08 A Long Interval
CHAPTER EIGHT
A LONG INTERVAL (Leviticus 23:22)
Between the feast of Pentecost and the feast of trumpets there was a long interval of several months, during which time Israel observed no feast. Her people were scattered throughout the harvest field, gleaning and reaping. This was according to the Word of God:
“And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 23:22).
This long interval is highly suggestive of the fact that between the beginning of the Church at Pentecost and God’s dealing again with Israel as a nation, there comes this present Church Age. His chosen people are scattered throughout the earth; but from Jew and Gentile the Holy Spirit is gleaning a great harvest of souls, uniting them into the Body of Christ. “The stranger,” sharing with the Jew in the fruits of the harvest, represents the Gentile in the Bride of Christ. No longer “aliens . . . and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12), the Gentiles are heirs of God.
We have already seen that the Church period was not revealed to the Old Testament saints; it was given by special revelation to the Apostle Paul. God did not tell Israel in Old Testament times what He was going to do during this long interval between the feasts of Pentecost and trumpets. He did tell them that He would re-gather their nation before Christ returns in glory to establish His millennial kingdom.
As we shall see, the feast of the trumpets foreshadowed this reassembling of God’s people, Israel, in their own land. But between Pentecost and the feast of the trumpets, He is calling out “a people for his name”-the two wave-loaves, as it were, composed of Jew and Gentile, yet one Body in Christ Jesus.
You and I are living in this long interval, my friend. It has already lasted nearly two thousand years. And God alone knows when it will come to a close.
In the meantime, He has told us to go out into the field and gather in the harvest. It is an individual, personal responsibility that each of us has, to cooperate with the Holy Spirit of God in reaping the harvest: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature . . . Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest” (Mark 16:15; John 4:35).
There is no joy like that of winning a lost soul! When the harvest has been fully brought in, and we stand before “the judgment seat of Christ,” we shall want to be able to say: “There are the sheaves which I gathered in for the Lord.” How many sheaves have we gleaned today?
Passover-Unleavened Bread-Firstfruits-Pentecost! How perfect is the divine order!
As the last three feasts which we are now to consider, are closely related one to another, so also are these first four feasts bound together in a real way.
“Christ our Passover” had to be sacrificed for us first, before there could be fellowship with Him as the Bread of Life; and He had to rise from the dead before the Church could be formed, to receive new life in Him. The death and resurrection of Christ had to be accomplished before the Church could be built upon His finished work of redemption.
Again, even as the inspired record concerning the feasts of the Passover and unleavened bread was marked by the usual introductory words, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying” (Leviticus 23:1), so also the feasts of the firstfruits and Pentecost were introduced by the same words (Leviticus 23:9), which do not occur again until verse 23, where the Holy Spirit begins to tell about the feast of the trumpets.
Thus we see that, as the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread are associated together, so are the feasts of the firstfruits and Pentecost. And even while the feast of unleavened bread was running its course, the feast of the firstfruits was observed.
Only because Christ died and rose again can there be a Church -His Church. And only on the basis of His death and resurrection can the members of His Body walk in communion and fellowship with Him. What “a shadow of good things to come” were these feasts of the Lord!
No wonder the Lord Jesus said, in substance, more than once, “Moses . . . wrote of me”!
~ end of chapter 8 ~