shall return in the morning, and go unto your tents.  So it was an all night feasting – all night.  I conk out around elevenish, begin to wane down at the latest.  They were able to feast all night.  It was a great occasion for them. They had a lot of adrenaline because it was so exciting, so many people coming in to that location, an incredible time.  So many came together to observe these times.

Verse 8 – again in context here, because there are six more days here.  That’s why it says it this way. So this has confused some people.  Why does God say this? Six days you shall eat unleavened bread: we’ve already been told you eat it for seven days, so why all of a sudden does it day six days you shall eat unleavened bread?  Because He’s already addressed the High Day and what you’re supposed to do on the High Day when you offer up these animals in the place that God chooses to place His name on the First Day of Unleavened Bread – but you’ve got six more days!  Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, in other words, six more, and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly unto the Eternal your God: and you shall do no work therein. Seven weeks shall you number to you: beginning to number the seven weeks from, and it says ‘such time as’ and that’s not in the Hebrew at all...to number seven weeks from  you, or in other words, from your beginning, that word, ‘beginning’ in this case here, of the sickle to the corn. When you begin to put the sickle to the corn, it’s talking about a particular moment in time that it’s referring to.  It’s talking about the wave sheaf.

It’s like for us.  There are some in the Protestant world that will ask, “Well, where does it show me in the New Testament that you’re to keep the Sabbath!  Where does it say you’re supposed to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the New Testament?” They don’t understand even though the disciples (who were Jews) kept it.

But again here, this was something that’s just a given, that’s just understood.  When it’s talking about the sickle to the corn they understood this is talking about the wave sheaf, the first bit that was done in the harvest was the sickle to grain, to a sheaf that was to be set aside – then they continued with their harvest. The beginning of their harvest there was this ceremony where they did whack this piece off and put it in a bundle and took it and waited until a moment in time – that first Sunday when the wave sheaf should be offered.

Verse 10 - And you shall keep the Feast of Weeks unto the Eternal your God with a tribute of a freewill offering in your hand, which you shall give unto the Eternal your God, according as the Eternal your God has blessed you: We do that for all High Days – we understand that, that we bring forth an offering to God.  And you shall rejoice before the Eternal your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite who is within your gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are among you, in the place where the Eternal your God has chosen to place His name there. He says don’t forget anyone!  That was for a nation!  It’s unique within the Church.

And you shall remember that you were a bondman/slave in Egypt: and you shall observe to do these statutes.  It’s important to remember that.  You know why, for us, that we were slaves?  Because then it helps you to deal with others who are still slaves.  You understand they can’t help where they are – God hasn’t taken them out of Egypt yet.  You can’t expect things of them.  And so we understand that, we deal with that, that’s what God wants us to remember – we were slaves once too.

If you understand how blessed you are to be called out of this world, how blessed you are to know, to understand the truth, and you understand they can’t help it. That’s why Jesus Christ was able to say, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.”  That’s for us. Stephen basically said the same thing, “Father, don’t hold this to their charge.”  In essence, “...they don’t know what they’re doing.”  It’s a great way to deal with the world.  It’s a great way to deal with your family who doesn’t understand.  It’s a great way to deal with people on the job who don’t understand.  They can’t help with the way they are until God calls them...until God calls them to give them what you have.  And so it helps us to deal with the world, otherwise it’d be very, very difficult.

Before we continue on it’d be good to point this out, the extremes that some will go to in order to force some of these scriptures.  We’ll go through it for an exercise here because it doesn’t hurt, a little technical, but again, little things mean a lot.  Sometimes we don’t grasp that.  Little things that are written here and there, just little things in a verse... ‘You came out by night’ little things that you think shouldn’t escape someone. ‘You came out of Egypt by night,’ little things that you understood that they were told to stay in their homes, their dwellings, all night long and they couldn’t come out of their houses on Passover or else they would be dead, they would die!  Little things are big things to God!  They truly are!  And they should be big to us as well, important to us.  And so it might seem like a small thing, but these are the things people have stumbled at.

Sometimes we don’t grasp it’s the little things whereby you are judged.  It’s the little things you do in your life day in and day out.  That’s what you’re judged by, how you live your life day in and day out, the little things!  Whether we think about other people, or just ourselves. Whether the world kind of revolves around us and our well being – and if things don’t go our way we’re not happy.  You have to fight against that, you have to fight against your spirit; you have to fight against your attitude.  I had that opportunity yesterday afternoon in traffic; wasn’t happy with all the traffic coming into Antwerp. We were in Ghent and coming into Antwerp, long before you get to the tunnel there was two, three ways coming together packed with trucks and cars.  Every once in a while I’d look over, especially some of the semi drivers and their big mirrors before you get there, and you saw this look on their face like you don’t want to be there because you know they were in attitude land. They were having a tough time.  And so sometimes we have to fight our own; this is the way it is, you’re not going to change anything.

And you apply that to every bit of your life working with people, dealing with people, situations that come up and how you work with one another – especially in the Church of God, how you treat each other, the time you give each other, the patience you give each other, the things that happen that sometimes you see that maybe someone else doesn’t see because they’re not where you are yet.  And so you give them some more time.  And some things have to be addressed that are addressed, but as a whole, a lot of times there’s that expedience on our part to be patient, to give time for God to do His work.  You know what?  God will deal with every one of us.  God deals with every one of us in our lives and what happens in our lives and things that take place in our lives and things we go through. And if we’re striving to live this way before God God’s going to be more involved in our life to give us help, to give us blessings, and if that’s less then we go through certain struggles and battles and others around us do as well sometimes because of our not yielding to God like we should.

God’s in control!  God’s in control of His Church.  You know what?  God was in control of His Church at the time of the apostasy.  God was in control!  And you know what God did?  He spewed it all out of His mouth because God’s in control, because we weren’t responding the way we should, we weren’t yielding ourselves to God the way we should.  We began to fall asleep; we began to become sluggish in God’s Church.  We got to a point where we were able to be deceived in different things, people were able to be deceived in different matters, let down in different matters, didn’t battle when they should have battled, and a lot more involved as well that’d take me several sermons which I’ve given in the past anyway, of things that people go through sometimes in this. But God was in control and He chastens and He corrects when people don’t respond properly, and that’s not a good place to be – to lie to God, to lie before God, to be deceiving before God – whatever it is God will take care of it.  I hate to see people go through things, to be hurt, to go through hurtful things, and yet it happens in God’s Church because we’re human beings.  But the more you yield yourself to God, the more you live the way God says to live, God will fight your battles, He’ll help you, He’ll intervene for you.  Doesn’t mean you won’t go through some struggles, because you will, but you do it God’s way and yield yourself to God in the process and God will fight for you and fight with you.  Doesn’t mean you won’t have battles!

Deuteronomy 16:6 – Let’s notice this one here – But at the place in which the Eternal your God shall choose to place His name in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at even, ‘ba ereb’, a Hebrew word.  And then it goes on again to give something here that some have twisted and distorted...at the going down of the sun, at the season, or ‘time’ is the word, that you came forth out of Egypt.  It’s a great instruction, but one that’s been twisted and distorted, by the Jews first.  And many people in God’s Church have gone to the Jews saying, “Well surely, because they have the Hebrew language, surely they understand more than we do, more than we can.”  I hope you understand by things I’ve said that’s dumb thinking, it’s very foolish, very insane!  It ignores the power of God’s spirit!  We ought to be able to understand they’re not God’s people except as a nation in lineage.  They’re not being worked with for salvation. They’re not!  They don’t have the truth!  They don’t have the truths of God!  They rejected the Passover, very clearly so, and then they changed the Passover after that, just as much as the Catholics changed the Passover.  See, the Jews changed the Passover and so did the Catholic church; they changed it to Easter in the Catholic church, the Jews changed it to the 15th from the 14th after the time of Christ in 70 short years later.  Incredible!  And so to go to the Jews to understand when to observe time?!  Because they take this thing about ‘the going down of the sun’....

So I want to read a part of what I wrote in an article on this subject.

[1] The purpose for pausing to examine this verse is to focus on the "going down (#935) of the sun." This word "going down" is easily misapplied if you rely on English. "At even, at the going down of the sun" is used by some as a principle definition for ba ereb.

And that seems very technical... and it is!  Little things that mean so much to God!  God’s very specific in what He says.  And so they do this in order to give credibility to the keeping of the Passover on the 15th.

What did the Catholic church do to twist and distort?  You know why their primary (well it wasn’t the only one), but do you know a great movement of why the Passover was changed to Easter?  Why they wanted to observe Easter instead of Passover?  You know the primary motivation behind it?  To give credibility to Sunday worship. They didn’t want to just move toward Easter, they wanted to move toward Sunday worship, the day of the sun, to incorporate that into ‘Christianity’. And that gave them the authority, in their minds, to be able to do so.  Because if your Saviour was resurrected Sunday morning...  Why do these people go out there and worship and bow down like they do on Sunday morning and have these sunrise services at the time they believe that Jesus Christ was resurrected?  And they’re way off the mark on that, we understand that.  Because they wanted to give some kind of credibility, some kind of an example that they could point to to say, “See, we’re to worship on Sunday mornings before God!  This is when our Saviour was resurrected.”  Bull!  Hogwash!  Whatever else you can think of to use there!

And so did the Jews, by using this term of ‘the going down of the sun’. There are Rabbis, a well known Rabbi that most of the Jews relate back to, that talk about the ‘going down of the sun’, so you know what they do?  They go out and they look at the sun – “When does it start to go down?  After 12:00, so at 1:00, from then on, it’s the ‘going down of the sun’.”  And that’s what this word means, so the going down of the sun can incorporate the afternoon of the 14th (suns going down at 1:00) and you can kill the Passover and then on the 15th you can eat it.  Because that’s what this is talking about in Deuteronomy 16.  It makes me sick!  It’s disgusting!

But many in God’s Church adopted the same thing because they wouldn’t accept simple little things that Mr. Armstrong said.  “You left Egypt at night.”  It’s a simple scripture.  If we don’t know when ‘the going down of the sun’ is, what God is talking about just by an example like this...that’s when we observe the Sabbath, at the going down of the sun – duh!  No Jew starts observing the Sabbath at 1:00 on Friday! If you used that same thing for Sabbath day, when are you supposed to observe the Sabbath?  ‘Ba ereb’.  Oh, from 1:00... And don’t give them that idea; they already do it an hour ahead of time.  Why can’t they apply the same concept regarding when Sabbath starts to Passover?  Because they want to twist and distort the scriptures to say something that it doesn’t, just as much as Traditional Christianity wants to hold to Sunday morning worship.  It gives them what they think to be their authority and credibility to do so.

I won’t go any farther than that and you can go back and read the article.  It’s on the Church web site.

Leviticus 23, let’s go back there and continue on.  Again, instruction regarding the wave sheaf.  We’re going through this meticulously so but it’s important.  God wants us to do everything exactly the way He says to do it.  We’re not to deviate!  Isn’t that an amazing thing?  God says, “Don’t turn from it, don’t turn from one word to the right hand or to the left.”  Don’t do it!  Don’t add to and don’t take from in any fashion or form what He gives.  That’s a powerful thing!  It’s a very sobering thing, truly is!  It’s sobering for me, truly is, and it should be sobering to every one of us, that we strive...because what does that mean then?  We strive to be of the same Word, never departing even in one word, to the right hand or to the left in something different from what God has given to us in this present truth, whatever that truth is at any time that God has ever given to the Church or to those before.  Hopefully there will be many as time goes along here that you’re going to be able to share things like this with.

I look forward to with great desire, yes, with everyone that’s going to be called out of the world, but you know I have a special affinity to some; I have a special relationship with some above and beyond those that I don’t know in the world yet.  I look forward to that, I look forward to everyone in the world having the opportunity of living in the Millennium and in the Great White Throne, but I have a great yearning desire to share this way of life with those whom God is going to draw back out of the scattered Body that was spewed out of Worldwide after the apostasy.  Because God promises... God promises there’ll be a minimum of around 3,000 people out of our past.  I look forward to that because I know that I’m going to know some of them.  I know enough to know that there are going to be some that I will know.  And there will be some whom you know; and it’s an exciting thing when someone is able to be awakened, be brought back to the fold.  To be brought back!  It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing, because you see, I have to wait a thousand years to see the rest.  And I look forward to that one, I really do.  I look forward to seeing all those ministers who can’t be called back now because their judgment is set.  But I look forward to seeing them in the Great White Throne.  I intend and believe that I will be there to help them, to work with them, to teach them, to love them, and to be loved by them.  I look forward to that time.  It’s going to be an exciting time for me.  I have had a lot of friends, not now because of choices they’ve made, but I look forward to the time that they’re friends again.  And that’s something that God’s going to do in His time.

And so for you to be able to share some of these things?  Because you don’t know where different ones went off course: where are you going to be able to help them?  And this, I’m speaking primarily to those of you who’ve been around for some time.  Those of you who are new, the same is not expected to the same degree, but it’ll primarily be with those whom God has called back out, who are a part of the basic core in the sense of what has been around for a longer period of time, those who were baptized before the apostasy, that you’ll be able to help.  You can help the most those who were a part of the apostasy.  You are the one they’re going to relate to the most.  You’re the one they’re going to look to the most, and you’re the one that’s going to be able to help them the most.  Because there comes a time too when even things of the internet and so forth aren’t going to work, but God will bring whom He will to you because you’re a part of the Body, because you are the Body.

Leviticus 23:9 - And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say to them, When you have come into the land which I give to you... so again, we’re going through these things here, refreshing our minds of that which we’ve just covered, but so awesomely important.  When you have come into the land which I give you and reap the harvest thereof, you know when they came over, when they were in the area of Jericho, when they were ready to cross over the River Jordan and come into the promised land, this is what it’s talking about, when God brings them there...and you shall reap the harvest thereof, then you shall bring a sheaf of the beginning, again that word there, the beginning of your harvest to the priest: So the very first thing they did as a part of a ceremony was cut a sheaf, save it and wait, and then all the harvest could begin, but they couldn’t eat any of it yet until the wave sheaf was offered.

And he shall wave the sheaf before the Eternal, to be accepted for you: on the morrow/day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. Again, to understand the awesomeness of the wave sheaf, a vital part of the Days of Unleavened Bread; Jesus Christ, a vital part of the Days of Unleavened Bread.  Why?  Why does it give these things?  Because you can’t come out of sin without your Passover, and so we start with Passover, we understand Passover, but this pictures a process of conquering sin, of coming out of sin.  It’s through Jesus Christ; it’s through the Passover who was waved before you so that you could be forgiven of your sin.  God the Father accepted Him as perfect as He was, without sin, as your Passover; because God accepted Him as the Wave Sheaf then to be accepted for you, for me.  Then we’re able to go before God day in and day out and ask God for forgiveness of our sins, to come out of sin.  That’s how we do it.  The way you come out of sin is through repentance, day in and day out, repenting of things you’ve done wrong.  You can’t live perfectly even with God’s spirit before God.  Isn’t that an incredible thing to understand?

Pentecost pictures God’s law, the ability to keep it, to live by it as a way of life, to have it as a part of our mind, to have it more of a part of our mind as pictured in Pentecost, in 31 AD with the receiving of God’s spirit, impregnation of God’s spirit in your life, and then God’s spirit coming continually into you to help you to live it.  And that means constantly fighting against that which fights against it, like Paul explained, and a willingness to fight and to repent.  It’s a sad thing; people get tired of repenting sometimes and quit the fight.  When people quit fighting they quit repenting, they begin to justify what they do, they begin to justify why it’s okay to have certain sins in their life, why it’s okay to do certain things that are wrong before God.  No, you have to continue to repent and acknowledge to God that it’s wrong. That’s how you grow in character, you keep up the fight; and you do it by repenting.  It’s an awesome process, all because of our Wave Sheaf.

And so again, to be accepted for you... on the morrow after the Sabbath they shall wave it... and you shall offer on that day when you offer the wave of the sheaf, a male lamb without blemish, again, we read that and talked about that; but an incredible thing understanding this talks about Jesus Christ here.

Let’s turn over to the book of John.  An incredible account of the first encounter that several had in coming face to face with the reality of Jesus Christ having been resurrected from the dead. Because it’s a beautiful story, it’s an awesome story of what it means when we recognize when Jesus Christ was accepted for us, and it’s recorded in the scriptures here, this account of when it happened, for the Church, and we read about His resurrection in John 20.

In this story it’s important to understand that they had prepared spices on Friday.  See, Thursday was a High Day.  Thursday was the First Day of Unleavened Bread.  They couldn’t go out and buy and prepare spices for His burial because He was barely put into the tomb right at that moment at the end of the day of Passover.  And so the rest of them who wanted to prepare the spices to put with the dead body couldn’t do so until Friday.  They went out and got them (and there’s quite a process of going through and preparing these things for burial), and so they did this on Friday, which is the preparation day for the Sabbath; and then when they finished doing it, taking all day Friday, they couldn’t go to the tomb then.  So they couldn’t do it Sabbath because that’s the Sabbath day, to come and have the stone removed and to come and finish their preparation and everything on the body and with the body and the wrappings and so forth, with the spices.  The body had been wrapped and put in there bypassing a lot of these things that they would normally do.  And so this is talking about an account here then of why they were coming to the tomb Sunday morning, because He had already been resurrected (they didn’t know this), but they didn’t come at night time, they were going to come in the morning, early in the morning to get this taken care of finally – three days – after that the body, as we read about Lazarus, begins to stink, and they wanted to take care of this before that began to happen, before decomposition set in and the body began to stink.  So they were pressed for time and wanted to get there early and get this all taken care of, to do it properly.

This is the story here, John 20:1 – On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went early, when it was yet dark, so she started out while it was still dark out, there’s a little bit of light because the sun is not fully up yet but she’s starting.  It says, unto the sepulchre, and saw the stone taken away from the sepulchre.  When she got there she saw that the stone was gone. Then she ran and went to Simon Peter, and so there’s different things in the story here that have taken place through this and you have to put all four accounts together here, but we’re going to read through this primary one, ran and went to Simon Peter, and to the other disciples whom Jesus loved, it’s interesting how people talk about themselves when they’re writing, and said unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre and we don’t know where they have laid Him. They didn’t see Him so they’re running back and now the stone is gone and they’re telling them.

Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. ‘The other disciple...’ and so they both ran together: and the other disciple outran Peter, it’s a good thing you don’t use the word ‘I’ – ‘I’ did this, ‘I’ did that; it’s about ‘me’... I know why he did that.  That’s why it was hard for me when I began to understand that there were certain things that God told me I had to say, because from the time of my calling in the beginning I knew it wasn’t about ‘I’.  You learn very quickly on, see, it’s not about ‘me’, ‘I’, ‘I’ did this, ‘I’ did that – no, God does it all!  If anything’s good we’re able to participate and be a part of it, but anything that happens in God’s Church it’s about God and His Son.

And so it says, the other disciple outran Peter and came first to the sepulchre. And stooping down he saw the linen clothes lying there, the clothes that were there, the cloth; yet, it says, he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and he went into the sepulchre and saw the linen clothes lying there.  He was the quick one, he’s the one that’s ready to jump at something, he’s the one ready to take the sword and cut off the high priest’s servant’s ear.  He was the one that was ready to jump out of the ship and start walking on the water.  He didn’t hesitate!  He had a way about him that was very pleasing to God with this willingness to do whatever he had to do, to do it quickly, to jump in there.  It was just Peter’s way.  Sometimes that’ll get you in trouble and sometimes not.  The spirit, the desire was good, it was right.  All the others didn’t say what Peter said, “I’ll never forsake you!”  First to answer, the other were a little held back in some of those things – not Peter – he was always out front.  Anyway he runs in there and sees this and he’s not going to hesitate.  He’s ready to go to battle too, whatever it takes to find the body.  “Where is He?”

And the napkin, speaking of the facial burial cloth, that was about His head, was not lying with the linen burial clothes, in other words, for the body, but was wrapped together in a place by itself.  So they were separate and it was wrapped but the others were loose there. Then the other disciple went in also who came first to the sepulchre, and he saw it and believed. He didn’t see the resurrection but rather that Christ was gone... and saw what had taken place here and the cloth was there and some of the other things involved here we’ll come back to if we have time.

Verse 9 - For they still did not know the scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.  This was another matter!  So it goes back to what Mary Magdalene had said, “He’s gone!  Somebody’s taken the body!  He’s not in there!”  Peter runs in there, “Where is He?”  And John is there...and then John sees it and he says... “I believe it too, He’s gone; somebody’s taken Him!”  That’s what this is about.  And then it says, Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.

Verse 11 - But Mary stood outside the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked down into the sepulchre, And saw two angels in white sitting there; all of a sudden out of nowhere, at the time she looks in there and here are two angels, one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain. And they said to her, Woman, why do you weep? And she said to them, Because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid Him. She didn’t know what these beings were; they were just men to her.

Verse 14 - And when she had said this she turned herself back and saw Jesus standing, and she didn’t know that it was Jesus.  So she’d been crying, she’d been weeping and she didn’t see clearly and it wasn’t given to her to recognize Him at this point.  And she sees this person there kind of in the weeping that she was doing, the crying, and probably not looking directly face to face as it were anyway, focusing like she could have otherwise.  And Jesus said to her, what an awesome thing!  Woman, why do you weep? Whom do you seek?  And still at this point, She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, Sir, if you’ve carried Him away from here, tell me where you have laid Him and I will take Him away.  Why would someone do like that; take a body, unwrap it, have the cloth there, the facial cloth wrapped up neatly at the head?  She wasn’t thinking straight.  He was dead, she was sorrowful enough because of his death and then this happening – the mind doesn’t think right at a time like that.

And Jesus said unto her, Mary. She recognized the voice.  What an awesome thing!  Sends chills down your spine!  To have an event like this, something so incredible, so awesome, take place.  Mary.  She turned herself and said unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. And Jesus said unto her; Do not touch Me... What would be the inclination, the desire?  To run up and throw your arms around Him.  What does this mean?  What’s happening?  And He said; Don’t touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father: hadn’t been received as the Wave Sheaf yet.  He was resurrected, but the wave sheaf that’s pictured in the Old Testament hadn’t taken place, that which He was going to fulfill now in a very short time. He fulfilled Passover and the day of Passover and in the morning hours there He was received because of the wave sheaf, just like in the Old Testament; waved up before God and received of God in its time, Sunday morning.  So in a short period of time, likely less than twelve hours, He fulfilled what’s pictured in the wave sheaf, in the sense of what the Wave Sheaf is all about.

He said to her, But go to My brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God.  He hadn’t yet ascended.  He hadn’t yet been received of the Father.  And Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things unto her. Beautiful, beautiful picture, beautiful story!

Everything that God does, everything that He gives to mankind to share in He does it in awesome ways; and it’s an incredible thing to understand we can share in it.  That’s why sometimes, and most of the time, we really don’t grasp what we’ve been given to share in.  We don’t grasp the magnitude of our calling.  We see certain things to a point.  We embrace certain things to a point, but to really grasp the magnitude of it all...

I’ll tell you what, there are going to be people who read about you that grasp it and are more in awe than you will be in your life.  You can read through the book of Acts, we can read through this, and be in awe – what an awesome story!  Something you just live through life sometimes – we don’t see how great it really is, we don’t grasp the greatness of it, something that’s written, something that’s given – far more awesome!  There are going to be people in the Millennium, people in a short while, who are going to be dumbfounded in your experiences.  “You were called when?!  You did what?!  You met together where?!  You were right over there?!”  People in this city here that are going to be a part of the Millennium; “You were meeting where?  You lived in what town?”  Wherever you live... “You were living where? ...and you were a part of those?  ...those whom God called?  ... and He was working with you and you had these opportunities ahead of time?”  They truly are going to be in awe and want to share with you, and you have opportunity to teach, to be with them, to share with them what God has given to you!  That’s an awesome thing!  But we live through it and we don’t grasp how great it is, we don’t grasp the magnitude of it, we don’t grasp Almighty God living in our lives and working in our lives and what that means!!  You really don’t to the magnitude that it is!  We fall so short in that!  ...that a portion, that a part of God Almighty is growing in you, living in you, dwelling in you!  That is awesome!  Awesome!  And that you have opportunity to share?  And that’s what God’s way of life is about!  That’s what families are about... it’s about sharing!  Sharing!  And what we get to share in is incredible indeed, truly is!

Hebrews 9 talks about some of this in different terms relating back to this story, talking about this fulfillment, talking about things that were taking place.  It’s written in different ways at different times.

Hebrews 9:11 – But Christ being come a High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that’s a beautiful scripture!  Not made with hands, not like the temple that was built in Solomon’s time by hands that went out to chisel the rock for every stone to fit in its place perfectly so and the things that were done, the majesty, the awesomeness of something just physical, of things that have been written about that physical temple!  ...not made with hands, not by man but by the hand of God, by the power of His spirit, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood... by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, When?  With the wave sheaf.  That’s what it’s talking about.  It’s talking about that particular time when God received Him as the Wave Sheaf.  He entered in once, He fulfilled the wave sheaf once, He fulfilled Passover once.  He only had to die once and be received as the Wave Sheaf once for everyone, for all humanity, for all the billions who will ever live.

...having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: only in a physical way as a physical  part of Israel, to be able to be in that community, to be a part of it, to function within it, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal’s spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?  And that’s the process we go through.

The more we yield ourselves to God the power of God’s spirit dwelling within us, pictured in Pentecost, the receiving of God’s spirit pictured in Pentecost that we’re able to receive and this process then of purging ourselves, of being purged of dead works and learning the works that are right.  That means living what is right.  It’s not a matter of what you know, it’s not a matter of how much you know, it isn’t a matter of how much doctrine you grasp, it isn’t a matter of how many prophecies you know and understand, how much knowledge you have... and God has given you more knowledge than any other age before you.  You have ability to see, to understand, to receive more knowledge by far than what the Church had during Philadelphia even.  That’s how much God has blessed us, awesomely so, in His Church!

But it’s not about that!  It’s about how you live your life with everyone else around you.  It’s how you live your life, being purged of dead works, of wrong things.  See, knowing doctrine, knowing the truth, knowing prophecy – those things aren’t a matter of purging yourself of dead works. How you live your life is a matter of your works.  How you live toward one another, how you speak toward one another, how you think about each other....especially in the Body of Christ, and then beyond.  That’s what’s important to God.  That is what our Wave Sheaf made possible for us in order to become a part of God’s Family.

~~~end

1. Church of God – PKG, Publications page, Passover

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