Sermon + an outline on the three Jewish feasts

and what they ultimately pointed to:

The gospel preached from Ex. 23

• God told the Jews they were to have three special days (Ex. 23:14).
  1. The first of these feasts (Ex. 23:15) was the feast of unleavened bread.
  2. The second feast was “harvest feast.”
  3. The third feast was the “ingathering.”
• 1st feast – unleavened bread – commemorated the people’s deliverance from Egypt.
  1. The name of this feast – UNLEAVENED BREAD – should get out attention.
  2. In multiple texts the Bible uses the word “leaven” to describe sin.
  3. Jesus told His disciples to “beware” of the “leaven” from people like Phar. Mt. 16:6.
  4. A “little leaven” or sin (1 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9) “leavens the whole lump.”
  5. 11:18 – “Egypt” is also a description for sin.
• 1^st feast pointed to a future deliverance of bondage of sin.
• Jesus became our “Passover” (1 Cor. 5:7) to deliver us from sin.
• 2d feast – “harvest feast” or “feast of week.”  We likely know it as Pentecost.
• This was also in the spring and it was the time for the wheat harvest.
  1. 2 points about this; it pointed to the future resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20).
  2. About 3,000 “sheaves” were brought in on Pentecost (Acts 2:1).
  3. Think about all the times when Jesus talked about “soil.”
  4. Why would Jesus give so much attention to seeds, weeds, and harvesting?
  5. In Mt. 13:30 Jesus specifically compared the saved to wheat.
• 3d feast – booths or tabernacles (fall of year – Sep/Oct).
• This foreshadowed how the earth is not the permanent home for the saved.
  1. Peter (1 Pet. 2:11) said Christians are “strangers and pilgrims.”
  2. 13:14 says “we have not here an abiding city” – we “seek the city to come.”
  3. 2 Cor. 4:18 says what we see is “not eternal.”
  4. Our “citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20).
• 3 feasts pointed to the Lord’s Supper:
  1. Instead of using blood for Passover, we now have a memorial for Jesus’ blood.
  2. Instead of an ingathering for wheat, we use bread.
  3. Our home on earth is temporary (1 Cor. 11:26 says, “till He comes”).

 

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