40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 170 (Deuteronomy 15:12-16:17)

Episode Date: June 20, 2019

God says there shouldn't be "poor" people but then tells the people how to treat the poor. What is going on there? What is the sabbatical year and what does it and voluntary servitude tell us about the freedom we've been given in Christ? The people of God have to act with haste but a time is coming when that will no longer be the case. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Conference Become A Supporter

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go over to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other shows that are going on over there. There's a bunch of them. You're bound to like one, two, or 13 of them. Also, while you're over there, go over to that conference link. Or go to Christ So Fast and click on the banner.

Or just go over to herewestillstand.org. All the places will take you to the thing you need to get to, which is the registration for Here We Still Stand, because there's still a few tickets left. We're not entirely sold out yet. we will sell out without a doubt, but you can still grab one of the remaining ones. I wouldn't wait too long. Maybe you're sitting around waiting because you think there's going to be some kind of 4th of July sale. Maybe you think there's going to be some kind of special thing. There's no

special thing. Nope, it's not going to happen. No sale is going to happen except for this one because you're a podcast listener. You can get $25 off each and every ticket you buy by entering the code p net 19 p net 19 podcast network 19 that's what it stands for you can go put that in the promo box get 25 off each ticket it's a great deal without the code it's a better deal with the code not a lot of tickets left go ahead and grab them we'd love to hang out with you chad you know we're still wandering around deuteronomy yeah we're almost halfway through with the dronami which i'm sure everyone is excited about yeah man although it's it's been it's been a good journey you know if you're if you're anxious for narrative we'll just wait a

little longer we're gonna get there and then i mean once we get to joshua you talk about narrative joshua judges ruth samuel kings i mean we got a lot of narrative coming up and i figure we'll get to second kings when we're like i don't know 60 yeah man we'll get there eventually you know What's interesting about this, actually, is it'll be actually a pretty big deal when we finish Deuteronomy, because that will be a—and there's one Bible, I know. Chad wants you to rip that dividing page out. But when we talk about the Old Testament, there's sort of like an Old Testament within the Old Testament, which we will have wrapped up when we finish up Deuteronomy.

So, I mean, the Old Testament has sort of things within it, right? and the first five books are the first thing. Those are sort of the go-to Bible for the Jews back in the day. Yeah, and in fact, in the Jewish reckoning of things, they divide the Old Testament, of course they call it the Hebrew Bible, into three parts, the Torah, the prophets, and the writings. So, of course, the Torah is the Pentateuch's first five books. So, according to that reckoning, we'll be a third of the way through the Old Testament.

so right maybe not in you know not in quantity but at least according to uh to that division and yeah i mean it's it's the foundation so uh we will have wrapped up we have what we'll go through the whole foundation of the scriptures which is which is a pretty cool thing i mean i know i have never done anything like this before i've just kind of i've taught genesis i've taught exodus but and then you know sporadically here and there but i've never actually taught anything which took me through the whole Torah. It's been pretty cool for us, too. In a big way, the rest of the Old Testament is sort of documenting,

particularly the narratives, but even the prophets, documenting what Israel does with these five books, right? I mean, this is sort of God laying it all out there, and then we'll see how it goes. Yeah, that's why, yeah. Kind of like everything post-Deuteronomy is inspired commentary. it is i mean one way or another it's all pulling from what's already been already been given so so anyway we're getting close yeah we uh we talked about 14 and uh the first part of 15 last time

we didn't spend a lot of time going explicitly over those first 11 verses of chapter 15 but we did touch on the themes that are that are brought out there because it has to do with lending and tithes and the forgiveness of debts and things of that nature. And what begins chapter 15 is the sabbatical year, which we have talked about extensively on other episodes. So we won't spend any more time there than we already have. Just as by way of summary, it's basically saying that, what happens in the seventh year, the sabbatical year, is that you forgive the debts. So the land rest and the people rest from their labors. And if anyone has borrowed money, then that debt is forgiven on the sabbatical year. So that's what those first 11 verses is about. So a real concern,

There's really kind of an ethical concern that's dominant in those first 11 verses. Because you have kind of this juxtaposition. Like verse 4 says, there shall be no poor among you. All right. But then verse 7 says, if there is a poor man with you. So it's like, there's not supposed to be any poor people in Israel. Because ideally, if there are, they're going to get taken care of. But if there happens to be a poor person among you,

well then here's how you take care of them so i mean there there is a uh in quite a quite a difference from our hyper individual individualistic society in israel there is very much of a of a community life where again ideally those who are widows those who are orphans those who are poor Those who are in any way in need of basic human necessities, whether that's clothing or shelter or food, are to be taken care of because everyone understands that they are really not just a conglomeration of distinct families, but they're all one family descended from one couple. so there's this idea that whoever you look at is part of your family is your brother or your sister and of course that has direct ramifications for our understanding of what the church is that's why paul uses that unifying image of the body of christ when he talks about what the church is you know it's interesting i've i've seen people cite that and and even cite it to me

about you know like we'll look here you know god says there's not to be any poor among you and we should set up the government this way. You can look at Old Testament and say, hey, it's basic socialism or something of this nature, right? And I think that there's two responses to that. One is that just what you said, like, hey, there's not to be any poor among you. Also, when you see some poor people,

or what Jesus says, the poor you will always have with you. I think what is true is that what God is saying is that, you know, hey, we need to work to have no poor people here. That's the goal. Like, hey, there's not to be any poor people. So when you see a poor person, like, try to take care of that. However, the definition of poor that we're working with is different than maybe we would think it is.

So what we're talking about in this context is exactly what you said, which is no food, no shelter, no clothing, that sort of stuff, right? So this is not saying that everyone should have the same things, but that nobody should go without those things. And hopefully most people can get on board with that and say, yeah, as a society, you want to do that. However, also, the other context is this is talking about the children of Israel. And so if we're going to take this and make it into a model of any kind, we are talking then about the church, not that we should like set up all governments this way or something like that Israel is a microcosm of the church and so all the time in the New Testament you'll see this sort of thing as

well so the Apostle Paul does not think it's a good thing if there's somebody in your church so this would be like your local congregation whose children are starving if you have if you if there's some some family in your local church body who has children who aren't going to eat and you happen to go to that church and you have plenty to eat paul sees this and then i would say god sees this as problematic yeah i think that uh that's a that's a fantastic point to make explicit because if there's one of the one mistake that i see with trying to correlate the life in israel with governmental life today is that sometimes people take this as a model for how we should structure governments and it's not it was never intended to be that this is uh if anything

it's a model for for life among the people of god so this you can't you can't search the old testament other words to try and find some way in which to create the ideal government because that's not that's it's it's a misuse of misuse of the scriptures first of all you'd have to a theocracy so good luck for that right it's just not gonna work okay so uh yeah that's the that's the first uh those first 11 verses and by the way just i'll mention uh in passing that that verse that you referenced where jesus says the poor you will always have among you that's a case where he's quoting the torah because that is actually from verse 11. verse 11 says for the poor will never cease to be in the land so when jesus says that he's just not making a uh an observation like hey

you're always going to have poor people around he's actually referencing the torah and it's interesting in the context he does that because he does so where someone is accused of misusing something that could be given to the poor of course the people say well i should she should have sold that expensive perfume and given the money to the poor and jesus says no no no what she's doing is is better because she's preparing me for my for my burial okay so let's pick up with verse 12 and uh the next unit is 12 through 18 say a few things about that so this starts out says if you're if you're kinsmen so your fellow israelite hebrew man or woman is stole to you then you he shall serve you six years but in the seventh year you shall set him free so this is

this is the case, which actually in our day and time, this, this seems really weird to us because we deal with, with our inability to repay our debts. We deal with it in a very different way that has been not only dealt with in biblical times, but even up until relatively modern times, because there are, there are plenty of cases in recent history. I'm going back like a hundred, 200 years where when people couldn't pay their debts well there was some sort of either imprisonment or servitude that would ensue so it was it was pretty common in the ancient world if in the ancient and the relatively modern world where for example if you had a family and they were so far in debt that they couldn't pay it back they might actually like give one of their children

as a servant to the person to whom they owed money. And so this was, the child was sort of, I guess, collateral. They couldn't pay their debt. So instead they sent one of their children to live with whoever had lent them money. And this child became a servant as a way of kind of paying off the debt. So, and this happened, of course,

in relatively modern times. So what's happening in ancient Israel is something that's happened throughout the history of the world where, okay, somebody's in debt, they can't pay it back. So what are they going to do? well they basically sell themselves into servitude so rather than paying the debt

they basically give themselves over as a payment for that debt and they will serve for however however long they need to before the sabbatical year comes up and when this but when the sabbatical year comes then that period of servitude is over and the debt is considered to be to be forgiven so this is kind of a continuation of those first 11 verses about the sabbatical year So in the seventh year, this person is set free. But here's something that's interesting because verse 13 goes on to say, when you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat.

You shall give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you. So that's pretty fascinating. So somebody comes to me and they need money. uh so they basically give themselves over to me as a servant and i pay their debts and then they stay with me say for two more years until sabbatical year comes up and then i they're free to go but i don't just send them away and say okay you're free i'm sending you away with absolutely nothing you've given yourself to me as a servant for two years and now you're just you know you're back out on your own i'm supposed to supply you as your brother as your

brother Israelite with what you need in order basically to establish yourself again. So I'll give you food. I give you necessities. I take care of you. And the reason I do that is not only because I love you as my brother, but also as it goes on to say, I remember that one time I was a slave. I was in Egypt and I was in servitude. And when I went out, God actually supplied my needs. He gave me the spoils of the Egyptians, right? So this is my way of kind of duplicating in my own situation what god did for israel in ancient times so just as israel left servitude with pockets full if you will so i'm going to release my servant who is not an egyptian but my brother israelite with full pockets i'm going to give him enough to take care of him so that's the way that

that's the way it's going to work in ancient israel as this kind of every seven years a remembrance of exactly what god did for israel when they left when they left egypt but what if if I have someone who comes to serve in my household and I'm such a great guy and I'm so easy to get along with and I'm such a good boss that they're like, you know what? I think I just want to stay here. I don't really don't want to go out on my own anymore. I mean, I like working with you. I like being your servant and I'd just as well stay here instead of going out on my own again. Well, what happens then? Well, then they get their ear pierced. This is where we have this piercing that goes on. It's kind of a strange ceremony, but verse 16 talks about it. It says,

what if he says, I will not go out from you because he loves you and your household and he's done well with you. Well, here's what you do. You take an awl, that's A-W-L, and you pierce it through his ear into the door and he shall be your servant forever. And you shall also do likewise to your maidservant. So if somebody wants to stay with me, I guess this was the way in which in a very tangible way they were marked as one who had not not forcibly but willingly given themselves over as a perpetual servant to a particular household and i suspect the reason they're not not just the fact that the ear was pierced but notice it was it was pierced to the door so this is like not only is the ear pierced but there's like a joining to the household itself

I mean, to the actual house. So not only is the ear pierced, but it's pierced through to the door of the house where they will be serving. So you have this twofold ritualistic enactment of their willing servitude to that household. So this has a very different meaning than ear piercing today. Ear piercing today is like, at least when my daughter got hers, it's just like an aspect of she's free now. She's growing up, right? I'm a big girl, so I'm making my ears pierced. So this is the exact opposite. This is like, no, I'm forsaking my freedom in order for a chosen servitude to this household. Well, one of the things that's kind of an awesome picture of that,

I mean, is this not what sort of we do as Christians when we are set free? So we are forgiven all our debts. God has redeemed us and then says, you're free. And then we say, I think I'll just serve here. That's what I'm going to do. I think that you're such a good master, and I think that I will willingly stay right here. This is what we do with freedom, right, as Christians. You're free, but what we decide to do with that freedom is, well, what would you have me do?

Because you've redeemed me. My debts are gone, and you willingly then become a servant of the master. This is why some of the language in the epistles will use the language of slaves to God, which is, in our context, kind of jarring because we have this very bad experience with slavery. But this is not at all what this is talking about. This is talking about this sort of bond service, this sort of willing servant, where you say, no, no, no, I want to stay in this house. I want to be a part of this household, the household of God.

That's where I belong. And so, yeah, I think that this is sort of a picture of that, that this is exactly what God does with us. You're free to go, and we say, I'd like to stay, and I want to be a part of this household. It reminds me of that double truth that Luther captured perfectly in The Freedom of the Christian where he says, see if I can get this right, this is from memory,

a Christian is a perfectly dutiful Lord of all, subject to none, and then a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all. So it's this idea of we're free. Yeah, we're like lords and kings in Christ, so we're subject to none. But at the same time, we're subject to all. We're servants of all, because the best freedom is that in which we choose servanthood, basically so that's that's the same idea here we're free and yet where else would we go like peter says right lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life so just pierce our ears and we're staying right here yeah be servants of your house yeah it's pretty it's pretty great and uh and and obviously nothing like the slavery that we that we think of when we hear when we

hear slavery yeah yeah very this is this is this is very different i think that's what that's one of the problems we have because we are so accustomed when we hear the word slave or slavery to think only in our american context and not in the actual biblical context which were was it was was far different than what we usually think of when we think of slavery yeah and i mean this guy i would hope this would go without saying but um obviously sort of chattel slavery and the slavery that is most recent in our history in every way condemned in scripture and all attempts to use Scripture to justify it are complete abuses of the Word of God. Yeah, it's a fundamental rejection of the image of God in another person to subject him to slavery,

such as happened in America. I mean, it's one of the atrocities of our own history that that went on as long as it did. okay so uh let's take this through verse 18 verse 19 through 23 uh brings up something we've again talked about before and that is the firstborn this is uh focused just upon the the firstborn of the animals of course we have we have not firstborn but first fruits discussed in other contexts this is about the firstborn so you shall consecrate to the lord your god all the firstborn males that are born of your herd and of your flock you shall not work with the firstborn of your herd nor shear the firstborn of your flock you and your household shall eat it every year

before the lord your god in the place which the lord chooses we've heard that language before but here's something that we haven't heard before this is kind of interesting so what if you have a firstborn sheep will say so this is the firstborn lamb that comes that uh that is born but it's born with three legs or half of one of its ears is missing or it's blind and there were some kind of physical defect in this animal well in that case because it has a defect and therefore because animals that have defects cannot be sacrificed to the lord then verse 21 if it has that like if it's lame or blind or has a serious defect you shall not sacrifice it to the lord your god but you shall eat it within your gates, the unclean and the clean alike may eat of it as a gazelle

or a deer. Just, I mean, so just like you would some, some game that you killed while hunting. So if you have a firstborn, then ordinarily that firstborn will be offered to the Lord as a, as a gift back to him as a, as an, as a ritual acknowledgement that everything belongs to him. So this is like a free and willing rent, if you will, that's given to the Lord as an acknowledgement that he is the owner of the whole herd or of the whole flock. But if you have, of course, something's wrong with the animal, then you don't do that. Then you actually just treat it like you would any other barbecue, whether it's a gazelle or deer or something else that you've killed. So you don't, you don't sacrifice it. Instead, you just eat it within your,

within your gates. We've talked a lot about firstborn and first fruits. So I think rather than spending more time on that i'll just direct people back to past episodes if they want to learn more about that especially in leviticus where we talked about that uh quite a bit yeah i mean the end of that passage also is hey don't eat the you know don't drink the blood and uh we've talked about this probably ad nauseum so you can go back and listen to leviticus and you'll get this whole scoop on that yeah go to go to leviticus 17 that podcast and you'll hear you're all about blood there's plenty of blood talk there okay so that takes us through the end of 15 uh chapter 16 at least most of it through the first 17 verses is concerned with the three principal feast

of the israelites so there were a lot of especially as time went on like by the time you get to the new testament there's a lot of what the church would call major and minor festivals in the israelite calendar but at this time i mean so like later on you have parim but you don't have Purim until after the time of Esther right so things like that and later you would have the the celebration of lights but you don't have that until after like the time of the the second century BC so Hanukkah is what I'm talking about so those were later on at this point you've only got your your your three major feasts and then you have a few others like Yom Kippur and and trumpets and

other smaller festivals like that. But you got three main ones and two occur in the spring and one occurs in the fall. The two in the spring are Passover, Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You always have to see those as join one to another. Passover is strictly speaking one day. Feast of Unleavened Bread begins the very next day. So we usually treat those as one ongoing feast for those days. So Passover slash Feast of Unleavened Bread. That's the first one in the spring. Then you count seven weeks, 49 days. And on the 50th day, you have the second major festival and that's Pentecost. That's the Greek name for it. And in Hebrew, it's called weeks. The Hebrew name is Shavuot, which just does mean weeks. So seven weeks, 49 days, you have Sukkot or

pentecost and then you jump ahead to the fall and in the fall you have the third major festival and that is in hebrew called sukkot which is the word for tents or temporary shelters or some of the older translations call it booths which doesn't make any sense to us anymore because if we hear a booth we never think of a booth as something you live in i mean a booth is like something you set up in order to sell something or put advertisements out or something like that But that sometimes is a translation that's still used for it. So these are the three main festivals, sometimes called pilgrimage festivals, because in each of these, all of the males anyway, and presumably their families went with them, but it was at least legally required that all the male Israelites journey to the place which the Lord had chosen or was going to choose, of course, later Jerusalem. and there they were to celebrate these uh these three festivals that's why they were called a

a pilgrimage festival which in hebrew is is hog and i think if my memory serves me correctly that that that word hog is related to the arabic hajj which we hear about in reference to the muslims that they make once in their lifetime they make the hajj to the pilgrimage in other words in arabic uh to to mecca so this is the the hebrew counterpart to that a pilgrimage pilgrimage festival. So the first, oh, let's see, first nine verses, no, excuse me, the first eight verses are about Passover. We have talked extensively about Passover, especially when we covered Exodus 12 and 13. You can also look in our podcast for Leviticus 23, I believe, where we also discussed the feast of Passover. Of course, this is the celebration of God bringing the Israelites out

egypt i do want to mention one thing in connection with passover though as an illustration we haven't talked about this before as an illustration of how the scriptures act as their own interpreters especially within a messianic context so what i'm talking about is this so what early early in the podcast i mean earlier in this podcast we talked about how the torah is the the foundation of the scriptures. Okay. So the way this works is when the prophets, when the prophets would address the people of Israel, we often have this idea that the prophets would like lock themselves in a room and wait for God to come and to speak to them. And then they'd go out and they'd relay whatever God said to the people. That's a, that's a, it's a very warped and

unbiblical understanding of how the prophets worked. Certainly the Lord may have appeared the prophets at times and given them words like that but ordinarily here's what happened the prophets read the bible and the prophets preached in the bible that's the way it worked so they would they would look at what was happening around them and they would study the scriptures and they would address the people of israel based upon what they read from the scriptures now if that sounds familiar it ought to because that's exactly what preachers still do today they look at what's happening in their congregation they look at what's happening in society they read the scriptures and then on sunday they stand up and they deliver a sermon

based upon the word of god addressing the people based upon that that scripture well as it turns out that's exactly what the prophets did now of course the prophets were inspired they were led by the spirit of god and sometimes yes the the word of the lord would come in some sort of audible or visual way to the prophets to give them a very specific word to speak to israel but most of what the prophets did was not foretell things in the future but forth tell things so they were basically preaching the scriptures to israel and what they were preaching from is things like the torah so they would read the scriptures and then on the base of the basis of those scriptures they would address the people of their of their day now the reason i say this is because we have

have a great illustration of how Isaiah would read Exodus, would read the story of God's redemption of the people from Israel. And then on the basis of that, he gave a sermon about what the Messiah would do when he would come to win the ultimate Exodus for the Israelites. So let me give you the text I'm talking about here. This is Isaiah 52. So here we have Isaiah preaching, and he calls upon Israel to awake, to clothe themselves in strength, and put on these beautiful garments. And he's talking about how God is going to redeem the city of Jerusalem. He's going to raise it from the dust. He's going to free the people of Israel. So he talks about all of this in these first few verses of the chapter. At verse 7, he says, we hear this language in the New Testament,

how lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace, and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation and says to Zion, your God reigns. So there's this idea of these messengers coming with the good news of what God has done, how he has rescued Israel, how he's redeemed Jerusalem, just like he did in the days of old when he rescued them from Egypt. Now, here's the point I'm getting to. Verse 11 says this, depart depart go out from there touch nothing unclean go out of the midst of her purify yourselves you who carry the vessels of the lord all right so it's the idea of leaving so get out get out from the places of captivity leave there verse 12 you will but you will not go out

in haste nor will you go out as fugitives for the lord will go before you and the god of israel will be your rear guard. Now, finally, I get to the point. When he says you will not go out in haste, the Hebrew for that expression in haste occurs three times in the Old Testament and only three times. It occurs here in Isaiah 52, verse 11. It occurs here where we're looking at in Deuteronomy in verse three, where it says you came out of the land of Egypt in haste. And it occurs in Exodus 12, verse 11, where it says that they had to eat the Passover in haste. So three times that particular phrase occurs, and only three times in Isaiah 52, in Deuteronomy 16, and in Exodus 12. But notice the first two times in reference to that first Passover, they have to

do it in a hurry, right? So eat the Passover in haste because you got to get out of there. I mean, Pharaoh might change his mind. He could send his armies to destroy you. Anything could happen. So eat quickly and get out of there while you can. But when Isaiah preaches on the Passover and he talks about the coming exodus that the Messiah is going to accomplish, it's going to be different because he says, Isaiah 52, 12, you will not go out in haste. Well, why not? Because there's no more threat. Because the exodus that the Messiah is going to accomplish, is so complete, is so victorious, is so triumphant, and he's surrounding you in such a way that you have absolutely nothing to fear. So there's no need to do anything in haste.

There's no need to run out of Egypt. There's no need to flee. There's no need to eat the Passover in a hurry, because everything that God has wanted to do for you in terms of freedom and forgiveness and redemption are accomplished perfectly and everlastingly. So there's no need to do it in haste. Now, the reason I want to bring up this example is because I think it illustrates very well how when you read Exodus, when you read Deuteronomy, when you read the Old Testament prophets, you see that there's this interplay between them, sometimes called intertextuality, where the prophets are consciously quoting either language or imagery from the Torah in order to preach sermons to Israel, just like the New Testament authors are always quoting

either words or phrases or image from the Old Testament to make their point to the Christians. So here Isaiah is quoting from the Torah in order to talk about the messianic exodus that is to take place. So I wanted to spend a couple minutes talking about that, because I think it's significant for giving us an illustration of how the prophets preach in the Torah, and then the apostles preach in the prophets. And so there's this growth throughout the Scriptures of Scriptures being preached on Scriptures being preached on Scriptures, so that the whole Bible is this interconnected web of interpretation. Yeah, I mean, over and over again, you see that Israel has enemies defeated, but they're never free of enemies, right?

I mean, so it's all, it's all, there might be a victory over the Philistines or over the Canaanites or, you know, they get free, you know, Pharaoh's army gets drowned in the Red Sea or whatever. But there's always like another pursuer. There's always some other enemy to contend with, right? I mean, the Old Testament is just full of this sort of thing. and what happens with christ is that he defeats death and it's it's not coming for you anymore i mean yeah we're gonna die but it's got no power like we're not actually we're jesus can refer to

this as sleep because death is so defeated right so the final enemy and so they're they're we're not in a hurry anymore because there's nothing pursuing us that has any claim on us i mean what's the worst thing that can happen to us? Well, condemnation. But what does Paul say? Therefore, there is now no condemnation, right? Yeah. Yeah. So there's no more enemies to come after us. And you see this in Israel, even in Jesus' day. The Messiah they want is a Messiah that will defeat more enemies because they have one that they can identify quite easily in Roman oppression, right? And Jesus isn't there to do that at all. He's like, now I'm going to stomp out an enemy way bigger than that. I'm going to stomp out the final

enemy, and you're going to have nothing to worry about. Yeah, that's a great point. You look throughout Old Testament history, it's the Egyptians first. Okay, we got away from them, but before you know it, it's the Philistines. Yeah. Well, you get away from them, and it's the Assyrians. Well, what's next? Well, the Babylonians.

Well, then come the Greek, and then come the Romans. So, yeah, defeat one enemy, and another enemy just comes along until Christ finally takes care of all enemies, including death itself. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's a few things to say about the Passover, which we have not talked about before. So I'll throw that out there for you to consider. The second festival that's

talked about here is Weeks or Pentecost, and mainly an agricultural festival, but also a time in which the giving of the law was celebrated. If you're interested in learning more about Pentecost, in fact, if you want to know probably more about the Old Testament festival of Pentecost than you really thought you wanted to know, I've got an article on my website you can check out which talks about why God chose the Old Testament festival of Pentecost as the time on which to pour out His Spirit.

And I've got a lot of Jewish history and some other biblical references there which talk about why God chose that particular day. So you can Google that on my website. But basically, the festival of weeks or Pentecost was a time to give thanks to God for the harvest of the grain, but also a time to commemorate the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, which, of course, was then reversed and fulfilled

by the giving of the Spirit and the Gospel on that first Christian Pentecost. The third one, which we don't actually hear as much about, strangely. We hear a lot about Pentecost, we hear a lot about Passover, but that third one is also significant. It's called the Festival of Sukkot, or Tabernacles, or Booths. and this one is the only one that that occurs in the fall what's fascinating about this one is when you when you understand the various rituals that accompany tabernacles in connection when you understand what happened that they're in connection with with something that occurs in in the gospel

of john you guys may have talked about this in 30 minutes in the new testament but in john chapter seven jesus is in jerusalem for the celebration of the festival of tabernacles or booths and one of the things that that happened even though there's no direct record of it in the old testament it's like a lot of things over time rituals develop within festivals so one of the things develop over time is that during each of the days of the feast of tabernacles water was brought up from the pool of siloam and poured out around the altar and this was the way in which the the Israelites would would ritually pray for God to bless them with rain but also the pouring out of water was a remembrance of when God gave them water during the 40 years in the wilderness

and the water was also understood to be a symbol of the Holy Spirit which would be poured out in the days of the Messiah so in John 7 during the festival of booths when this ritual water act was taking place jesus stands up and what does he say so john 7 uh verse 37 it's the last day the great day of the feast jesus stands up and he cries out if any man is thirsty let him come to me and drink he who believes in me then he says as the scripture said from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water he spoke this of the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive so jesus stands up in the midst of the festival of tabernacles when all this water stuff is going on and he basically says hey if you want real living water if you want the water of the spirit then

don't look at the altar don't look at what the priests are doing look to me because from my innermost being rivers of living water are going to flow forth which will give you everything that this that this old testament festival has been prophesying so if you're reading through john chapter seven read the whole thing because the whole chapter is about this especially focus on those verses and understand that in the festival of booths or tabernacles here we have forecast exactly what's going to happen when the messiah comes and gives from himself pours from himself these rivers of living water which quench our which which quench our uh our deepest thirst oh man yeah yeah it's a it's it's pretty a pretty fascinating stuff so i didn't realize

or 40 minutes we're up 40 minutes we are at the end 40 minutes is up man i think we made it through through the uh the feasts guys if you uh if you appreciate what we're doing over here and everything else that is going on over at christ whole fast and 1517 you can support the work that's how it stays free for everyone else you can go over to 1517 or christ whole fast any of the sites and you can go to the donate page and you can give a one-time gift become a monthly contributor whatever you can do and thank you so much for those of you who do that you do make it possible for everyone else chad we will see you next week all right see you then