There are four lessons from Shavuot, aka Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks: 1. We are to have the same mind as is in Messiah Yeshua. 2. There are two different types of Firstfruits, and yet they are both “first.” 3. There was a delay between Yeshua’s call to the Jews vs. the Gentiles, and that is a good thing. 4. If you ask God for understanding, He will answer. Details are important, but they aren’t the only thing.
We often reserve some very harsh judgment for our ancestors who left Egypt, presuming that if we were with them, we would have been smarter than them and not made their mistakes. However, this attitude shows our arrogance because we forget that it is God who has been gracious enough to us to give us His word so we would have the blessing of hindsight and insight at their expense. Rather than condemning our ancestors for their ignorance, we need to look at our own faults in the light of His word so that He can bless us with hindsight and insight to keep our own feet from stumbling.
From reading about the history and reliving the teachings through the annual appointed times, a.k.a. “feasts to the LORD” (Leviticus 23), we gain insight on the role of Messiah in the past and the future.
Sometimes we have an idea that the only purpose of prophesy is to predict the future. God is telling us, through a human agent, what He is doing. The true prophet is not guessing or extrapolating from context, he is simply stating a fact. Matthew 24, Revelation 6 and Revelation 12 show us how the “appointed times” are a roadmap for the end of time.
Yeshua (Jesus) said His “time” had come at that Passover He died as the Lamb of God. Yet, likely there was an “appointed time” for His conception and birth that was in line with “appointments” the LORD already had established.
Wednesday, Oct. 15 – Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008
Called Rosh haShanah on the Jewish calendar, Yom Teruah contains many teachings that point forward to the return of Messiah Yeshua, echoed in the writings of the prophets of Israel hundreds of years before He arrived and in the decades after His return to Heaven.
Is there a distinction between use of Hebrew words translated as “created” and “made” in Genesis 1-2? If so, why is that distinction there?