Sharing in the Harvest

SERMON: 2009-04-21--ac0912--sharing-in-the-harvest SOURCE DURATION: 00:45:06.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the speaker's introduction and continues through theological exposition and pastoral application until segment [439]. Segment [440] marks the beginning of sustained acoustic music (a hymn), which signals the end of the main sermon content. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:42:30.440-00:45:05.080 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- I want to pick up this morning then where we left off two weeks ago and you may recall if you were here two weeks ago that I pointed out that God in His infinite wisdom decided to pour out the Holy Spirit upon the early church on the Old Testament day of Pentecost. For we read here in Acts chapter 2 verse 1, "When the day of Pentecost came they, that is the disciples, were all together in one place." I also pointed out two weeks ago that you can't possibly understand the significance of God's choice of the Old Testament feast of Pentecost unless you put it in the context of all Israel's harvest feasts and just to make sure that we're all on the same page let me quickly and briefly review that with you. According to Leviticus chapter 23 and other Old Testament scriptures there were seven feasts that Israel was supposed to observe in honoring God. They can be summarized in this fashion. The seven feasts were divided into two groups of three and then one single feast. The first three feasts observed in the first month were the Feast of Passover, Unleavened Bread and the Feast of First Fruits. That was followed 50 days later in the third month by the Feast of Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks. Weeks is when the Holy Spirit was given and then in the seventh month, the month of Tishri, we have three final feasts, the Feasts of Trumpets, Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. Now two weeks ago we looked at the first four of those seven feasts, the Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits and the Feast of Pentecost and this morning then we're going to look at the final three which is Trumpets, Day of Atonement and Tabernacles. And because two weeks ago was a very snowy day and a lot of you didn't make it here, let me just very quickly review then in summary form these first four feasts, how they are all fulfilled in Christ and were fulfilled in time historically. And that will set the stage then for the three remaining feasts which will give us an insight as to what God is going to do in the future. So let's begin with the Feast of Passover. It was a celebration as you will recall of Israel's escape from Egypt, purchased at the cost of the shed blood of the Lamb which had to be applied to the doorposts, fulfilled for us in the person of Jesus who died on the cross. He is according to the Scriptures the Lamb for sinners slain and that was fulfilled historically on Good Friday. Good Friday is the historical fulfillment of the Old Testament feast of Passover. Passover was followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It began on the day after Passover, the 15th day of the month Nisan, ran for seven days and for Israel was characterized by the putting away of all leavened bread or all yeast. And it was a celebration of their commitment to holiness because God had redeemed them by the blood of the Lamb. Filled in the New Testament in the person of Jesus who died and who was buried and that historically then took place on the Sabbath and the Sabbath would begin Friday at sundown. You will recall from the New Testament crucifixion story that Jesus had to be taken off the cross and buried before the Sabbath began and then carries through really until early Easter Sunday morning when Jesus rises from the dead. Which brings us to the first fruits. The first fruits took place on the day after the Sabbath for the Old Testament Israelites which would be our Sunday and that was the day when the priests would take the first fruits of the barley harvest into the tabernacle later the temple to present it to God and that coincides of course in the New Testament with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The Bible says he is the first fruits of those who died and two weeks ago I talked about that in some detail because in Jesus for the first time since Adam and Eve fell into sin in his resurrection God had the prototype of a new humanity. Perfect relationship with God, perfect right to all of God's blessings and the first fruits of a harvest that one day would come. That resurrection took place on Easter Sunday and so here we have these first three feasts fulfilled historically between Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning. That was followed then 50 days later by the Old Testament feast of Pentecost. It's the feast that stood on its own. It marked the end of the grain harvest, the end of the wheat harvest and on that day the priest would present two loaves of bread now leavened before God in the tabernacle as an indication of the first fruits of the whole harvest having come in. After the grain harvest would come all the rest of the harvest and so that is fulfilled for us in the gift of the Holy Spirit. First of all in the baptism of Jesus you'll recall when he began his ministry and he was baptized by John the Baptist the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form. We often think that Jesus did the miracles that he did because he was God but that misses the point. He did the miracles that he did not because he was the son of God but because he was anointed with power by the Holy Spirit. Has huge implications for you and for me as we try to carry out the ministry that he gives us and that was fulfilled then as we have been seeing here in Acts chapter 2 on what is the New Testament day of Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian church. So you have these four feasts that have already been fulfilled historically which now brings us then to the remaining three feasts which as we will see in a few moments have yet to be fulfilled in the future and they have huge ramifications as we'll see for you and for me. So let's turn then to the feast of trumpets. The feast of trumpets was observed on the first day of the seventh month which was also the beginning of a new agricultural year for Israel and was observed by the blowing of the shofar. Now the shofar is different from the silver trumpets which you read about in the Old Testament. It was a ram's horn that was used to call God's attention to the covenant promises that he had made to Israel. And after I talked about this two weeks ago Rick and Mary Lynn Folds came to me and said that some time back they had picked up a shofar and Rick is here this morning with a shofar so Rick you're going to come on up here. Rick maybe first tell us a little bit about the history of this. Well as you can see the shofar is quite long. Picture me as a goat or a ram. We get the picture. You can see how large this is. When Mary Lynn brought it back we had to soak it in salt on the inside to purify it because it was still a little raw. But be that what it may it took almost six months to do and now it is clean. It's not a toy. This is a sacred instrument. It has a certification as you can see here. When Mary Lynn brought it here she and several friends of hers went to all four corners of Belleville. She blew this shofar to bless Belleville and there was a definite change in this town after that happened. Now subsequent to that she also took this horn on the four corners of this property and blew this shofar to bless this land that we have built on. It is a beautiful instrument and God's voice just seems to come through it. It's very hard to explain and I feel very very unworthy to even attempt to do this. I know Mary Lynn is very disappointed that she wasn't able to be here because she wanted to be the first person to blow this here. Thank you Rick. Mary Lynn is in Toronto or Mississauga today I think Rick looking after her mom. But we'll get her in here and you will hear the noise this thing can make. The Feast of Trumpets marked the end of the harvest season and as I said two weeks ago the ancient rabbis associated three functions with the blowing of the trumpet, the raising of the dead, reminding God of his promises towards his people and then to confound the accusations of the devil. So when is the trumpet fulfilled in the person and in the ministry of Jesus? It happens when he announces the coming of God's kingdom. You will recall that when Jesus comes in his earthly ministry when he has received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and he begins to preach what is the content of his message? It is the proclamation of God's kingdom. That is to say God is resuming his control over the nations of the earth and he is moving history to the point where everything and everybody will again do his bidding. And the message of the church, the message of the early apostles when they were anointed with the Holy Spirit and began to share in the ministry was a proclamation of the kingdom of God, the message of the Bible is that all kingdoms, all authority, all rulers, all campaigns that are now anti-God are one day going to bow before this stone in the image of Daniel that comes rolling off the mountain that will destroy all the kingdoms of the world and establish the kingdom of our God. So if that's how the Feast of Trumpets is fulfilled in the person of Jesus, when is it fulfilled do you think historically? Well it's fulfilled historically of course in the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ because listen to how scripture puts it, he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other Matthew 24-31 and in 1 Thessalonians 4-16 we read a similar passage where the Apostle Paul says for the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command with the voice of the Archangel and with a trumpet call of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. There is coming a time when the last trumpet call will sound and it will be God's declaration that history as we know it is over, that God is ushering in his kingdom and that every other kingdom is finished and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The last trumpet sound, a great sound of encouragement to God's people because they will finally be fully and totally redeemed and a terrible sound for all unbelievers because it will be God's call to their judgment, that's the feast of trumpets. That was followed then 10 days later by the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, the holiest of all holy feasts in Israel, a day of solemn assembly and fasting when once a year the high priest would go into the holy of holies to make atonement for the sins of all God's people. So sacred a moment was this that tradition tells us they came to a point of tying a rope to the feet of the high priest going in so that should God not accept his sacrifice they could pull him out or his body without having to go into the holy of holies where only the high priest could enter and only once a year. And that was to make atonement then for the sins of Israel so that God could continue to live in harmony with his people. As I pointed out two weeks ago, also a story of goats where one goat was slain as a sin offering and the other goat had hands laid on and sent as a scapegoat into the wilderness prophetically indicating how God would remove the sins of his people. And again we know from scripture that is of course fulfilled in the person of Jesus and it's fulfilled in the person of Jesus when he enters behind the veil. Listen to how scripture puts it, we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where Jesus who went before us has entered on our behalf and the passage then goes on to say he became a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. If you know the book of Hebrews then you will know that this is the consistent theme in the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews says repeatedly that the Old Testament sacrifices could not remove sin. They were a shadow, they were a symbol of the reality that Jesus would come to bring. And so after his death on the cross and after his resurrection he fully entered into the holy of holies in heaven where God dwells and he presented God with a sacrifice of his own blood. And then he sat down at the right hand of God and the reason he sat down is that his work was finished because he had made the one sacrifice that would truly have the power to remove all sin. And you and I, we share in that every time we pray in Jesus' name. Every time we say God you are my father. Every time we sense God's presence or sense God's closeness or lay hold of God instead of worrying that God is going to strike us dead because he is so holy and we are so sinful. The only reason we can make it people is because Jesus shed his blood so that when by faith we have been cleansed by his blood God looks at you and me. He doesn't see any of our sin. All he sees is the righteousness of Jesus. That's what makes the gospel such incredibly good news. That's why you can live a life without worry not because there is no God but because there is a God who gave his Son as a reconciliation for our sin. It's an incredible freedom purchased at the cost of Jesus' blood. I mean imagine having to do life, having to pay for every sin, every mistake, every error you have ever made. You couldn't move because you are constantly under a cloud of condemnation which has been lifted by Jesus entering behind the veil. There is still another scripture that has that same message. When Christ came as a high priest to the good things that are already here he went through the greater and the more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves but he entered the most holy place once for all by his own blood having obtained eternal redemption. Jesus entered into heaven's holy of holies to secure our salvation. So now here is the question. In Christ that has already been fulfilled spiritually, you and I share the benefits of that but what does that look like historically? What is the historical fulfillment of the day of atonement? Well the historical fulfillment of the day of atonement is this. Christ comes literally back to earth, all sin is removed in history. Listen to how scripture puts it and you will notice the harvest analogy. The harvest is the end of the age and the harvesters are the angels. As weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire so it will be at the end of the age. The son of man will send his angels and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears let him hear. So what happens at the end of history? When God says enough is enough, when the archangel blows his trumpet to announce the coming of God's kingdom, all of God's angels will be sent out into the harvest of the earth. Sin will have run its course, righteousness will have run its course, God will separate the one from the other even as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The unbelievers will be cast into what the Bible calls the lake of fire and the children of God will inherit the kingdom of God forever and ever. And it's almost impossible to imagine, isn't it? What that's going to look like. But as we'll see in a few moments, it's going to happen. And when it happens, it is known as the day of the Lord when God comes in judgment to reward his own children who by faith in Christ have become his with everlasting life and judgment and condemnation on all those who have continually and constantly rejected him. So we've had the feast of trumpets, we've had the day of atonement, and then we have the final and the greatest harvest feast of all, which is the feast of tabernacles. Tabernacles begins after the day of atonement, runs for seven days, actually eight, and marks the completion of the harvest and is a time of celebration when the children of Israel live in booths or tents made out of branches and leaves to remember and to celebrate their journey through the wilderness and how God is their full source and their full supply. Spiritually speaking, that is fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus when he enters into his inheritance. We read again in the book of Hebrews, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. The Lord Jesus upon his return to the Father when he sits down at the Father's right hand receives the name that is above every name. Remember I said earlier he is the first fruits of a new harvest because he is perfectly holy and perfectly righteous. He receives from God the inheritance of all the universe. He enters fully into his rest and shares forever in the Father's glory. And of course we know that that is fulfilled historically in what? In the new creation. Verse of scripture puts it, "I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.'" The new creation was already foreseen by the Old Testament prophets when Isaiah said many years earlier in words very reminiscent of what I just read from the book of Revelation. God says, "I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered nor will they come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create. For I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people. The sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. Never again will there be an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years. He who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth. He who fails to reach a hundred will be considered a curse. They will build houses and dwell in them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people. My chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands. They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune, for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants forever. Old Testament language describing a coming age. Now some people think that refers to a millennium reign where for a thousand years Christ reigns and we have the foretaste of eternity. I don't know if that's accurate or not. All I know is that scripture teaches that history is coming to an end. And when it comes to an end, there will be a separation of the wheat and the chaff, the wheat and the weeds, the sheep and the goats, and God's chosen people, God's chosen people will forever share in a life that is beyond our wildest dreams. I mean, you take for a moment in your own mind the factors in your life that cause you pain now, the uncertainty of the economic condition, the uncertainty of broken relationships, the uncertainty of the struggles of your own heart, the sin that keeps on pulling you down, the people that you can't stand, the people that can't stand you, and all the tension and all the conflict that is so much a part of a fallen world. Lay that all aside and then take your most fond dream of your happiest moment, your happiest memory. And the Bible says, "What eye hasn't seen and that which we have not heard and the heart of man cannot conceive, God has prepared for those who love him." That is the reality of what is to come. So here then is a quick summary of what we've been talking about. Take a look again at the chart. Here we have the Passover, the unleavened bread and the first fruits and the feast of Pentecost already fulfilled historically in the past. We are now living in what is known as the church age between the celebration of Pentecost and the feasts which are yet to come, which is the blowing of trumpets, the day of atonement, and the day of tabernacles when God announces the coming of His kingdom, when all sin and causes of sin will be removed and we will forever party, if you will, in the presence of God. Now if you're with me on this, then you will know that automatically that has some incredible implications. And in the time that remains, I want to quickly walk you through three of those. Number one, it is an incredible word of comfort for God's people. It's an incredible word of comfort for God's people because, you see, if you're a child of God, then you have come to know that all this world is passing away and there is inside you something that longs for the coming of God's kingdom. Isn't that true? I mean, before you know Jesus, you love the world and you love the things of the world and you want this life to go on forever. And when you become a Christian, you still may enjoy this life and you enjoy the blessings of this life, but you also know that we weren't made for all the pain that is here. We weren't made for all the death and the sorrow and the suffering. And part of receiving the Holy Spirit, as we'll see later on, is that God makes real that life which is to come and there is a longing in you that says, "Boy, when will war cease? When will relationships be restored? When will I enter fully into the joy of my Father who is in heaven?" And the greater the pressure in the world and the more things fall apart in the here and now, the greater becomes that longing. In fact, one of the reasons things fall apart in the here and now is because sometimes God wants to work in our hearts that hunger, that anticipation for the things that are to come. Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they'll be satisfied. But when that hunger lives inside you, doesn't that sometimes put you in a situation where you say, as do the souls under the altar in the book of Revelation, "Lord, how long?" And you ever say, "Where is the promise of His coming? Why aren't you doing what you said you would do? I mean, Jesus said, 'Behold, I come quickly.'" Well, His version of quickly and my version of quickly are very different, I want you to know. Two thousand years in my book is hardly quick. Why does the Lord Jesus delay His return? Because He doesn't wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. God's longing, God's passion is for all of creation to be restored and every creature under heaven must have the opportunity to accept or to reject the gospel. But that reality having been told, the fact that these feasts are still to come in the future is a guarantee they will come. Why is it a guarantee? Because number one, Christ the firstfruits has already been raised from the dead and has entered into His inheritance, the prototype has made it. Number two, on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit was given to the church and the church now already has the firstfruits through the Holy Spirit of the life that is to come. And remember, the firstfruits means the rest of the harvest is not only coming, it's already been approved by God, God guarantees it. And so nobody who puts their hope in God is ever going to be ashamed because the deepest longings of your heart in Christ will one day be satisfied because there is coming a day when the shofar will sound with the loudest sound you can possibly imagine, and all nations will see Him whom they have pierced and of His kingdom there will be no end. I don't know about you, but I get kind of excited about that because that's been the longing and the hope and the dream of God's people for many generations. So there is that element, that element of comfort, there is also the element of warning. Because you see, the same message that is an incredible message of hope to God's children is at the same time an incredible message of judgment for those who are not the children of God. Because as Peter points out, all through the course of history there have been those who have been saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?" Peter says you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is His coming as He has promised?" Ever since our fathers died everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation. And then he goes on to say this, but they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world at that time was deluged and destroyed and by the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire being kept for the day of judgment and the destruction of ungodly men. You see, the fact that Jesus has not yet come and the early church according to scripture expected His coming almost any moment and clearly they were wrong because we've had all this history since then. And it's easy to lull ourselves into a false sense of security and say, "Well, you know, I can sin and God hasn't struck me dead. The world can sin and God hasn't struck them dead. So where is the promise of His coming? Let's eat, drink and be merry and tomorrow we die." Well, for the same reason that these feasts are a word of comfort to God's children they ought to be a warning to every careless sinner and every rebel. Because as surely as Jesus was raised from the dead historically on Good Friday and as surely as the feast of Pentecost was fulfilled in the New Testament on the day of Pentecost by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so surely will the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement and the feast of tabernacles be fulfilled at the end of time, the angel of God will blow the trumpet and the angels of God will harvest the harvest of the earth. And all they're waiting for is for the harvest to come to maturity. Please understand that, Dave perhaps will talk more about that tonight. But by the time God exercises judgment over humanity, every excuse and every, let me put it this way, justice will not only be done, it will also be seen to be done. And so sin will have its full reign, it will come to expression primarily at the end of the age in a rejection of God and a persecution of God's people and that will be the testimony on the day of judgment that people have hated God as he has been incarnate in his own people. And it will bring the church to maturity so that the grain has come to maturity, the weeds have come to maturity, the angels go into the harvest and they can separate one from the other and there won't be any mistake about what side of history you have been on. And when people stand before God on that final day, nobody's going to be able to say, "Well, you know, I really didn't mean it." No, no, there is nothing hidden that will not be shouted from the mountaintops. There is nothing secret that will not be displayed for all nations to hear. So you see, it's a word of comfort for God's people because boy, God's going to come and he's going to set everything right. But man alive, it is a word of warning for every careless sinner that continues in their sin and in their rebellion. So it's a word of comfort, it's a word of warning, but it is also then a word of exhortation. "Since everything will be destroyed in this way," says Peter, "what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed it's coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, the elements will melt in the heat, but in keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness." What kind of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness looking forward to and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord? Now, it's not interesting. We can actually make it come quicker even as we can delay it. Why? Because he can't come until the harvest is in, which means on the one hand, you and I, we need to live lives of holiness and godliness so that we can demonstrate that we are the children of God and that God's work in us through the Holy Spirit has already taken place. But more than that, we need to go to all nations and proclaim to all nations the reality of Jesus because he will not come until every ethnic group has had the opportunity to reject or to accept the Lord Jesus, then says Jesus in the Gospels, "The end will come." And so what's the exhortation? We need to get our own lives together, but more than that, we need to let our light shine because the night is coming when nobody can work. And that's where we're going to stop this morning because the reality is, I dare say most of the time, most of us aren't particularly interested in either one of those. We're quite content to sort of live life the way that we're living it, and we're really more concerned about our own pain, our own relationships, our own future, and our own comfort than we are about the fact that most nations of the world on that final day are going to go to hell because they have not responded to Jesus. So how do we get past that lethargy? How do we get past the self-love where it's all about me? How do I get to the point where my heart can be so ablaze and so stirred with a passion of God that I cannot but speak of the things that I have seen and heard? Well that's the key to the day of Pentecost because you will receive what power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and apart from the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, we not only don't see that future, we're not passionate about the future, we're content in the here and now, we live like the rest of the world lives, and we need to pray for a fresh outpouring of God's mercy and God's grace. And so in preparation for next time, read over those couple of verses that we've read this morning and ask yourself this question. There are three major symbols attached to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter two, a violent wind, tongues, flames of fire, and the speaking in other languages. Do some reflecting on that this week if you will, and ask yourself what's the meaning of that? What's the meaning of wind? Why is it a violent wind? What's the meaning of fire? Why are they tongues of fire? And why do they burst out speaking in other languages? And what does that say for you and me as we seek to take seriously the mandate of the [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:42:30.440; remove through 00:45:06.000] Lord Jesus to [CUT] make disciples of all nations? ♪ Salvation belongs to our God ♪ ♪ Who sits above the throne ♪ ♪ And unto the land ♪ ♪ Praise and glory, wisdom and faith ♪ ♪ Honor and power and strength ♪ ♪ Be to our God forever and ever ♪ ♪ Be to our God forever and ever ♪ ♪ Be to our God forever and ever ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ And we the redeemed shall be strong ♪ ♪ In purpose and unity ♪ ♪ Declaring aloud ♪ ♪ Praise and glory, wisdom and thanks ♪ ♪ Honor and power and strength ♪ ♪ Be to our God forever and ever ♪ ♪ Be to our God forever and ever ♪ ♪ Be to our God forever and ever ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Praise and glory, wisdom and faith ♪ ♪ Honor and power and strength ♪ ♪ Be to our God forever and ever ♪ ♪ Be to our God forever and ever ♪ ♪ Be to our God forever and ever ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:45:06.000; resume after this marked segment]