Passover to Tabernacles - Part 1

Ge 14:18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. 19 And he blessed him and said: “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth........

Today we will begin our study of the seven feasts given to Israel.

The full text of this message and supplementary study questions can be found on our website.
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Transcript

Sunday October 31st 2021
Passover to Tabernacles
Part 1

1). Ps 11:2 For look! The wicked bend their bow, They make ready their arrow on the string, That they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart.
3 If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?

The question asked by David in v3 of this Psalm, is one that we had encountered during our last study, ‘Has God Indeed Said’, and if the foundations are destroyed, we had seen that in all probability deception becomes the likely outcome. And I am sure v2 will remind us of ‘the fiery darts of the wicked one’, from the study before that, on the spiritual warfare. And so, as we begin our study of the seven feasts given to the nation of Israel, we shall be mindful to lay the foundation upon which our study can be built, so that the ‘wicked’ will find no place in us for their secret arrow of deception to strike.
a). And to begin then, we will turn to - Ge 14:18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. 19 And he blessed him and said: “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tithe of all.

Here in Genesis Chapter 14, following the battle with the kings and the introduction of Melchizedek, is the first time the Kingdom of the heavens and the earthly realm of the Kingdom are presented together in relation to one man, Abraham. And not only are these two realms of the Kingdom promised to this man but also promised to his descendants – 
Ge 22:15 Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

And we can know by comparing Scripture with Scripture, that Abraham and his descendants knew not only about the earthly realm, but they also understood the significance of attaining the Kingdom of the heavens that was offered to them – Heb 11: 8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; 10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

And what we will keep in mind as we consider this is that the earthly realm of the Kingdom and the Kingdom of the heavens, would only ever be given to Abraham and his descendants, through Isaac and Jacob. And so, we can begin to understand the enormous importance that God attaches to the physical descendants of Abraham, in God’s adopted firstborn son, Israel, and the spiritual descendants of Abraham, in Christ, by faith – Ga 3:29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Ro 4:13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

And we must be aware that it is only because of our positional standing ‘in Christ’, who is a Jew, a physical descendant of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob, that we find ourselves to be heirs of the same promise.
b). Abraham’s lineage can be traced back through Shem, the only one of Noah’s sons with a God, then through Seth, to Adam, the Man God had created to rule. And Abraham’s lineage can be projected forward, through Isaac, Jacob, David, to the Christ, the One of whom Adam is a type, the One who will fulfill God’s purpose as the last Adam – Mt 1:1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:

Abraham’s physical descendants, through Isaac and Jacob, the nation of Israel, is, and has always been, the only nation with a God. And as such no Gentile nation can have access to God except through Israel and no Gentile nation can receive God’s promised blessing apart from Israel. And those blessings through Israel and Abraham’s spiritual descendants, can only come during the Seventh Day, from within the Millennial Kingdom.
c). And if we return to the verses, we read from Genesis Chapter 22 for a moment, we will see that the promise of rulership, your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, both heavenly and earthly, had been given to Abraham based upon his act of faithful obedience, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son. This of course is reference to the sacrifice of Isaac, which provides a type for the sacrifice of God’s Son on the same mountain two thousand years later – 
Ge 22:6 So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. 7 But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” Then he said, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.

And it was in the death and shed blood of God in the person of Son, pictured through Isaac, that the yearly sacrifice of the Passover lambs throughout the generations of Israel’s history, beginning in Exodus Chapter 12, was fulfilled.
d). And the Passover instituted in Exodus Chapter 12 had been foreshadowed not only in the sacrifice of Isaac and the substitutionary death accepted in his place, but also in Cain killing Abel and further back still in the animals slain to make tunics of skin for Adam and the Woman in Genesis Chapter 3. All of these put together bring us to the Christ on the cross. The substitutionary death at the hands of His brother, as the Lamb given to Israel to slay, forming the complete picture of God’s provision for redemption.
e). And in terms of the chronology, as we have seen from our previous study, Christ’s death and shed blood at Calvary, as The Lamb of God, had from God’s perspective, already taken place – Re 13:8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

We have seen and come to know that God’s redemptive process for His ruined creation must always have death and shed blood as its beginning point. And it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about the physical earth that became formless and void, or the earth now under a curse, or Man with a sin nature, the beginning point is always the same, death and shed blood, and there is no exception – Jn 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 

Remarkably then, the death and shed blood of the ‘Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’, because of the use of the word ‘Lamb’, points us directly to the Passover. And this brings the Passover, given to Israel as the first of the seven feasts, to the forefront, to be seen from the beginning point for God’s redemptive process, that resulted in the creation of Adam on the Sixth Day, the one to whom Christ’s lineage, through Abraham, can be traced and the one who provides a type for the same.
f). This then places Israel and the Jewish Lamb given to the nation to slay, at the heart of God’s redemptive purpose, even before He brought the nation of Israel into existence through the creation in Jacob – Isa 43:1 But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.

And from this we might begin to see the inextricable connection between Israel and the fulfillment of God’s purpose for the Seventh Day.
g). In conjunction with this, let’s note these verses from - 
De 32:7 “Remember the days of old, Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; Your elders, and they will tell you: 8 When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel. 9 For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance. 10 “He found him in a desert land And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple [pupil] of His eye.

The separation of the sons of Adam ‘according to the number of the children of Israel’, spoken of in v8, took place in the days following the flood of Noah, during Peleg’s day – Ge 10:5 From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations………..25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother's name was Joktan……………..32 These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations; and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood………..11:5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.” 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

Again, this separation took place ‘according to the number of the children of Israel’ and God made this separation in this fashion before Abraham was born, and centuries before Israel existed as a nation. And yet Israel was central to this division.
h). And what we see here is not unusual as the Scripture records that
Ex 12:40 Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. 41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—on that very same day—it came to pass that all the armies of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. 

The four hundred and thirty years of the sojourn of the children of Israel, takes us back to a time prior to the birth of Isaac, to the promise given to Abraham while he was still in Ur of the Chaldees – Ge 12:1 Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father's house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

And how this is possible is explained for us in – Heb 7:9 Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak, 10 for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.

It is explained in the phrase, ‘in the loins of Abraham’. From God’s perspective then, the nation of Israel existed ‘in the loins of Abraham’ and began their sojourn in the land with him even thirty years before Isaac was born, 9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;

There is only one nation with whom God is associated and one nation through whom God views all things, Israel. And this remains true whether preceding Abraham or after Abraham.
i). In fact, this would have to be seen as having remained the same throughout the twenty generations during the first two thousand years of human history, in the lineage from Adam to Abraham. God does not change in the way that He has chosen to operate. Israel is central to all.
j). With Israel clearly seen to exist in the loins of Abraham, then Abraham would have existed ‘in the loins’ of Shem. Shem ‘in the loins of Seth and Seth ‘in the loins of Adam’. We will get the picture.
k). Now, it would be true to say that as Christians we have a God, but this is only because of our positional standing ‘in Christ’, our Jewish Savior. And in complete accord with Israel being the pupil of God’s eye, God views Christians only through Israel, specifically through our Jewish Savior who is revealed to us in the pages of a Jewish Book, written by Jewish hands; the only ones to whom the Scriptures have been given – Ro 3:1 What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision?[the Jewish people] 2 Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.[the Scriptures]

And at the Judgment Seat it will be the Word made flesh, the Jewish Savior now Judge, who will, through the Word, reward each one according to his works.
l). In fact, John records – Jn 5:22 For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son….

All then, outside of Israel, whether saved or unsaved will be judged by the Jewish Christ as viewed through the pupil of God’s eye, Israel – 
Mt 25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world……….40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

‘The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’, Israel’s Passover, is inextricably connected to the beginning of God’s redemptive process seen in Genesis Chapter 1 – Ge 1:2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

And as we have seen so many times now, Day One in Genesis was for the purpose of bringing us to Day Seven, where the Man and the Woman were to rule together.
m). And from a Jewish perspective, the seven feasts given to Israel provide a prophetic calendar for the nation, that begins with Passover, which parallels Day One in the Genesis account, and concludes with Tabernacles, which pictures the fulfillment of Day Seven in Genesis.
n). It makes no difference then whether we are dealing with the foundational pattern found in Genesis or the seven feasts of Israel, all begin in the same place and all end in the same place, the Seventh Day, the Millennial Kingdom.
o). Although the seven feasts are exclusively for Israel and are not relevant to the Church other than through some secondary applications, we will now realize the significance of Israel and her seven feasts in the fulfillment of God’s purpose for the Seventh Day. 

2). Ex 12:1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: “On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man's need you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. 7 And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. 8 Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire—its head with its legs and its entrails. 10 You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. 11 And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD'S Passover.

Israel had been in bondage in Egypt from sometime after the death of Joseph – Ex 1:8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; 10 come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.

Egypt, as we know, pictures the world, under the god of this world, with the Pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, forming a type for both the god of this world and a type for the Antichrist.
a). Israel’s bondage in Egypt provided the type for the condition of the nation at the Lord’s first advent and foreshadows the situation they will find themselves in following the resurrection/rapture of the Church, when they make covenant with the man of sin, beginning Daniel’s seventieth week, the time we know as the tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble.
b). And set in foundation in Exodus Chapter 12, and therefore central to the Lord’s first advent and deliverance for the Jewish people, is Passover. God’s provision of death and shed blood that He will accept in the place of the death of the firstborn – Ex 12:12 “For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. 13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

And the substitutionary deaths of the Passover lambs in Egypt, in the place of Israel, God’s adopted firstborn son, to bring about the nation’s deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, had only one end in view – 
Ex 6:6 Therefore say to the children of Israel: ‘I am the LORD; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. 7 I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the LORD.’ ”

It was to give the physical descendants of Abraham who had come through Isaac and Jacob the land that He had promised to their fathers. That in that land, as an adopted firstborn son, set free from the bondage of Egypt, they would exercise the rights of primogeniture and possess the gate of their enemy in the earthly realm of the Kingdom.
c). God’s purpose in this has not changed from the day He created Adam onwards, but central to the fulfillment of His purpose is the Passover, ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’, and the nation to whom the Passover was given. 

If we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed, we will continue next week.