The Firstfruits Guarantees the Harvest

Now I know what some of you are thinking. You listened to the Scripture reading earlier from the book of Leviticus, and you thought surely not. Has he gone crazy? Is he actually going to preach from the book of Leviticus on Easter morning? Is he going to preach about some Old Testament feasts required by the Law of Moses? It is Resurrection Sunday! We need to be in the New Testament reading one of the Gospel accounts where they the find the stone rolled away.

Well, just so you know, I have a couple of reasons for doing this. First of all, I hope picking this passage to begin our study has grabbed your attention. If nothing else, you’ve got to be extremely curious as to why I chose the book of Leviticus. And number two don’t panic. I haven’t lost my mind. I’ve got a plan, and if you will give me your undivided attention for the next 30 minutes or so, I pray that under the enablement and direction of the Holy Spirit, we are going to make an amazing discovery together.

You see, we are going to learn that these Old Testament feasts were more than just ceremonial rituals. These feasts were more than just religious holiday’s. These feasts were prophetic pictures, woven by God into Israel’s calendar. And each of these three feasts we are going to touch on this morning in someway points to the Lord Jesus Christ. But not only that, these feasts point to the death and resurrection of our Lord. Let me put it this way. Today we are going to discover that the gospel message is found in these feasts of Moses. What do I mean when I say the Gospel message. I mean that we are going to discover the good news that Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and on the third day he was raised according to the scriptures.

And the next question you should be asking is how in the world are you getting all of that our of the OT law? Well, stick with me for the next half hour and find out. But that is not the only discovery we are going to make this morning. And pay attention here because this is the main point of today’s lesson.

Today, we are going to discover that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ means that we, as believers, are guaranteed to be resurrected as well. Let me say that again, in a slightly different way. Because Jesus walked out of that grave. We know we’re walking out of that grave too. And that my friends is the gospel. That my friends is the good news, and all of this good news is tucking into chapter 23 of the book of Leviticus. Believe it or not.

Ok, with all that being said I think we are ready to go ahead and dive into our scripture for this morning. But before we do, let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

Let’s pray.

Now, as we get rolling this morning, let me give you a broad overview to show you how this fits into the final week of Jesus’ life. According to Jewish law there were certain feasts that all Jewish males were required to attend. In other words, if you were Jewish and you lived outside of Jerusalem, maybe in another part of Israel, or in another country all together, there were certain feasts you had to come to Jerusalem to attend.

And those feasts weren’t optional. They weren’t “come if you can” or “show up if it fits your schedule.” These were God‑appointed gatherings, where every Jewish male was commanded to appear before the Lord in the place He chose. By Jesus’ day, that place was unmistakably Jerusalem.

And so when Jesus comes in town for the final week of His life, the week where he would be crucified, He was in town for the Passover feast. This was one of the feasts that God established way back in the days of Moses. In fact, let’s read a couple of verses from Leviticus.

Leviticus 23:4–5 NKJV

4 ‘These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. 5 On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover.

Now, don’t get thrown off by the word, “holy convocations”. That word convocation means something like assemblies. So, the feasts of the Lord, were calls to assemble together at these appointed times of the year. And the first feast of the year was the Passover feast. Now here is probably the hardest thing to understand about these feasts. Passover was a one day feast. As verse 5 states, it was on the 14th of the first month.

So, this was when the Passover Lambs were sacrificed and the Passover meal was eaten. So, Passover was one day, but it was immediately follow by another feast, called the feast of unleavened bread. The feast of unleavened bread began on the following day which was the 15th of the first month. So, Passover was the 14th, and then the day after another feast began called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This feast lasting for seven days. Let’s read about this feast.

Leviticus 23:6 NKJV

6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you must eat unleavened bread.

Pretty simple right. The Passover was the first day, and it was immediately followed by another feast that lasts for seven days. So, we have a total of two feasts that lasted for eight days. However, as if this wasn’t confusing enough, there is another feast tucked into this eight day period. And it is called the Feast of Fristfruits. Let’s read about this feast.

Leviticus 23:10–11 NKJV

10 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. 11 He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.

Now, let me try to make this a simple as I can. During the Feast of Unleavened Bread, In other words, during the week long feast that followed the Passover, another feast gets tucked in. It was called the Feast of Firstfruits. This feast was celebrated by offering the first part of their harvest to the Lord. And just like we read, in verse 10, the Israelites would bring in a sheaf of barley (this was the first gain harvested) and they would give a few stalks of barley to the priest and He would wave it before the Lord. In other words, the Israelites would present the first part of their harvest to the Lord. And when they waved this first part of the harvest before the Lord it would signal that the rest of the harvest would soon be brought it. In other words,

The Firstfruits Guarantees the Harvest

This is the title of the lesson, and it is going to mean so much more to you by the end of the lesson. But for now remember this,

Firstfruits always means, “more to come later”.

Now, I realize that that was a lot of information, but you made it through. The hardest part of the whole lesson is behind us. We had to complete this homework for you to get the full picture just how amazing the word of God is. Now, let me show you a visual chart to help you get a picture of what happened on the week of the Lord’s death and resurrection. And I want you to see exactly how these feasts line up with the death and resurrection of the Lord.

Insert Chart of the Passover Feasts

First let’s talk about the Passover. And at this point, I hope all of us realize that Jesus is the Passover Lamb. In other words, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem that week. He wasn’t just there to celebrate Passover with His disciples. Jesus was there to fulfill the Passover. He came into town because He was the Passover Lamb. He was the Lamb of God come to take away the sins of the world. So, guess what? In fulfillment of these prophetic feasts, Jesus was crucified on Passover. Jesus was crucified on Passover at the same time the Passover lambs were being slain. And the timing of this is so cool.

So, let me give you another amazing detail on how this lines up. When Jewish people were getting ready to celebrate Passover, a few days before they had to go select their lamb. Each family would select their lamb, and they would have to present their lamb to the priests for inspection. And the date this was done was on the 10th of the month (Exodus 12:3), four days before passover. Well guess what? The triumphal entry happened on the 10th. So, on the very day the Israelites were picking out their Passover Lamb and having them inspected, Jesus, the Passover Lamb, presented Himself to the nation of Israel for inspection. In order words, when Jesus rode into on that donkey, on Palm Sunday. This was the Passover Lamb presenting Himself for inspection.

And of course, as we know. Jesus was crucified on Passover. Now before we move all let me quickly give you some details on the spiritual insight of this feast. You see, for the Jewish person, when they celebrated this feast they were celebrating their deliverance from slavery and death in Egypt.

When Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, God sent plagues on the land of Egypt. The final plague was the most devastating—an angel who would pass through all the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn male in every Egyptian home. But God also provided a way to escape this judgment. In order for the angel not to pass through a home, the front door had to be marked with the blood of a lamb.

So the first Passover lambs were sacrificed, and their blood was applied to the doorposts. That blood became the sign. It was the visible marker that judgment had already fallen on an innocent substitute. And when the angel saw the blood, he would not pass through that home. Instead, he would pass over.

So, as the Israelites celebrated this deliverance from slavery and death in Egypt every year as they celebrated the Passover. However, as we know, this Passover feast was pointing to something far greater than just temporary deliverance from slavery in Egypt. It was pointing to eternal salvation made possible by the Blood of the Passover Lamb.

You see, in Egypt that blood of the lamb made deliverance possible for every household that applied the blood to the doorpost. The same is true for every person on this earth today. The blood of the Lamb took away the sins of the world and every man is savable. But to be saved they have to apply the blood to the doorposts of their soul. And so the most important question we need to answer is how. How do we apply the blood to the doorpost of our soul?

We believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is exactly what John 3:16 is all about.

John 3:16 NKJV

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

God, sent His Son to be the Passover Lamb, to take away the sins of the world. So “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

So, hopefully you are picking up now, what I’ve been putting down. When we read about the Passover feast in the book of Leviticus it is pointing to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ that would take away the sins of the world.

Let me put it this way.

The Passover in Leviticus is a foreshadowing of the Gospel, that Christ would die for our sins.

That is why we read the book of Leviticus to open our Easter service. But, stay with me because this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Insert Chart of the Passover Feasts

This brings us to the second feast that we read about in Leviticus. The is the feast of unleavened bread. This was the feast that began the day after Passover and lasted for seven days. And during this feast the Israelites were to eat only unleavened bread. What is unleavened bread? Well, leaven was an agent that was added to dough to make the bread rise. In fact, yeast is considered a type of leaven. And so during this whole feast the Israelites were commanded to eat bread with no leaven. And if you ever seen unleavened bread it looks more like a cracker than it does bread. But this wasn’t the only requirement of the feast of unleavened bread for the Israelites. Listen to what else they were required to do during the feast of unleavened bread. This feast requirement comes from the book of Deuteronomy which says,

Exodus 12:15 NKJV

15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

So, during the feast of Unleavened Bread not only were you not allowed to eat it, you couldn’t have it in your house. You have to get rid of every trace of leaven from your home. Which is strange right? Why would God insist that every bit of leaven had to be removed from your home? Well, stay with me because I’m getting ready to tell you.

You see, leaven causes bread to rise when baked, but leaven also has another effect on bread. It causes bread to spoil. Leaven causes bread to spoil because it adds moisture, introduces living organisms, and creates a porous structure that allows mold and bacteria to grow quickly. Simply put, when leaven is added to bread, it is guaranteed to spoil quickly. Let me put it this way when leaven is added to bread it corrupts the dough and everything that the dough touches.

Here is the point. Leaven in the Bible is a symbol of sin. And just like leaven in dough, sin corrupts everything it touches. And so when the Lord instructs Israel to remove every bit of leaven from their homes, it was symbolic. It was teaching them to remove the sin from their lives now that the Passover Lamb had been sacrificed on their behalf.

So, there are two major things about the Feast of Unleavened bread that I don’t want you to miss.

The unleavened bread points to the sinless sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Based on the sacrifice of Christ believers are called to live holy lives.

So, today we as the church are not under the Law of Moses. We are not obligated to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We don’t have to remove every piece of leaven from our homes and eat unleavened bread for seven days. But spiritually speaking, we are to remove the leaven of sin from our lives. You see, because of Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf, we are now obligated to live holy lives. Because the Passover Lamb was sacrificed on our behalf, we (the church) should now be actively sweeping every trace of sin out of our lives.

Here is a quote from the Unger Bible Dictionary.

As Israel removed leaven, so believers are to put away sin in light of Christ’s redeeming work.

And now you’re probably thinking, “wow, this is all very interesting, but isn’t this kind of a stretch. Are you sure you’re not reading these ideas into the text.” Which is a good point, and I wouldn’t try to read these ideas into the text if it wasn’t taught in the NT. In fact, listen to what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5.

1 Corinthians 5:7–8 NKJV

7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

This is what I what you to realize. The Apostle Paul is connecting these feasts of Israel with the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, “purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened”. Do you see what Paul is saying. He is saying get rid of the sin in your life since you now belong to Christ. We now belong to Christ, and we “are truly unleavened”. We have been sanctified or “set apart” by the boold of the Lamb. Then He goes on, and says, “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.”

The point is that these feasts Passover and the feast of unleavened bread were all pointing to Christ, and they contain lessons for us. The Lesson of the feast of unleavened bread is that we should remove the leaven of sin from our lives now that we belong to Christ. Which is what verse 8 says, “let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

And Paul isn’t commanding to us literally keep the feast. No he is saying, we spiritually kept the feast by removing sin from our lives and living holy lives because Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. I hope and pray this is getting through.

Insert Chart of the Passover Feasts

Ok, you still with me? Take a sip of coffee, shake off the cob webs because we have one feast left, and this is the grand finale. This is what I’ve been building toward for the last 20 mins or so. Let’s talk about the feast of First Fruits. And you should be able to guess what this feast points to. If we talked about the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and since it is Easter morning, what else to we have to talk about? You got it. The resurrection. The feast of First Fruits points to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, the Passover was fulfilled by Jesus death. The Feast of Unleavened bread was fulfilled by Jesus sinless purity. He was the only truly unleavened Bread. And the Feast of First Fruit is fulfilled by His resurrection.

Now I need to go back to Leviticus just for a second, because there is one thing we need to understand about the timing of this feast. According to the Law of Moses,

Leviticus 23:11 NKJV

11 He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.

Listen to the timing of the feast of firstfruits. It happened, “on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it”. So, when did the firstfruits happen? Well, first there was the Passover, then you had the Sabbath, and notice it says, “on the day after the Sabbath”. What was the day after the Sabbath? It’s Sunday. The Feasts of Firstfruits always occurs the Sunday after Passover. Let me say that again. The Feast of Firstfruits always occurs the Sunday after Passover. When was Jesus raised from the dead? The Sunday after Passover.

I’m praying this is getting through because it is one of the most amazing things about the Scriptures. Theses feasts were instituted roughly 1500 years before the Lord Jesus walked the earth. And for 1500 hundred years God was using these feasts to point to the coming Messiah. Again, the gospel message is found in Leviticus chapter 23. And these feasts were fulfilled down to a t.

Jesus, the Lamb of God presented himself for inspection of the 10th. This is when all the passover Lambs were being selected and inspected by the Nation of Israel. The Lord is crucified on Passover, and He was raised from the dead, on the Sunday after Passover, on the day of the Feast of First Fruits.

And some if anyone asked you, why do you believe the Bible instead of other religious books, you can say because of this. Because the Bible has thousands of years of prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ, and no other book has prophecies like this. God has given us all the proof we need that the Bible is the Word of God. Conservative scholars maintain that Jesus fulfilled somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 prophecies when He came the first-time. 300.

But, maybe the best news that we learn about the feast of Firstfruits is found in 1 Corinthians. And this is what I us to walk away with this morning. The Firstfruits always guarantees the Harvest.

The Firstfruits Guarantees the Harvest

You see, because Jesus walked out of that grave we know we will walk out of that grave too. Jesus is the firstfruits of God’s harvest, and make no mistake God’s Harvest of believers will be brought in. Listen to what Paul writes.

1 Corinthians 15:20–21 NKJV

20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.

Notice Paul says, Jesus “has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep”. What Paul means is that Jesus is the first one of all the believers who have died to be resurrected into a new gloried body. But He is the first one and the “first fruits” always means more to come later. Paul says, by man (Adam) came death. In others words, all of us experience death because of Adam. But by Jesus all believers will experience, “the resurrection of the dead”. Again, the feast of firstfruits always means “more to come later”.

1 Corinthians 15:22–23 NKJV

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.

Let verse 23 sink in. I hope it does and I hope it causes you heart to leap for joy. Paul says there is an order in God’s harvest. Christ “the firstfruits” is resurrected first, and “afterward those who are Christ’s at HIs coming”. At Christ’s coming, at the Rapture, we the Church we be resurrected just as Christ was resurrected.

Because Jesus walked out of that grave. We are going to walk out of that grave too. Jesus our “Firstfruits” guarantees our resurrection.

Let’s go back to the title. And I told you this would mean so much more to you by the end.

The Firstfruits Guarantees the Harvest

And don’t forget this.

Firstfruits always means, “more to come later”.

Mark 16:2–3 NKJV

2 Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3 And they said among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?”

Mark 16:4–5 NKJV

4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away—for it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.

Mark 16:6 NKJV

6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.

Church, the Firstfruits has indeed risen. Let us rejoice that the rest of God’s harvest is sure to follow. Amen.

Let’s pray.