God’s three harvest festivals

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Sukkot day 7 — The three great pilgrimage festivals of Israel — Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles — are prophetic of the Day of the LORD harvest of souls, when the divine command goes forth for mankind to stand before God.

 extensive study notes on “God’s three harvest festivals”

Many people don’t understand the significance of the seventh day of Sukkot. Since much of the significance of the seventh day is recorded outside of Leviticus 23, ignorance about the importance of the seventh day is not surprising. They miss out on the beauty and meaning of the water-pouring ceremony.

Yeshua (Jesus) spoke during the water ceremony in Rev. 22:17:

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.” 

This teaching was supposed to be a part 2 on the teaching “Sovereignty of God,” but I have set it aside because of the Spirit’s lead. 

This teaching on the festivals is largely based on the work of Dr. Stephen E. Jones from his book, Creation’s Jubilee. He looks for the patterns in the Festivals between the TaNaKh (Hebrew Scriptures) and New Testament. We are going to go through the three harvests of barley, wheat, and grapes and olives. 

The three big festivals are Passover (Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot) and Tabernacles (Sukkot). There were the three times a year that all the males of Israel were to appear before the Lord. 

The feast of Passover and the seven days of Unleavened Bread is first, commemorating the day Israel left Egypt under Moses on their way to the Promised land. The second feast of Pentecost, commemorates the giving the law at Mt. Sinai, the day the fire came down from the mount and God gave His law to the people. The third feast, Tabernacles, commemorates two things: the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness and the time Israel was supposed to cross the Jordan into the Promised land. 

Passover is our justification from the bondage of sin, symbolized by Egypt. Pentecost signifies our sanctification by the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Tabernacles signifies our glorification at th “redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23) when we inherit our promised land. 

Passover is associated with the barley harvest. Pentecost is associated with the wheat harvest and Tabernacles is associated with the grape harvest.

Most people do not understand Paul’s teachings on these harvests. For those of us who live in Napa or Sonoma counties, we can smell the wine harvest in the air as the grapes are crushed by the ton to become wine.

In the Land of Israel, barley is the first to ripen in the spring of the year. When the people came to Jerusalem for Passover, each person would bring a handful of ripe barely to give to God as the firstfruits of the harvest. On the Sunday after Passover, the priest took some of the barley and waved it before the Lord (Lev. 23:10-14).

(Other interpretations of “on the morrow after/of the Shabbat” put Firstfruits on the 16th day of the first month or on the first weekly Shabbat during Unleavened Bread.)

Only barley could be used because the wheat was not ready at this time in the Middle East. We see this in Ex. 9:31-32:

“Now the flax and the barley were ruined, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud. But the wheat and the spelt were not ruined, for they ripen late.”

The wheat ripened later, around the time of Pentecost. Just as barley was offered to God on the first day of the week after Passover, so also was wheat offered on Pentecost seven weeks later (Ex. 34:22):

“You shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks, that is, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.” 

The grapes ripened at the end of the growing season, in late summer. The grapes are harvested and thrown into the winepresses to be trodden down, and the juice was collected. On each of the seven days, a pitcher of grape juice from this harvest was poured out before the Lord as a drink offering in the temple (Lev. 23:27).

With these three main festivals, each of them involved a different product: barley, wheat and grapes. The first two are grain; the last is fruit. These three festivals are prophetic of the harvest of souls when the divine command goes forth for mankind to stand before God. 

Significance of barley in the Bible 

If we study the passages in the Bible where barley is mention we find much valuable information about the first resurrection and the character and calling of those who qualify for it. Barley matures early and that tells us the barley first fruits are the first people to mature spiritually to bring forth the fruits of the kingdom that God requires.

Barely can also survive drought, heat, and cold much more easily than wheat. In the life of Elisha, during a drought a man brought him the firstfruits of barley. This occurred about the same time Elisha overcame death by the pot of stew, which signifies resurrection.

A new Testament example is found in John 6 when Yeshua fed the 5,000 with five loaves of barley bread and two fish (John 6:4-9). At the end of the meal, Yeshua told His disciples to “gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” The barley people are called to rule and reign with Christ. 

We read that Gideon and his army were called “a loaf of barley bread” in Judges 7:13. God is raising an army of over-comers who will rule with Christ and subdue the nations under his feat. Their weapons are a trumped and a clay pitcher with a torch hidden inside. The trumpet signifies resurrection, for Paul tells us that the dead will be raised “at the last trump” (1. Cor. 15:52).

As for the clay pitcher and the torch, Paul says that the glory of God is hidden within us for a time and that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7).

Those who are being prepared for the first resurrection are undergoing judgement right now as Peter tell us. Yeshua says his reward will come with him. 

Significance of wheat in the Bible

A study of wheat in the Bible teaches us about the Assembly in general and the way the Assembly is raised and judge briefly in the second resurrection. The first fruits of Pentecost signify the second resurrection, when the church is raised up to stand before the face of God.

As we said earlier, wheat ripened by Pentecost. On that day the high priest was to offer to God two loaves of wheat bread baked with leaven. Once God had received His portion, when the people were allowed to harvest and eat of that year’s crop of wheat. 

The festival of Pentecost focuses on people who are leavened. Israel received the law at Mot. Sinai on the day of Pentecost. On his day, they were formed into a kingdom, as God spoke the word to them. The people were afraid of the fire and ran from the voice of God (Ex. 20:18-20) The people were leavened and did not want to step into the fire of God to stop the leaven. So Pentecost was not fulfilled in the days of Moses. 

In the second chapter of Acts, Pentecost was finally fulfilled because the disciples did not run from God by embraced the fire. Yet a basic problem remained. Pentecost was not made to bring perfection, i.e. an unleavened condition. Pentecost gave us only an ‘earnest” of the Spirit, a down payment, rather than the fullness. The NASB calls it a pledge:

“In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation — having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Eph. 1:13-14)

We live in an age of leaven, an age of an imperfect kingdom of priests who lack the fullness by which they may bring the kingdom to perfection. If there is one thing we have learned in the Pentecostal age, it is that we can’t inherit the perfected Kingdom on the basis of a mere earnest of the Spirit. Only those with the fullness of His Spirit can fully inherit the promise. This frustrating to the barley company, of course who live in a Pentecostal age, but we must wait until the appointed time. 

When the children of Israel was to enter the promised land, only Caleb and Joshua had the faith to enter the land. The people were so upset with Caleb and Joshua, they wanted to stone them. Because the majority believed the false report of the other spies, all the children of Israel, including Caleb and Joshua were punished by having to wander for 40 years. There is personal and corporate blessing and punishment in God’s economy. 

In the New testament, we are seeing the same pattern being repeated. The people of the New Testament Kingdom have been wandering in a wilderness f their own for 40 jubilees (40×49)=1960 years. Most of these over comers have died not having inherited the promise. However, God will raise them from the dead at the seventh trumpet of some year, so that they may enter their inheritance alive with those of the barely company who are alive in that day. 

Perhaps the most significant TaNaKh passages dealing with the wheat harvest is found in the story of Saul’s coronation as the first king of Israel (1 Sam. 9-12). The people had demanded a king before David was born so God gave them Saul to reign over them. This kingdom was mixed with leaven. Saul was crowned on Pentecost, for in Samuel’s coronation speech he says in 1 Sam 12:17:

“Is it not the wheat harvest today? I will call to the LORD, that He may send thunder and rain. Then you will know and see that your wickedness is great which you have done in the sight of the LORD by asking for yourselves a king.”  

Saul was to Israel what the Assembly (commonly called “the Church”) was in the New Testament era. Saul started out doing right, but in the second year of his reign he disobeyed God and and as a result, he became disqualified to rule Israel. Yet he ruled for another 38.5 years. This followed he pattern of Israel under Moses exactly. Recall that under Moses, the people refused to cross the Jordan in their second year as well, and as a consequence, God made the nation wander in the wilderness for another 38.5 years. 

In the New Testament, the same pattern reigned. At Pentecost, the church had a fine start, but the people (as represented by the Sanhedrin) refused to obey God. The focal point came in the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7, who fulfilled the part of Caleb and Yehoshua (Joshua) in urging the people to cross the Jordan into the promised land. Even as the people nearly stoned Caleb and Joshua, they actually did stone Stephen. This was their refusal to cross the Jordan and it resulted in a 40 jubilee wandering in a wilderness. 

Stephen’s name in Greek, Stephanos, means “crown.” And the stoning of Stephen in symbolism was a rejection of the crown of life. 

And so this past age has been the era of Saul’s rule. The kingdom was, indeed, established at Pentecost in the second chapter of Acts but it was not the perfected kingdom, typified by the Davidic rule. It was an imperfect kingdom, full of leaven, as history has shown, typified by the reign of Saul in the Old Testament. As in the days of Saul and David, the nation must await the end of Saul’s reign before the Davidic reign can begin. 

It is the age of the church, the wheat harvest. Those of the barley harvest, like Caleb and Joshua must await the completion fo the church age before the inheriting the first resurrection. Stephen’s message in Acts 7 was rejected when he urged the high priest to follow Yehoshua across the Jordan. And so we were sentenced to wander in the wilderness again. 

When Saul was crowned on Pentecost, Samuel prophesied “thunder and rain” that day. Rain on Pentecost was as unusual as snow in summer. Thus the rain and thunder on Pentecost would have been regarded by the people as judgement, even as Samuel intended. 

On the other hand, the thunder and rain also signifies the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the voice of God. Thus, while there is judgement in this situation, there is also an element of blessing. IT sis, in fat, a mixture of good and evil, which is precisely the meaning of the two loaves of wheat bread mixed with leaven what were offered to God every Pentecost. 

The significance of the wheat harvest in this matter of the second resurrection of the Assembly. The second resurrection will, of course, be a great blessing to all the believers who were not raised earlier in the first resurrection.

Nonetheless, because of all those believers are yet mixed with leaven, there is also an element of judgment that comes at the same time. Paul speaks of this judgement in 1 Cor. 3:15:

“If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

This speaks of men in whom the foundation of Yeshua the messiah has already been laid. It speaks of believers, but because they are a carnal mixture of wheat and leaven, their works must be tried by fire. The good works will abide, the rest will be burned. The bread must be baked in order to stop the leavening action. This is judgement, but the purpose of the fires it not to destroy the carnal believer but to purify him. 

The church in general will be raised at the second resurrection. Yeshua calls them “the just” who receive Life at the same time “the unjust” are judged at the beginning of the final age in the lake of fire. In either case, the fire that judges is the same fire poured out at Pentecost. God’s judgment is design to clear his threshing floor and He will gather His wheat into the barn. (Matt. 3:12)

The baptism of fire upon the wheat is both good and bad. It represents a purification process, which is judgement upon sin to bless the person. When God works to refine or purify someone, it is not a pleasant experience. No judgement is. But those who understand the mind and purpose of God will readily submit to His “fire” knowing that God is working all things out for their good. 

Significance of grapes in the Bible

Finally a biblical study of the grape harvest, with the treading of the grapes in the winepresses, tell us the fate of the unbelievers. The winepress depicts God’s wrath, judgement and the lake of fire. 

The purpose of grain harvests (barley and wheat) is to provide bread for God’s great communion table. The purpose of the feast of Tabernacles with its celebration of the winepress is to provide the wine for God’s table. Without this wine, His communion table would have only bread and would be incomplete. God will have His wine, but it must come by means of the winepress, which speaks of the judgements of God. 

God harvests His barley, wheat and grapes in different ways, even as nature teaches us. The chaff from  the barley falls away every easily, so barley is said to be winnowed. That is the action of the wind itself, are enough to rid the barley of the chaff. His peaks of the barley company who so quickly respond to the wind of the Spirit. 

To remove the chaff from the wheat requires threshing. This is a more severe action, but it does the job. It depicts the church will be harvested by judgement or tribulation. The Latin word tribulum, is a threshing instrument.  

Finally, to obtain the juice from the grapes, they must be trodden under foot. Grapes do not have chaff but they do have “flesh” that must be pressed severely in order to obtain the wine. This represents the most severe form of judgement upon the unbelievers. Yet the result is that God obtains wine for His communion table.

Three levels of fulfillment

The feast days of Israel prophesy on three levels.

Level 1: Personal

Level one is the personal level. In Passover, is our justification by faith in Yeshua. In Pentecost, God begins to write His law on our hearts. Pentecost does not deal with justification but with our sanctification. It is the feast wherein we begin to learn obedience and learn how to be led by the Spirit during our sojourn in the wilderness.

In Tabernacles, we have the fullness of the Spirit and the Spirit brings us fully into the promise of perfection in our relationship with Him. These are the three main steps in our spiritual growth and maturity as we grow up in the fullness of the stature of Christ.

Level 2: Corporate

Level two is the corporate fulfillment of the Assembly of Messiah, or the Kingdom of God. On this level, we see God’s dealing with the three assemblies (churches), or the three stages of the Kingdom on earth. The Passover level beings with Moses and the Exodus.

The first Assembly is called in Acts 7:38, “The church in the wilderness.” This Passover-age assembly ended with Yeshua’s death on the cross at Passover about 1,500 years later. It was an era where the Holy Spirit was with the people, but not in them. 

The second assembly is the Pentecostal-age assembly, which began seven weeks after Yeshua’s resurrection, when the spirit of God was sent on the day of Pentecost. On this day God renewed he kingdom by giving greater power and placing the Holy Spirit within the people.

No longer was the temple an external house made of wood and stone. As Paul said in 1 Cor. 3:16:

“Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” 

The Pentecostal age should have been a time when the Assembly learned the law of God and how to be led by the Spirit. Too often, the leadership in these assemblies and various factions put away the law and removed the law from Christians and denied them the right to hear God’s voice for themselves. This is similar to King Saul, who was willing to kill his own son Jonathan because he tasted the sweet honey in the heat of battle (1 Sam. 14:29):

“Then Jonathan said, ‘My father has troubled the land. See now, how my eyes have brightened because I tasted a little of this honey.’”

That chapter is a historical allegory of the Assembly and well illustrates the problem during the many centuries of the Pentecostal age when the Assembly forbade the people to read the Bible for themselves or to hear from God any voice that should go contrary to establish orthodoxy of the Assembly. This age did not bring righteousness to the earth, nor could it because it was a church of the firstfruit of the wheat, mixed with leaven. 

The third assembly is the Tabernacle age. At the beginning of this age, God will pour out the fullness of His spirit upon the overcomes. They will rule with power in the earth and ring all things under the feet of Yeshua the Messiah. Their ministry will bring righteousness and the fullness of truth into the earth. It will signal the greatest revival the world has ever seen, as the prophets foretold. This age will last 1,000 years, as we read in Hab. 2:14:

“For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea.” 

So, also will the knowledge of God’s glory will cover the earth. This is the resurrection of all things. This is the ultimate plan of God.

Level 3: Creation

Level three is the highest level of the fulfillment of the Festivals: the Creation Level. 

The first harvest is the barley company, the overcomers. This occurs at the first resurrection, which John dates at the beginning of the 7,000-year period. 

The wheat harvest, which is the Assembly in general, will be harvested in the second great appointment time at the Great White Throne of judgement. This will occur at the end of the thousand years, or the beginning of the eighth thousand year period. 

At this time, the unbelievers will begin to be trodden down in order to cleans and purify them, so that they too will be fit for the master’s use. The grape harvest will then be harvested at he end of time at the Creation Jubilee. 

Paul is the only apostle who deals with the three harvests in a single passage: 1st Corinthians 15. In 1st Cor. 15:1-21 verses, Paul deals with the importance of believing that Yeshua was raised from the dead. He makes it clear that if Yeshua was not raised from the dead, then our faith is all in vain. Then in 1st Cor. 15:22-28, Paul deals with our own resurrections and tells us that there are three classes of people, three “squadrons” who shall be raised form the dead at different times in history. 

Barley and wheat harvests

Paul begins his discussion of the resurrections by a general statement that lets us know where Paul is taking us. He says in 1 Cor. 15:22:

“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

This plainly tells us that all are going to be raised in Christ, even as all died in Adam. Next he tells us how this is to be accomplished, and we will see that not all are going to be raised at the same time.

[Notes on this discussion don’t include the last 10 minutes.]

Speaker: John Walsh. Summary: Tammy.