Pentecost: Invitation to Heavenly lifestyle for all nations

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The annual celebration of שבועות‎ Shavuot, aka Πεντηκοστή Pentecost, is connected historically and lessonwise to the annual memorials of Pesakh (Passover) and Matzot (Unleavened Bread) by the 50 days in between. God’s instructions for Shavuot are connected to a harvest, but we can glean from its linkage to the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai (Exodus 19-20) and to the widespread outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2) deeper roots in the lessons of salvation in Pesakh and sanctification in Matzot.

The message of freedom from the past, contentment in the present and strength for the future is not just for the whole world, and not just Israel. Learn how Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) is the thread Heaven has woven through all these reminders.

Shavu’ot primer

Based on the first wheat harvest of the season

• חִטָּה khittah (Strong’s lexicon No. H2406)
  • From: חָנַט khanat (H2590) “to spice, make spicy, embalm,” “to put forth, to bring about ripeness”
• Characteristics
  • Of more value than barley.
  • Used for “fine flour” in the minkhah offerings in the Tabernacle.
• Wheat as a symbol of the “second generation” of first fruits.
  • Yeshua is “harvested” from the grave at the first fruits of the barley harvest.
  • The 3,000 believers are “harvested” at Shavuot (Acts 2) as the first fruits of the wheat harvest.

Shavu’ot offerings (Lev. 23:17–20)

• תְּנוּפָה tenufah (“wave offering,” H8573): Two loaves of two-10ths of an ephah of fine flour, baked with yeast.
  • בִּכּוּרִים לַיהוָה bikkurim l’YHWH “first fruits to the LORD” (Leviticus 23:17 NASB)
• עוֹלָה ’olah (“burnt offerings,” H5930a): Seven yearling lambs without blemish, one bull, two rams, meal and drink offerings.
  • מִנְחָה minkhah (“grain/meal offering,” H4503)
  • נֵסֶךְ nesekh (“drink offering,” H5262a)
• חַטָּאת khattaʾt (“sin offering,” H2403b): Male goat
• שֶׁלֶם shelem (“peace offering,” H8002): Two yearling lambs.

Fourfold path to the mountain

“God spoke further to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the LORD; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, LORD, I did not make Myself known to them. I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned. Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the LORD.’ ” So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their despondency and cruel bondage.” (Exodus 6:2–9 NASB)

Four aspects are memorialized in the traditional four cups of the Pesakh seder:

1. Delivery you out of bondage.
2. Redeem you with power.
   • גָּאַל vb. redeem, act as kinsman (Strong’s lexicon No. H1350)1
   • act as kinsman, do the part of next of kin (chiefly in D H P Ru), גֹּאֵל kinsman Lev. 25:25 (H); Num. 5:8, 35:12 (P); Ruth 2:20, 3:9, 3:12, 4:1, 4:3, 4:6, 4:8, 4:14; 1Ki. 16:11.
   • גֹּאֵל הַדָּם the avenger of blood
3. Take you into the family of God.
   • Ruth 1–2
4. Deliver you to where you belong.
   • Hebrews 3–4

The Promised Land is not merely a matter of geography. It’s also a matter of a transformation from where we were before to where God wants us to be.

There are a couple of “key foreigners” noted in Torah. They rejected the life they had been raised up in and attached themselves to God and His people.

Rahab, who testified to the spies that the people of Jericho knew what God had done in Egypt on behalf of the Israelites. She also confided in them that she wanted to stake her future on their God rather than the gods of her people. She committed treason against her own city-state and would have been executed for it if God hadn’t intervened and destroyed Jericho.

Ruth, as well, was willing to leave her family, her people, her culture and her gods to hold onto Naomi’s family, people, culture and God. She took a profound risk in emigrating to Israel from Moab. She was still young enough to remarry, yet risked it all to live in a foreign land, where the people may not have accepted her at all due to her heritage.

What God taught the Israelites at Sinai is that He intends for all believers to be priests, to bring near to the Presence those who are far off. Those who come near the Presence must remove the “dirt” of their previous lifestyle and take this transformation seriously. A lesson in the three days of consecration is that when we are being taken out of our old way of life, we have to experience a cleansing. It’s not an instantaneous process.

There are also boundaries that one must establish to separate the sacred from the secular. These boundaries are both physical and spiritual. The mountain was special because God’s presence was there. When they realized the presence of the Lord was actually there, they no longer wanted to encroached on His territory. Fear of the Lord will keep you from sinning.

Are the Ten Commandments impossible to keep? Only if you looking to your self rather than looking to the God who wants to write them on our hearts. The Words are close to us, not far away. They are to be in our hearts and in our mouths.

Do we always measure up to them? No. When we look away from God, it’s easy to slip into sin.

I find it humbling to be around people who have experienced profound degradation and sin and have come out of it through Messiah Yeshua’s help.

Having peace is not just between you and the Lord, but between you and other people. The appointed times remind us that we are to keep an eye on our connection with the Lord. It’s a time to check in and make sure we aren’t straying away from Him. The longer we walk with God, the less attractive sin becomes, which is a good thing.

Recovering freedom

The 12 steps that help these people climb out of their life of sin into a life of victory are all based on Scripture. You can actually leave Egypt.

12 steps of
Celebrate Recovery

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.
   • “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” Romans 7:18 NIV
2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
   • “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” Philippians 2:13 NIV
3. We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.
   • “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.” Romans 12:1 NIV
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
   • “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” Lamentations 3:40 NIV
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
   • “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” James 5:16a NIV
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
   • “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” James 4:10 NIV
7. We humbly asked Him to remove all our shortcomings.
   • “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 NIV
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
   • “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Luke 6:31 NIV
9. We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
   • “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24 NIV
10. We continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
    • “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” 1 Corinthians 10:12
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us, and power to carry that out.
    • “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Colossians 3:16a NIV
12. Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others and practice these principles in all our affairs.
    • “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore them gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” Galatians 6:1 NIV

Two Shavuots: Promise at Mt. Zion

The words of God will come to us when we need them, if we study them. What all the prophets talked about came to fruition at the first Pentecost after Yeshua’s resurrection (Acts 2). Spiritual things are spiritually discerned by those who hear God’s voice. For anyone else, they are foolish blah-blah-blah.

Shavuot after the first Pesakh	Shavuot after Yeshua as the Pesakh
God rebuilds the descendants of Abraham as an assembly of His people to represent Him to the world.	God rebuilds the assembly of the children of Abraham, who are heirs based on Abraham’s faith in God and His Anointed One.
God delivers His Torah to His people written by His finger on tablets of stone (Ex. 31:18).	God writes His Torah on the tablets of our hearts (Jer. 31:31; Eze. 36:26; 2nd Cor. 3:6–18).
Torah is Hebrew for “teaching” or “lesson.” So Torah means a lot more than just “law.”	God’s Spirit teaches us about Him and, by extension, how life should work (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13).
God appeared with signs and wonders: smoke, the sound of trumpets, quaking ground (Ex. 19:18–19; Deut. 5:19–21). The Hebrew word for “sounds” is qolot  קולות, which is often translated as “voices.”	God appeared as a rushing wind in the temple among the believers in Yeshua, accompanied by the pilgrims and residents hearing the believers voices in familiar languages.
A “mixed multitude” had joined Israel’s journey out of Egypt (Ex. 12:38) and had a front-row seat to God’s glory at Sinai.	People from all over the Roman empire, both native born and “far off,” akin to “foreigner” in the Torah, witnessed God’s power.
God’s glory appeared before the people as fire on the mountain, but the people were kept away (Ex. 19:21–23).	God’s fire came upon individual believers.

Banner Photo: The 3,000 believers are “harvested” at Shavuot (Acts 2) as the first fruits of the wheat harvest. (Photo by Michael Illuchine/Freeimages.com used via Creative Commons License)

Summary: Tammy