The Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost) 2021

Hello friends, I'm Chadwick Harvey, and this is Faithful Four Months — a program devoted to the testimony of the biblical prophets and how they perfectly correlate with the current events of today. Thank you for joining us.

In this episode, we are going to discover the Feast of Shavuot, or Pentecost, which is God's fourth divine appointment in Leviticus 23. If you are not familiar with the feast days — the divine appointments of the Lord in Leviticus 23 — we will walk through them. Essentially, we are going to connect the Feast of Passover, when Messiah was crucified, to his burial during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and then to the Feast of First Fruits, when he was resurrected, tracing a fifty-day journey to the Feast of Shavuot, or Pentecost, as we know it in the Gentile church. It is a very exciting time. These fifty days constitute a purification journey, and we will explain that more fully. But all of this begins with understanding God's calendar.

We have spoken about God's calendar in many other videos, and it is critically important to understand — his feast days and also the everlasting covenants: the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the New Covenant. These give us great insight and understanding, especially when dealing with the prophecies of the end of the age. Those three foundational pillars of the Holy Bible illuminate the events surrounding Messiah's second coming. God's calendar is mentioned in Genesis 1:14, where it says God created the sun and the moon "for signs and seasons." That sun-and-moon calendar is the Hebrew calendar, and so we need a basic understanding of God's calendar, because he will hold his divine appointments on his calendar.

The Hebrew word for "seasons" in Genesis 1:14 is moed, which means "a divine appointment." This is critically important to understand. The heavenly bodies are for signs, for seasons, for divine appointments — and when Messiah Jesus, Yeshua, intersected with human history, he did so during the Father's divine appointments.

When we turn to Leviticus 23, we find that the word most often translated as "feast" is also moed — a divine appointment, an appointed time, a fixed time. God is saying through the feast days that the Son, Yeshua, would intersect with human history on God's calendar and on his divine appointments, both for his first coming events and for his second coming events. It is therefore vital to understand this revelation, particularly because Messiah will return on the fall feast days, which have not yet been fulfilled.

We are currently in the middle of the fifty-day count from the Feast of First Fruits to Shavuot, or Pentecost. We will walk through both the prophetic understanding of that count and the personal journey the Lord invites us to take during this time. These fifty days are a divine appointment — every single day devoted to the Lord until we reach Shavuot.

Remember what Leviticus 23:1–2 says: these are his feast days, his divine appointments. He says it twice, commanding Moses to proclaim to the children of Israel that these are his feasts, his divine appointments. If you love the Lord and are saved in Yeshua the Messiah, these feast days are for you, because he is going to fulfill them and he wants us to observe them as well. Many people misunderstand them as Israel's feasts or the Jewish feasts — and while they were given to the Jewish people and to Israel to celebrate him and to be a light to the Gentiles, they are really God's feasts. He gave them so that we can all celebrate them together.

Through Ephesians 2:11–13, we who were once strangers are now grafted in and part of the commonwealth of Israel. You are no longer merely a Gentile; you have been brought into the commonwealth of Israel. Romans 11 says the same thing. Galatians 3:26–29 says that if you are in Christ, you are a seed of Abraham and an heir according to the promise — the Abrahamic Covenant, which flows into the Davidic Covenant and into the New Covenant. Those three covenants work together, as we have discussed in other videos. We as Gentile believers are grafted into Israel, and Jewish believers are grafted in as well. We are all grafted into God's tree.

These feast days are the purest form of worship — not man's traditions, but the divine appointments of the Lord. Think about that: the Almighty wants you to worship him on the divine appointments he himself has created. What a great honor, what a great blessing, what a great privilege — to worship him in spirit and in truth. The Lord's feast days, his divine appointments, his calendar — this is truth according to the Holy Bible.

There are seven feast days in Leviticus 23, and we are in the season of the first four. We have just finished celebrating Passover. When you read the Gospels, they align perfectly with Leviticus 23 and with the prophetic foreshadows of Exodus 12. The Gospels perfectly correlate with God's divine appointments — not with mankind's traditions, but with God's divine appointments. On the Feast of Passover, Messiah was crucified. During Unleavened Bread — a seven-day festival — he lay in the tomb. On the third day he was resurrected; that is the Feast of First Fruits. He is the firstfruits of mankind, as Paul calls him. He fulfilled those first three divine appointments to the exact day, hour, and detail of the ceremony. When you read the Gospels alongside Leviticus 23 and Exodus 12, it is extraordinary — he fulfilled the morning sacrifice, the evening sacrifice, everything perfectly. Of course he did. Matthew 5:17–20 tells us he came to fulfill the Torah, every jot and every tittle. He had to fulfill these divine appointments, and he did: crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.

Then we see this fifty-day count beginning from his resurrection — forty-nine days — and on the fiftieth day something momentous occurs. This goes back to the Exodus, and we will examine those prophetic foreshadows. We will walk through the commandment and tie everything together to show how important this season is. It is important not only in the context of the Exodus, not only during Messiah's time, but also for us today. This is an amazing and exciting time to really pray into the Lord, to get personal and intimate with him. This is a very important season to the Lord — a divine appointment lasting fifty days.

We see this commandment laid out in Leviticus 23:15–21:

"Then you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord. You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord. And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year without blemish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings — an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord. Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering, and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of peace offerings. The priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you. You shall do no customary work on it. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations."

Now, it is important to understand that some of these Torah requirements can only be carried out in Jerusalem, with a standing Temple and a functioning high priest. Most believers in the Lord do not live in Israel, we do not have a Temple, and we do not have a high priest, so there are elements of this observance we cannot perform today. People sometimes get confused by this. Nevertheless, we should absolutely observe this feast and do what we can to honor it.

What the text commands is to count fifty days — seven Sabbaths, forty-nine days, seven times seven. We know the significance: spiritual perfection, seven times seven, forty-nine. Then on the fiftieth day they would be prepared, as we will see, to receive the Torah. And then we will see the fulfillment: the blessed Holy Spirit coming on that same day — the Feast of Shavuot, the Feast of Pentecost. "Penti" means fifty; that is why it is called Pentecost — it refers to this fifty-day count. That count begins from the Feast of First Fruits, not from the traditional Western Christian celebration of Easter. That is not the biblical reckoning. The count begins from the Feast of First Fruits — the resurrection of the Messiah, three days after Passover. Count forty-nine days, and on the fiftieth day they would be ready to receive the Torah and, as we will confirm through the Scriptures, the blessed Holy Spirit.

This is to be a holy convocation. The Hebrew word for "holy convocation" is mikra, which means "a dress rehearsal." God is telling you he wants you to rehearse these things. He told the children of Israel to rehearse them as foreshadows of Messiah's first coming events — but we should be doing this forever, just as he says: "It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations." Forever means forever — for Jew and Gentile alike. There are not two ways to worship. Exodus 12:49 establishes one Torah for the citizen — the Jew — and for the stranger — the Gentile. And just as Paul says in Ephesians 2, we were once strangers, but when we receive the blood of the Lamb, we are circumcised of heart. The Torah is written on our hearts and minds. That is the distinction between the old covenant and the new covenant: he puts his law on our minds and in our hearts. We should love doing these things, because we are saved by grace through faith, and as the Apostle John says repeatedly in First John, if we love him, we keep his commandments. This is such a divine appointment, such an intimate journey — from the Feast of First Fruits to Shavuot, it is an aliyah —