If you were here on the Sabbath before Pentecost, it’s the one time of the year that God has ordained that every single year we have back to back Sabbaths. We have a Sabbath - the weekly Sabbath and it always is followed by Pentecost, that always occurs on what we call Sunday – what the Bible calls the first day of the week. It’s the only Holy Day that meets on the same day of the week every year, every other Holy Day that we observe has a specific calendar date, but not Pentecost.

Pentecost is like all of God’s Holy Days – has some specific and unique features to it and certainly a significant and unique meaning that it has in light of God’s plan. We’ve rehearsed many times what God’s plan is, and how it’s symbolized through the Holy Spirits that we go through each year. And of course, tomorrow we’ll talk more about Pentecost and the meaning of it, but Pentecost has so many features. Just look at the number of names that Pentecost has. We call it Pentecost, which is the Greek for count fifty. We call it the Feast of Weeks – the Bible calls it the Feast of Weeks – because we have counted seven weeks, and it was seven weeks ago today that we were there on the Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread. And we call it the Feast of Firstfruits, because, as we observe this Day of Pentecost tomorrow, we’ll be picturing the harvest of the firstfruits.

Back in the Days of Unleavened Bread, we talked about the wave sheaf offering. And that was the first of the firstfruits that was accepted back in Old Testament times, as the priests went out and waved the offering. And of course, in New Testament times, it was Jesus Christ who was that first of the firstfruits. At the end of seven weeks down the road is the harvest of the rest of the firstfruits that we’ll be talking about.

Pentecost has significance in the Old Testament. Tradition has it that on the Day of Pentecost God gave Israel the Ten Commandments. And of course, in the New Testament, everyone knows what the Day of Pentecost brought on 31 AD, if indeed that was the year of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. But on 31 AD, on the Day of Pentecost, He gave His Holy Spirit to His church for the first time to a group that was there.

And so, we are in the spring Holy Days, and Pentecost marks the end of the spring Holy Days. And in those spring Holy Days that are all tied together, we go from Passover to the Days of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost has its ties right into the Days of Unleavened Bread. You can’t separate the two, because they all have one purpose. There’s one thing that’s there. And it is the plan of salvation that God has for mankind – first for the firstfruits, but eventually for all of mankind. They will follow the process that’s outlined in these first three steps of God’s plan for mankind, that we’ve been observing and that we will observe again tomorrow.

So there’s so many things of Pentecost that we could talk about, and so many features of it, and often we talk about it only on the Day of Pentecost. But since we’re here and we’re all online today, I thought we would talk about Pentecost a little bit today, and look at some features that maybe we haven’t looked at for a while, and then continue that tomorrow in our Zoom meeting in the morning.

But let’s back up and recount the plan of God and what we’ve been through here in the last seven weeks. Of course, the feature, the key point of all of the Holy Days and God’s plan is Jesus Christ. And we celebrated, or observed, the Passover back a little over seven weeks ago. And we know that on the Passover, Jesus Christ, in one day on the 14th of Abib, He was crucified and He died. And in that one day He was the sacrificial Lamb and His death changed the world – changed the world. Now mankind’s sin would be forgiven. A few days later, three days and three nights later He was resurrected. And with the resurrection came the hope for eternal life for all of us. And with Christ’s death, the door to God’s throne was opened, and so people could have access to that, where prior to that it was only the high priest, one day a year, who could approach God in the Holy of Holies. So, Jesus Christ changed everything with completing His mission and completing His purpose for coming to earth. And now the plan of God could proceed. And literally we owe Him everything.

If you will, turn with me over to 1 Corinthians 15, and it’s beautifully put in 1 Corinthians 15 – commonly called, 1 Corinthians 15, the Resurrection Chapter – about Jesus Christ and His place and the plan of salvation for all of mankind. God is working with firstfruits now, but let’s never ever lose sight of the fact that Christ died for all of mankind – all of mankind. And all of mankind will, if they are going to have eternal life, if they are going to not experience, or fall, to the second death that the book of Revelation tells us about, all of mankind will have to accept Jesus Christ and everything that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and death and everything that that means. But let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15:20. It says:

1 Corinthians 15:20 – “Now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” He was the first that was resurrected to eternal life. We talked about that back during the Sabbath in Days of Unleavened Bread. I think the sermon, if you need more information on that, that sermon, titled I think Accepted by God, is online. You can look at that.

But we talked about that. And Jesus Christ, He was the first of the firstfruits. He was the one who set the example, paved the way that we know that God is faithful, and if He was resurrected, we will be resurrected too if – if we remain faithful to Him. “Christ is risen from the dead has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man” - that’s the man Adam, the physical man – “came death, by Man” – Jesus Christ, capital M – “also came the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die” – every single human being will die. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that it is appointed to all men to die once, but then the judgment, it says in Hebrews 9:27, then the resurrection – “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” And again, when you read the word all – all shall be made alive – “but each one in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.” And then after that, the rest of humanity. But all – all – will be made alive. All will have the same opportunity that you and I do today – to accept Christ, and to understand what that means, and to have the opportunity to live His way. When Jesus Christ did that on the Passover, the very next day we begin the Days of Unleavened Bread and that’s our part. Jesus Christ did it all. He made it all possible, but then it’s our part – as we picture in the Days of Unleavened Bread.

Prior to the Days of Unleavened Bread, we’re told to put sin out of our lives – pictured by the leavening in our houses – our homes. And then during the Days of Unleavened Bread we learn, eat the unleavened bread, and eat that all the days of your life. We talk about that at Passover. We talk about it at the Days of Unleavened Bread. It’s a part of the plan of salvation. But not all of mankind understands that today.

When Jesus Christ started His church, He called it the called out ones – the eklesia of the world. It wasn’t His purpose to call everyone in the world. All mankind will have a chance, but there were going to be those called out ones in this day and age – that God would somehow put, or choose to put, a seed in our minds – help us to understand the truth of the Bible, to see that what we’ve been doing in our past lives is not at all commensurate with what God would have us do. No matter how religious we thought we were, we learn that everything we were doing before God opened our minds was wrong. It wasn’t honoring Jesus Christ at all. We weren’t following His example at all. But it took God dropping that seed, if you will – His Holy Spirit with us – that opened our minds to understand that. And as He called us, then we responded to it. It’s our job to go to work and apply the principles that we learned during the Days of Unleavened Bread – that we have to be cognizant of putting the old out and putting the new in. God will give us all the tools to do that. And as we come to the Day of Pentecost, we realize one of the key tools we need is His Holy Spirit, because without His Holy Spirit, we can’t do any of it. We would fail, just like every man, woman and child has failed without God’s Holy Spirit, and just like ancient Israel failed as they were in the wilderness, even though they saw all of God’s miracles and saw Him firsthand give the law to Israel.

So, the called out ones are firstfruits. Now we know what firstfruits are. We’ve talked about that – the early crop that’s there. God did that, and somehow, He chose you and me, and we understand and we respond. But you know, He’s dropped the seed, if you will, on so many more than those who will be observing the Day of Pentecost tomorrow in the way that God would have us observe it – more than will be that are observing the Sabbath Day today. “Many are called, few are chosen,” the Bible says, because God has His purpose.

Let’s go back and look at a familiar parable back in Luke 8. In Luke 8, beginning in verse 4, we have the parable of the Seed and the Sower. All of you could probably recite this to me, but let’s go through it and look at it, because, as Christ gave this parable to His disciples, they asked, “What does it mean?” We know what it means, but let’s look at it in light of God’s plan of salvation, and in light of you and me, and what’s going on in the world today, as God calls many but few are chosen. In verse 4 of Luke 8, it says:

Luke 8:4-5 – “When a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Christ from every city, He spoke by a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and it was trampled down and the birds of the air devoured it.” There was that seed. It went out. It amounted to nothing. It didn’t get planted in fertile ground. It never took root. It was there – the recognition was there – but it was gobbled up by the birds. Well, let’s go over to verse 11, where the disciples asked, “What does that parable mean? What are you talking about?”

Luke 8:11-12 – “The parable is this: The seed is the word of God.” There are many who come to the knowledge that, “Oh, the Sabbath is the seventh day. It’s not the first day of the week. It’s the seventh day. And it’s all 24 hours of the seventh day.” There are many who come to the knowledge, as God opens their mind. Not many, or not most, stick with it though. “Those by the wayside are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts lest they should believe and be saved.” It doesn’t take root anywhere. They hear – “Yeah, that’s true. I’m getting on with my life. They’re getting on with their life. Satan is there. There’s a distraction here. Something comes up there. Can’t do that. Nice thing to know, but I get on with my life.” And it has absolutely no life – that seed – at all. It’s like it didn’t even exist. Let’s go back to verse 6. Christ said:

Luke 8:6 – “Some seed falls on rock and as soon as it springs up, it withers away because it lacks moisture.” It’s there. Initially it just pops right up. You see this little plant coming up, but there’s no one there to water it, no one there to tend it. The seed doesn’t water itself. Go over to verse 13 – Christ explains what that is:

Luke 8:13 – “The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy….” “This is what I’ve been looking for. I’ve been looking all my life for the answer to the seventh day. I’ve been looking all my life for the answer to what does these three days and three nights mean? And how do you fit three days between Friday and Sunday? “When they hear they receive the word with joy, but these have no root. They believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.” There’s that initial growth. There’s that initial excitement, but over time, it just becomes kind of ordinary. Again, life gets in the way and people just fade away. And the seed that was planted doesn’t amount to anything. Back to verse 7:

Luke 8:7 – “Some fell among thorns and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it.” Verse 14:

Luke 8:14 – “The ones that fell among those among thorns, are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches and the pleasures of life and bring no fruit to maturity.”

Grows for a while, but then the cares of life, maybe the fun things of life, the exciting things of life – “What my friends are doing…. My business needs me to work all weekend. How can I say no to that? I let the world overtake me, and it just chokes out the word.” You know, it’s interesting, because Christ says those very same words to those who are living in the end time –
“Don’t get caught up in carousing and the ways of the world, because it will choke out the word. It will choke out your heart. It will choke out the seed and the growth that’s in you. So, as we’re reading through those things, we probably all know people who fall into these categories. We’ve met them. And it’s sad that the seed doesn’t take root. It’s sad that the seed doesn’t grow into the promise that it has of developing into whatever mighty tree, flower – whatever it is that that seed is designed to be – that it never grows to that. It just sort of is wasted. And that’s kind of the way God works with the world today. He calls many, but only a few allow that seed to grow. Let’s go back to verse 8:

Luke 8:8 – “Others fell on good ground, sprang up and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” And then Christ said, when He completed that, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” The seed that falls on good ground, it produces fruit, it grows, it’s tended. Christ explains what He’s talking about here in verse 15:

Luke 8:15 – “The ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart” – they let it sink in – “This is important. This is what God wants. He’s the key to life, He holds life and death in His hand. He holds eternity in His hands. We must pay attention to this. We must do what He wants and not allow all the other little things and distractions of life to take us off course – “these are the ones, who having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.”

Those are the ones who apply the Days of Unleavened Bread. “I get it. If I’m going to accept Jesus Christ sacrifice, if He’s going to give eternal life – and I want eternal life, I want the promises that He gives me – I have to do the things He says. I have to follow Him – not follow the world, not follow my parents, not follow my friends, not follow the televangelist that’s on on Sunday morning, but I have to follow God. I have to be rooted in His word.” And when we do that – when we do that – fruit grows.

We’ve all planted seeds in our yard, whether it’s flower seeds, tomato seeds – whatever it is that you’ve planted – isn’t it nice when you see that seed beginning to grow, when you see that little plant – that little promise coming up there – and it just, eventually it grows up to a bush that produces whatever you intended for it to be – a beautiful flower, a vegetable, a fruit, a tree, whatever it is. When God plants that seed He has the same hope for all of us. He’s disappointed when those other three quarters of those seeds just dissipate and amount to nothing – just like if we went out and planted an orange seed, and we begin to see the seed come up a little bit, and then all of a sudden, it just chokes out and doesn’t do anything. It’s a disappointment. God is disappointed. He wants everyone to succeed. He wants everyone to be in His kingdom. Christ did it all for us, in one sense, but we have to do our part.

And so, we learn the plan of salvation is, we have to have the fertile ground that the seed is in. We have to have the good heart. We have to change what we’re doing. And we learn that through the Days of Unleavened Bread. Over in John, John 12 – and we learn also, as that seed is planted, we need more than just what we can give it. And that’s the lesson of the Day of Pentecost. We need God’s Holy Spirit. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But over in John 12:24, Christ makes an interesting statement that I always, when I read it, I don’t know. It just kind of hits me. In John 12:24 it says:

John 12:24 – “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone” – that means it doesn’t bear fruit. It’s just a seed – “unless it falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain.”

And so, the seed is planted in the minds of people that God calls – His Holy Spirit is with us. You and I experience it all. One day, whether we were brand new in the church or whether we grew up in the church, lights dawned. It’s like that seed took root. “I get it! I know this is truth and I know in my heart this is truth – not something I’ve been taught all my life and I just accept what my parents gave me – but I know – I know in my heart – this is true and this is eternity. This is life. But Christ says, “Unless that seed dies, it’s never going to produce fruit.” And isn’t that one of the lessons that we learn of nature? We plant this little seed that doesn’t look anything like the orange tree, or the lettuce, or whatever it is we’re planting. It doesn’t look anything like that. You never look at a seed and say, “That must be such and such a seed.” You plant it in the ground and it dies. And then from that comes life. From that comes fruit – whatever you intended that seed to be, if it’s fertile ground, if you take care of it, if you pay attention to it and make sure it’s got fertile ground, it’s going to turn into what you wanted it to be. You know, it’s interesting because we kind of learned that during the Days of Unleavened Bread, right? Verse 25 – Christ follows that fact of nature that has a spiritual application to us. He says: “He who loves his life, will lose it and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” What is He telling us? He’s telling us the old man has to die – the old man has to die – in order for the new man that has the promise, that can bear fruit, and that can bear much fruit the more fertile ground that he develops. Of course, it all comes from God with His Holy Spirit we learn – one of the lessons of the Day of Pentecost – the Feast of Pentecost – is we need God’s Spirit. I’ll just keep reminding you of that, if I forget to mention it. But we have to have that and God will provide the fertile ground, but we have to till it. We have to be the ones who make it happen. We learned that through the Days of Unleavened Bread – the old man must die in order for the new man to come up out of the waters of baptism, and begin to grow, and to begin to develop into who God wants them to be – something that can bear fruit. And we know that God is pleased when we produce much fruit. He’s not at all pleased, in the same way we wouldn’t be, if we produce, if we grow an orange tree, but it never has an orange on it – like, what good is it, right? Jesus Christ, when He saw that fig tree, it’s like, “Well, this fig tree doesn’t have any figs on it,” so He cursed it. God expects us to produce much fruit. The seed has to die – that means the old man has to die so that we come up out of the waters of baptism, and we’re a new creation that can, with the tools that God gives us. And after baptism, of course, we remember we had hands laid on us and He puts His Spirit in us. He’ll give us the tools, but we have to work at it. We have to be the ones to do it.

And so, we have the Church of God today. And as we’re here at Pentecost, all these things that we’ve talked about, even though we’ve talked about them at Passover, even though we talk about them at the Days of Unleavened Bread and other times through the year, they’re all part of the Day of Pentecost, because you can’t have the Day of Pentecost if you don’t have the Days of Unleavened Bread. You can’t have Pentecost if you don’t have the Passover. They’re all tied together. You can’t have salvation if you don’t have everything that we’ve talked about. Can’t have salvation without Jesus Christ. There’s only one way to salvation. There’s only one way to eternal life. And there’s only one way to live, and that’s the way that Jesus Christ set as an example – to live as He lived, and to do what God has called us to do.

So, we learn that we must produce much fruit, and in the course of time, between the Days of Unleavened Bread – seven weeks ago – we were there on the Sabbath day during the Days of Unleavened Bread – during that time, between now and the harvest of the firstfruits, which Pentecost pictures, that time represents our life. That’s our growing season. That’s our time. In ancient Israel, they had the firstfruits – the barley that came up – and here by Pentecost day, all the firstfruits are ready to be harvested. They all grew during that time. They’re all ready to be gathered in. And so God looks at us, and says, “Well, you know what? Here’s how you did. Here’s how the plan of salvation is. I planted the seed. I gave you the tools for fertile ground. You have to create and till that ground to make sure it doesn’t choke out, and you don’t let other things come in and crowd it out, and that it takes root. You have to work with it. You have to keep close to God. You have to do all the things that we talk about so much, so that you can bear much fruit. And then, when Christ returns, it will be harvested.” That fruit – the firstfruits – will be harvested. You can’t have Pentecost without those others, and you can’t have a harvest of the firstfruits without seeing how all of them tie together.

Let’s go back to 1 Corinthians 15 again – in the Resurrection Chapter – because Paul talks about this concept of a seed dying as well. 1 Corinthians 15:35 – he says:

1 Corinthians 15:35-38 – “Someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?’ ” In verse 36, he says: “Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.” What you sow is not made alive unless it dies. “Now what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain – perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.” Well, here’s he’s talking about physical death, isn’t he? Here’s he’s talking about physical death. And we know that God hasn’t promised us eternal life in these physical bodies that we inhabit today. We know that it’s appointed to all men to die once. And when we die, what happens to us? Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return. We’re planted in the ground. And that seed, that us, who lived through life, God plants in the ground at the end of our lives. It stays there. It dies, and then He gives it life. It springs up an immortal body – a body that we can’t even imagine, I don’t think – but we have faith in God. We know He will resurrect us, because He resurrected Jesus Christ, and that’s the hope that we have. But the body dies. The seed is buried. And then the resurrection occurs. Then the resurrection occurs to a body that God determines, because, as it says in verse 38, “God gives it a body as He pleases and to each seed its own body” – whatever He purposed for us in these lifetimes that we’re in right now. What did He want us to become? How do we fit into His plan? What position does He want us to fulfill in the Kingdom that He will put us in? The Bride of Christ – what will be our position? He’s preparing us for that today, if we let Him. And if we let Him till our ground – our fertile minds, our hearts and our bodies – to bring into subjection to Him, so that when that seed is planted, or dies and is planted, it can be resurrected into who and what He has planned it to be.

It’s a beautiful story. It’s a beautiful plan of salvation. The analogies and the symbolism that God is planted for us as we go through His plan of salvation is absolutely riveting. And we can learn from nature exactly what God has planned for us in a spiritual realm as well.

All that is wrapped up into the Day of Pentecost. There is life.  There is death. There’s the end. There’s the beginning. There’s the Holy Spirit. There’s the law of God. You name it – Pentecost has an awfully lot – an awfully lot – that it represents. And we’re about to embark on that.

1 Corinthians 15. We’re here in I Corinthians 15. Let’s back up to verse 22 and 23 here. We read it once. Let me read it again. It says:

I Corinthians 15:22-23 – “As in Adam all die” – right? We’re all planted. And these – we’re talking firstfruits, right? We’re talking firstfruits now – all planted in the ground to be resurrected at the time the firstfruits are harvested. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ, all shall be made alive.” Verses there for the firstfruits – in Christ. “…even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ” – was first – “and afterward those who are Christ’s, at His coming” – those who Christ would look at, and say, “I know you. I know you. You kept My commands. You did what I said. When I showed you something that needed to be put out of your life, you listened, you paid attention to what I was doing, you created, you worked hard at creating a fertile ground and a fertile heart for the seed that I planted in you. You used the Holy Spirit that I gave you, and you kept allowing, or asking for, the old body to die – the old man to die, the old intentions to die – because you were committed to the new man and the fruit that God wants to see. And that’s how you lived your life. So, when Christ returns, there’s the harvest – and a very pleasing harvest to Him – of the people who would be in that group.

Well, that’s Pentecost. Well, that’s the lead up to Pentecost. Well, let’s go back then to Leviticus 23. And I mentioned that you can’t have Pentecost without the Days of Unleavened Bread. They’re forever linked by what God put here. And Pentecost – the only Holy Day that isn’t determined by a calendar date, but by counting from the Sabbath inside the Days of Unleavened Bread. Leviticus 23 – we see there’s no break, as God talks about the Days of Unleavened Bread and then the link that goes on for several verses to Pentecost. Leviticus 23:8 – you can see in verse 6, he’s talking about the First Day of Unleavened Bread. We eat it for seven days, and in verse 8:

Leviticus 23:8-12 – “You shall offer an offering made by fire for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.” – Last Day of Unleavened Bread – “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: “When you come into the land which I give you, and reap its harvest, bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. He will wave the sheaf before the Eternal, to be accepted on your behalf on the day after the Sabbath, the priest shave wave it.”’” We talked about that on the Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread. … “And offer on that day the sheaf, a male lamb”, etc. etc. and in verse 15:

Leviticus 23:15-16 – “From that day” – inside the Days of Unleavened Bread – “you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath, then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD.” And then he says some things, and then he says later on – verse 21 – as he’s discussing what goes on:

Leviticus 23:21 – “And you shall proclaim on the same day: It is a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. It will be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.”

It’s Pentecost. It’s the Feast of Firstfruits. It’s the Feast of Weeks. It’s the fiftieth day – that’s tomorrow. That’s the fiftieth day from the time that we began counting back during the Days of Unleavened Bread.

Well, let’s just stop here and look at a couple of these things, because we’ve all read these verses I don’t know how many times, right? But let’s look at a couple things that are there as we look at the Day of Pentecost, and as God leads up to, and how it has its roots in the Days of Unleavened Bread. It’s not a stand-alone day. It has its roots in the Days of Unleavened Bread. You can’t have Pentecost without the Days of Unleavened Bread, like so many churches do. You have to have it in order to be understanding God’s plan, and to be doing things the way that He wants it done.

But in that verse, one of the things we notice is the word, or the number fifty – the number fifty. And the number fifty has a unique meaning in the Bible. And when you stop to look at the number fifty, that you begin to see some things in the Bible that help us understand. Because again, God doesn’t do things lightly. He just didn’t wake up one morning and say, “You know what? Just use the number fifty.” There are other things that go on that help us understand the significance of the Day of Pentecost – what it means as God works with us. One of those places that you’re probably thinking, as I’m talking here, is that it was every fiftieth year that was the Jubilee year in Israel. Let’s go just a couple chapters forward to Leviticus 25, and let’s read a few of the verses that are there. Let’s begin in verse 8 of Leviticus 25, and notice how God records the Jubilee year. In verse 8 it says:

Leviticus 25:8-13 – “And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years and the time of the seventh Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years.” Okay, we just read about “count seven Sabbaths,” and then the fiftieth day is the Day of Pentecost. Here He says, “…for the Jubilee year, count seven Sabbaths of years and the time of the seventh Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years” – seven times seven. “Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land, and you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you. And each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year will be a Jubilee. In it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows on its own accord, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine. For it is the Jubilee. It is holy to you. You shall eat its produce from the field. In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession.”

What a time in Israel! It was a time that any of the mistakes, or whatever might have led someone to say, “I got myself in a bind. I’ll sell myself to you – to be your slave. I’ll give you my land to work” – that there was a reset button that God had. Now there’s an end to that time and there’s a new beginning every fiftieth year. When the fiftieth comes it’s a time of liberty. The past is forgiven, now is the time to go on with life. Return to your possession. It’s yours. Keep hold to it. Don’t lose it.

So, when we look at the number fifty, we see there is tremendous meaning in that number. God says on the fiftieth day from the day that wave sheaf was offered is Pentecost. It’s Pentecost. It’s the harvest of the firstfruits. It’s a time when the firstfruits are harvested – when Jesus Christ returns, pictured at a Holy Day that we had yet ahead of us – that the promise will be and there will be true liberty throughout the land as the end of this age comes and we – the firstfruits – are resurrected to work and to be with God during that time. Fifty – fifty years – the time of the Jubilee.

There is another interesting thing as you go back and look at the tabernacle that God had constructed. Let’s go to Exodus 26:10. I know when we read through the book of Exodus, we sometimes might get bogged down in looking at all the instructions that God gave – this is how this instrument should be constructed, this is what you make the altar out of, this is what you do. But in there, there is meaning. There’s a reason God preserved all these words, and every once in a while when we actually take the time to dig into something and use the modern day tools we have, we find something that maybe we didn’t see before. Exodus 26:10 – let’s look at this. It says, as he’s talking about the curtains in the tabernacle:

Exodus 26:10-11 – “You shall make fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in one set, and fifty loops on the edge of the curtain of the second set.” There’s that number fifty. “And you shall make fifty bronze clasps, put the clasps into the loops and couple the tents together” – why? – “that it may be one.”

I looked at commentaries, and I thought, “What does that mean – that it may be one? I don’t understand how all that fit together, I don’t understand how the fifty loops and the fifty clasps all fit together.” But God says when you group all these fifties together, that it will become one. And it strikes me that what does Jesus Christ ask or pray that you and I become? That we become one. We become one – with each other, with God the Father, with Jesus Christ, just as He, just as Jesus Christ and God the Father are one. And there in the tabernacle, He’s got this sentence there that says the same thing Jesus Christ wants us to do – something for us to contemplate. But to see how God…and it’s all tied in with fifty, which is the number that’s right in the name of Pentecost – count fifty. Count fifty – the name of the day is Count Fifty. If we’re doing it in English, and not using the Greek, every year when we talked about observing the day we do tomorrow, we’ll say, “Tomorrow is the fiftieth day – that’s the Fiftieth Day Feast that we’ll be doing. And perhaps, as the New Testament people and the Jews who came – who knew these scriptures so well – who had them memorized – when they heard the word fifty, or the number fifty, it had a lot of meaning to them, and they saw how it all fit together.

Well, there are other places that you could look at the word fifty as well. But there’s one thing when we look at the Day of Pentecost tomorrow – fifty – and some of the things that are in it, and how God uses that number, and the significance of it in our time, because at the end of fifty years – or in the fiftieth year – is a new beginning. At the end of fifty days, or at the beginning of the fiftieth day is the Day of Pentecost. It’s the end of the spring Holy Day season. It’s the end of the plan of salvation for mankind - for the firstfruits. The rest of mankind is going to go through the same process. They’re going to have to accept Jesus Christ. They’re going to have to repent. They’re going to have to put away the old man and put on the new, like we’ve had to do, but it’s our time now – the firstfruits’ time. But it ends at fifty and the harvest ends at fifty.

Well, you don’t have to turn back to Leviticus 23, but the other thing I want to draw our attention to is that it says, “Count fifty” – count fifty days. Now recently I’ve had some very good conversations with some members about Bible things, and it was a couple weeks ago that someone was on the phone, and they brought to my attention the Bible says, “Count fifty.” Why would He say count fifty? And I had to stop and think, and I thought, “Well, I know.” But that’s been on my mind for the last few weeks, and I’ve been asking God, “What about count fifty?        I understand we count 50 – 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. What is it about count fifty? Why did You name this Holy Day, that we’re going to observe tomorrow, why did You name it Count Fifty?” I mean, we count fifty, right? And in ancient times, they would count fifty. They would know seven Sabbaths, and for the Jubilee year, they were counting the years. And I understand that Orthodox Jews actually do count – 1, 2, 3, 4… – every day from the day of the wave sheaf offering. They count fifty until they come to the Day of Pentecost. It’s what I’m told. I didn’t look that up. Someone mentioned it to me. What could God possibly be meaning for us, as we look forward to tomorrow, and we contemplate what we’re going to be observing? Why would He name this Holy Day, basically, a sentence, or a command – it’s Count Fifty. It’s the only Holy Day that has a sentence as its name – Count Fifty.

Well, we can think about other places in the Bible that we’ve seen the word count and what does that mean? All of us who have been baptized and been through baptism counseling, we’ve all been talked to about counting the cost right? Jesus Christ said, “What man…” – you can turn, if you want, to Luke 14 later, but you remember what the Scripture says: “What man, looking to build a tower, doesn’t first count the cost to make sure that he can complete the job that he’s beginning to embark on?” Otherwise, if he runs out of funds, people laugh at him, and mock him, and say, “He couldn’t even complete…. Didn’t you have enough planning? Didn’t you have enough of a measure of assessment? Weren’t you assessing what you could do before you did it?”

And so, as we went through baptism counseling, and as others go through, and when I talk to them, it’s like, “You’ve got to count the cost.” Whatever trial comes your way…it may be so unexpected and so dire that you would not stop building your tower, because that trial will send you back to the world. No matter what happens in your life, you have to count the cost and purpose in your mind, “I will remain true to God. And when these things come, I will look to Him. I will have faith in Him.” It’s counting the cost and purposing in our minds ahead of time that that happens, and then hopefully someone reminds us – God’s Holy Spirit often recalls those things, if we have it actively working in our lives – that when those trials come, look to God. Don’t go back. Don’t give up. Don’t throw the towel in. Keep going. It’s through the trials, as we’ve learned in the book of James and other places, in other sermons we’ve heard, it’s those trials that give us the character. It’s those trials that produce the fertile mind. It’s those trials that produce the seed that grows into fruit that is much pleasing to God.

When we count the cost, we have to do an assessment. We have to kind of look at things. Do I have enough money to complete this job? If I start building this house, do I have enough to finish it the way it should be? Or am I going to have to stop some place in the middle, and then kind of look at it, and realize, “Man I blew it! I miscalculated.”

So, when you hear the word count, and when you look up the word count, there is a measurement that is involved. And God says, on this day, “Count fifty.” Count fifty. So, there’s that number that’s involved there. And we have the number – 1, 2, 3, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 – we come to the fiftieth day tomorrow. It represents our life time – from the time that we’re baptized until the time that we are put into the ground, and the next moment in our recognition, harvested by God.

Back in Psalms, and if we talk about numbers and whatever – and again, if you go on the internet and you type in words and concepts and whatever – it is very interesting. We live in a tremendous time today – that we can do what, I believe, the Jews did automatically in their mind because they knew the Scriptures so well, that when they heard something…. We’ve talked before about remez – and Scott Ashley talks about remez in a sermon that’s available online – that when they heard something, they would automatically go to these Scriptures. Today we don’t have the Bible memorized. We’re not like them. But we do have resources that allow us to kind of type things in, and try to put together lines and the truth that God would have us do, that perhaps others in generations past were able to do. But let’s look at Psalm 90, because Psalm 90 is an interesting Psalm. It’s attributed to, of all people, Moses. When you look at Psalm 90, it says right there at the top of mine, A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. We think of most Psalms as being written by David, but here’s Moses. Let’s just read through a few of the verses here because Moses talks about numbers – he talks about numbers – in Psalm 90. And Pentecost is about a number. He says:

Psalm 90:1-12 – “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” You’ve been there forever. “You turn man to destruction, and say, ‘Return O children of men.’ ” Come back to Me, the way you’re living isn’t right, it’s not good. “ ‘Return O children of men.’ For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it’s past and like a watch in the night. You carry them away like a flood. They are like a sleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up. In the morning it flourishes and grows up. In the evening it is cut down and withers.” You know, God doesn’t see time the way we do. “A thousand years is as a day to God,” is what Moses is saying here. He’s got eternity. But in His eyes, we’re here just a little bit of time – just a flick in the history of the earth. In verse 7, he says: “We have been consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance. For all our days have passed away in Your wrath. We finish our years like a sigh.” Ahh, when we come to the end of life – take a deep sigh. “The days of our lives are seventy years, and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away.”

Here he’s taking the measure of his life – how much time do we have on earth? Seventy years? Eighty years, ninety, a hundred? Whatever it is. Moses had 120. They’re measured time. They’re counted in years. Verse 11: “Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath.” In verse 12, he says this: “Teach us to number our days….” Teach us to number our days. What could he possibly mean by that? Teach us God, to number our days. I’ll be honest with you. I’ve never asked God to teach me how to number – well, I have recently, but never before – never entered my mind. One of my prayers has been, “What did Moses mean? What did you record when you say, “Teach us to number our days?” We number the days from the wave sheaf offering to fifty, counting Pentecost, when the firstfruits are harvested. “Teach us to number our days” and then Moses tells us: “that we may gain a heart of wisdom” – that I’m pleasing to You, that I’ve not only received the knowledge, but I’ve turned that knowledge into wisdom, and, in the course of my life, turned that into character, so that I do the things that You called me to do. “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

Could Moses be saying, “We need to take stock of where we are in our life?” We need to be taking a stock of where we are in our calling and in our spiritual life. God allots the days. The number of days I have – or years I have – are going to be different than yours. Only God knows what there is. Only God knows how long we will be and how long we have between the time that we’ve answered the call – we receive the Holy Spirit – and how much time we have to develop a heart of wisdom – to grow into the people that will produce much fruit for Him that is pleasing to Him.

Have we been around for fifty years? Have we been around for fifty years? When we take stock of ourselves – when we assess those fifty – will we look at it, and say…would God look at it and say, “Yes, look what they have done! Look what they’ve done with the time I’ve given them – with the time they’ve had His Holy Spirit. Look at what they have done! Or might He say, “They’re not counting the days. They’re not numbering the days. They’re not allowing themselves to see that the days are passing. They’re not going to be ready for that harvest. They’re not counting fifty. They’re not paying attention to what’s going on, because their life is limited.” I don’t know. God will lead us to understand what it means. But I do think we need to take an assessment of where we are regularly. When we have children, they turn 2, 5, 10, 15, 18, 21, and we take stock, oh, you know what, when they’re this age, they should be able to do this. When they’re this age, they should be able to do that. And this time, they have their education, they’re out making a living, living a good life in the world, they get married, they have kids. This is kind of the order of life. There are days that are there. Is Moses saying, “God teach us to number our days? Where should we be, as we’re counting, and as we’re looking toward that day of the harvest? Verse 17 – oh, let’s just finish the whole chapter here – verse 13:

Psalm 90:13-17 – “Return, O Eternal! How long? And have compassion on Your servants. Satisfy us early, early with Your mercy….” Satisfy us. Let us feel that satisfaction that comes only from You – early in our lives, early in our calling. “Satisfy us early with Your mercy that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us” – those days that aren’t so pleasant, those days where we have trials that are designed to make us stronger, because we remember in our weakness right? In our weakness we are made strong. “Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil. Let Your work appear to Your servants and Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Eternal our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands.” God, order my steps. God, direct my paths. God, I give you my life. God, I give you my days. God, help me to number my days that we may gain the heart of wisdom.

Well, you’ll notice in your margin, as I did, that there’s a reference to Psalm 39. And Psalm 39 happens to be a psalm of David. So, let’s see what David has to say about this. Psalm 39:1. Since whoever is the one who put these referenced scriptures there in Psalm 90. Psalm 39, your heading shows it’s a psalm of David. David writes:

Psalm 39:1 – “I said, ‘I will guard my ways, lest I sin with my tongue’ ” – as we’ve been talking in James, there’s the tongue. We just talked about in James 3 a couple weeks ago. “I said, ‘I will guard my ways, lest I sin with my tongue. I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle while the wicked are before me. I was mute with silence. I held my peace even from good, and my sorrow was stirred up. My heart was hot within me. While I was musing” – more appropriately, mediating – “the fire burned. And then I spoke with my tongue.” Verse 4: “Lord, make me to know my end.” Moses said, “Teach me to number my days, Lord.” “Make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days” – what are those? What was David thinking? What was Moses thinking? What does God want us to see? “Make me to know my end and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am.” Moses said, “Teach me to number my days that I may gain a heart of wisdom.” David says, “Give me the measure of my days that I may know how frail I am – how weak, how pathetic, how, when all the pride that’s in us disappears as God washes that out through the course of our life in the fifty days from baptism – the symbolic fifty days from baptism – until the end of our life – until the firstfruits are harvested. How frail I am! How weak I am! And like I just said, Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 12, when he was talking about the thorn that afflicted him, and God said – remember? I think we just read it a couple weeks ago – “My grace is sufficient for you. In your weakness, you are made strong.” In your weakness, you are made strong. Help me to know how frail I am, how dependent I am on You. I need You, I need Your Holy Spirit. I need it desperately. And without it, I am nothing. Without it, I am nothing. The only good that dwells in me is Your Holy Spirit. And that Holy Spirit came to the church in 31 AD with a lot of power – with a lot of power – as we’ll no doubt talk about tomorrow.

And so, when we look at Pentecost – and tomorrow we’ll talk more about Pentecost and talk about some of the things that we don’t have time to talk about when we just talk about it on that one Holy Day – look and see how much God has built in to this day, what it is that He wants us to do. When you go home tonight, and before the sun sets and Pentecost begins, meditate on it. Think about the things. Do some study. Ask God to help you see what His plan is and what all these things mean, because they all fit together. What He wants for you and me is that we will grow, and we will produce much fruit, and that we will be there, and when the harvest comes of the firstfruits, you and I will be there, and He will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Let’s go back to Ephesians – Ephesians 4. We’ll wrap it up here. Ephesians 4 – let’s just read through the first few verses here. It kind of hits some of the things we’ve talked about today, and some of the things that, as we look at Pentecost, we can be thinking of, and as we look at this plan of God and this step in it, what it means. Ephesians 4:1, Paul writes:

Ephesians 4:1-7 – “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.” Let the seed put in you fall on fertile ground and do the work to keep that ground fertile, that the seed can grow into the tree, to the bush – to whatever it is that God’s building in you and me – that it can grow the way He wants. “Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness.” God, help me to know how frail I am, and how much I need You, and that Your Holy Spirit, which we picture coming to the Church, tomorrow on the Day of Pentecost. “…with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love” – because one of the hallmarks of our calling is we will grow in love with one another, right? Agape – love. “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” – that it all fits together, that we all fit together. And when God fits us together, we are as one. We are as one, just like those clasps in the tabernacle. “There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling” – one way to salvation – only one – “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.” Significant! One God, who is above all, through all and in you all – tremendous, tremendous gift that God give us – His Holy Spirit. “But to each one of us grace was given, according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” The measure of Christ’s gift – how can you measure Christ’s gift? Immeasurable, right? Can’t put any number on that. Let’s drop down to verse 11. He talks about the body – the one body that He’s put us all in. It says:

Ephesians 4:11-13 – “He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers” – why? – “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry” – or service – “for the” – building up – “the edifying of the body of Christ.” That’s what we’re there for – to build each other up, to edify, to get us ready, to have that tree, that bush, that flower, that fruit tree growing and producing fruit and encouraging each other, so that when the harvest comes, whether we live until the time of Jesus Christ’s return or the day of our harvest comes – tomorrow, if we drop dead for some reason. “For the equipping of the saints for the work of service for the building up of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God” – and notice the measure that’s there – “to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” That’s the measure. That’s each year as we go through our lives – our spiritual lives, our spiritual growth – the time that we’re in now between the time of baptism and the time of the harvest of the firstfruits – the fifty days between the Days of Unleavened Bread and the Day of Pentecost – that we are growing into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

“Lord, teach me to number my days that I may develop that heart of wisdom. God, teach me to number my days, the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am, that the pride and every evil thing is out of me. Wash me clean and make me ready for the return of Your Son Jesus Christ.”

Let’s pause there for today. We’ll take up something else – another aspect of Pentecost – tomorrow morning as we meet together in the Zoom room. Have a good rest of the Sabbath and we will see you tomorrow.