Live with God's Sacred Calendar & Timeline
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Numbers 28:1-11, 16-19, 26; 29:1,7,12-13,35
I imagine many people this spring did a much more thorough spring clean. Time on our hands we organize and purge. It’s a simple management principle - a place for everything and everything in its place, whether a work bench, or a kitchen cupboard. We organize our space not just to be neat and make a place beautiful to be in, but to work well and be effective. We saw in Numbers 1-10 organizing their lives around God’s tent, like nuclear reactor in centre - knowing the boundaries the ways to be clean, purified. Organization f the camp for wilderness journey. Kind of surprising think get on with journey just 2 weeks to promised land, but one year. God preparing his people , organize your life around me. Kind of like training of kids before head out to college or work own apartment.
But that generation failed, new generation of faith, open door to promised land, no death recorded, any problem consult God. Remember surprising first story - about daughters of Zelophehed beginning and end of this section - remarkable bold, yet humble faith and obedience, and seeking inheritance blessing. Well, before God’s people go into the promised land, what is it God wants them to get right. Not just space in their life for the Holy. But God's people must organize their time.
I don’t doubt time has been a little different for you this spring. I have neighbours who aren’t able to go into work, and they ask me what day is it today. They all merge together. Kind of loose sense of purpose if just your little projects, and recreations, no special gatherings of family or friends, for a awhile not even shopping days. That’s just not how life works - especially before all our modern conveniences. Have wash day, market day, have Saturday afternoon recreation. Talk to someone grew up in Scotland, have time at home to prepare for Sunday worship and you’d have worship day. Not only a certain rhythm to having time organized into a calendar like that. But those days actually communicate a purpose a direction to your life. Time not just a circle around and around with no point. Leads us somewhere. It’s worth thinking about what does you calendar communicate about your life priorities, what you really value, your direction. God has a plan for that you know.
You’d think that Israel on the brink of the Promise Land, about to engage in war, about to come in to inheritance, have to build their homesteads, begin farming life, establish their town halls and such. They have so much to do and you’d think that, this next section after the 2nd Census and example of faithfulness - just like the first you’d have laws about in the desert, now you’d expect laws about warfare or laws about living in the land. But strangely we have laws about time, and in particular about worship time. In your life too, you may say I’ve got all this work to do, I’ve got my life to establish, when I’ve settled down, when I’ve finished my work, then I will really make time for and give attention to my worship life, some day, down the road, but some day never comes. But God before the first steps into the promised land, gives this new generation, most weren’t born, hand’t heard the giving of the laws of worship and sacrifice, God gives the game plan for time, how they are to organize it
KEY TRUTH: God’s people must organize their time to meet with God in worship, through sacrifice.
A. You give yourself to what matters most in your life.
This is true of God’s people but also of every human being that’s ever lived. We are created to worship. Wired to have some ultimate being, experience, person in our lives - and we orientated ourselves to that one being, our affection for that being - drives our life. Could be an idol, but even an idol represents something - fertility, pleasure, success, self, or it could be the living God. We give our time, money, focus, our heart… to something greater than us!
But look at Numbers 28:2 “Command the people of Israel and say to them, ‘My offering, my food for my food offerings, my pleasing aroma, you shall be careful to offer to me at its appointed time.’
“Command the people of Israel and say to them, ‘My offering, my food for my food offerings, my pleasing aroma, you shall be careful to offer to me at its appointed time.’
That was a common way for Israel’s neighbours to talk about their worship too, people brought food to feed their gods, their sacrifices were to win the favour and appease the wrath of their local gods. Israel’s neighbors believed that sacrifices nourished their gods, and that “the deity needed to be cared for so that he/she could focus his/her energies on the important work of holding forces of chaos at bay.”Truly it was a mechanical way to make the gods owe you, you could manipulate the gods, who need the sacrifices to live. That’s what our idols do too mechanically manipulate - give time money, attention, think you’ll get the good life.
But notice what Gods says about His food, his food offerings, at the appointed times: they are my pleasing aroma. The goal isn’t to manipulate God with these sacrifices. False gospel of health and wealth says you can control God. God’s food here is strictly symbolic of gratitude and seeking fellowship with him, for God has no need for food offerings (Ps. 50:7–9). Nor do Israel’s rituals help hold the universe together.
But can you recall as a child, your mother is cooking your favourite meal, come up to the door, that aroma already assaulting your senses, but step in and that smell, almost taste it already and mouth starts to water. And family is gathering and you are going to sit down and commune with each other over a meal. That is how God describes this time that is to punctuate the ties of His people with meeting times with God.
We know the whole purpose of the tabernacle and organization of space was so God could dwell in their mist. But do you understand have a sacred calendar in your life, the OT or the NT one it’s for the same purpose? Exodus 29:46 describes the daily offerings morning and evening and concludes with this . And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.
Exodus 29:46 And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.
And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.
But God says your calendar can be divided into two; there are the regular rhythm worship with God, and there are the special festival days with God. And God gives them three of each. Let’s look at the regular frequency, a rhythm, learning how if we arrange our tie for the LORD he will dwell among us!
B. Keep The Calendar-Rhythm of Frequent Worship: Daily, Weekly, Monthly
i. The first way God organizes times for His people is
i. daily worship.
Here God uses some interesting language. Our days are to begin and end with worship. All of these ways are corporate and for all God’s people. There are more personal individual expressions, but as a people, at the tabernacle, with the priests representing the people, a sacrifice of a lamb was to be made at the beginning of the day, and that aroma go up as it burned the whole day, and then another lamb at the end of the afternoon as their day closed at sunset, twilight. Just like the space of clean unclean, holy and regular - all touched by God’s holiness and needed instruction on how to cross the boundaries properly. So too the boundaries of the day and the night, just like in the creation, where God brought order out of chaos, you worship of God morning and evening, acknowledging your need for his forgiveness and grace - atonement, relishing in the fellowship it brings - that's to be a get up in the morning in God’s presence, and end the day reconciled and resting in him. With each lamb would be a grain offering, but also look at it:
Numbers 28:7 Its drink offering shall be a quarter of a hin for each lamb. In the Holy Place you shall pour out a drink offering of strong drink to the Lord.
Its drink offering shall be a quarter of a hin for each lamb. In the Holy Place you shall pour out a drink offering of strong drink to the Lord.
Now the first generation got all these regulations too. But now they are going to be not wilderness dwellers, but coming into a land that overflows, Psalm 23, but not a cup but a land overflowing - with milk and honey. And God is saying -that daily getting and using your wealth can destroy you - prosperity as great a test as poverty. So bring the first of your fruits to me, and now added to the detail of how to do this, don’t bring me your least valuable, wounded sheep, going to die anyway, doesn’ matter to Lord, don’t bring moldy wheat, and our verse don’t bring the worst wine because it is poured out on the floor before the Lord as a libation. but the best and the strongest.
Well, congregation, we will see how the animal sacrifices, grain sacrifices, wine libation, all fulfilled in Christ, but do you have the same meeting with God morning and evening? Tabernacle, temple, temple destroyed, then what? Synagogues- no sacrifices, but morning and evening prayers, which see Peter in the Books of Acts still using those set times. Do you? God wants you to organize your day and night with morning and evening meeting with him. Think of the animal sacrifices given with prayer, what about our meals? Daily show thanksgiving to God and signify daily compliance with the covenant
ii. But God in creation didn’t just create morning and evening. But also the seven day week with
ii. Weekly Sabbath Worship
That’s not a human invention, but a divine ordinance. How many lambs on the Sabbath day, it’s doubled isn’t it. Why? Interesting that God also says:
Numbers 28:10 this is the burnt offering of every Sabbath, besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.
this is the burnt offering of every Sabbath, besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.
Sabbath worship existed before Mt. Sinai and a tabernacle. People gathered in a special way to rest worship and fellowship and here God is saying, just because you can worship God anywhere and any tie, doesn’t mean that you don’t keep one day holy even as God does. And just because you’ve kept Sabbath doesn’t mean you don’t have that day to day personal worship on your own on the Sabbath day.
But what is the last regular rhythm worship that God commands Israel to organize their time with. This is probably new to you. But Israel had the regular weekly Sabbath, 1 and seven, like we still do, but they also had special Sabbaths, somewhere high Sabbaths that followed the day after a very special festival holiday but others were worship days added to those weekly ones, at the
iii. Monthly New Moon
, and the beginning of their lunar months. And these were quite a big deal with two bulls, seven male lambs a year old without blemish.
Now you probably remember that Paul says some Jewish Christians still regarded those days as legitimate days to worship- he’s not talking about weekly Sabbath days - the Lord’s Day. He’s talking about those festival Sabbaths and those new moon Sabbaths. Listen to Colossians 2:16
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
We read that those high Sabbaths and new moons were days to seek God in a concentrated way for God’s people in the OT. Look at 2 Kings 4:23 Elijah is sought after by the Shunamite.. and the people say: What, why now?
And he said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath.” She said, “All is well.”
Every day is a day to seek God, but their are to be special and heighten seasons when we do this and do it together with other believers! ie. Douglas Bond - greatest expression of who we are - what we do on the …
The fact that each month was such a time hearkens back to genesis again. The solar days and the lunar months - are not ust happenstance of nature - why did God give us a sun that we rotate around every 24 hours, why a moon that swings around us every 30 days? Look at it: Gen 1:14 “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,
All of these regular rhythm worship times speak of key transition times in our lives, night to day, day to night, a passing of a new week, , cycle of month within the year. Any crossing of boundaries in our lives; whether space, or time, or season of life - become teen adult, graduate, retire, move, in the week... sacred to every day, or - a a time for special vigilance where chaos threatens to undo the created order God put in place. Even the sign of a month, is a a time to recognize God has a new season and I am seeking His will for it. And that brings us to the second half of this sermon, God has not just regular rhythm worship to order our time, but he has significant festivals that divide the year and give us our life purpose!
C. Keeping the Festival-Timeline for Life-Direction
If those three regular rhythm communicates how Isreal must align itself with God’s embedded cosmic order, participating in His creating and sustaining work, the 7 Festival call God’s people to mark and live in to God’s purpose not in creation but in His special dealing in redeeming His people in history.
God begins with the first month of their religious calendar. They are to celebrate the holidays as they enter a land of abundance peace. Those holidays are to give them their identity and life purpose, keeping God in the midst of Israel. The festival year divides in two with three holidays in each. 7 festivals with 3 haj pilgrimage week long festivals - Passover, Pentecost, in first half, and Feast of Tabernacles at the end. First six of them inaugurate the new age of the Messiah: Col 2:17
These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
i. Passover/ Pesech & ii. Unleavened Bread?
Christ called his own death the Exodus that he was accomplishing
Luke 9:31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
John points out how not a bone of Christ broken, as would usually happen to hasten death, in order to make clear he was dying on the final and perfect Passover Lamb. We celebrate this atonement like no other day!
But 7 days of unleavened bread, sacrifices each day., but beginning and end, 1st and 7th day Numbers 28:18,25
On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work,
And on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work.
The NT tells us that we are to keep the feast, casting out the old leaven of old life habits that stick around. Leaven keep one batch for next baking -s tick around. So clean out all the leaven of the old life, and now new leaven - Christ speaks of the Kingdom of God like leaven working through yeast.
1 Cor 5:7-8 … For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Christ warned of the old leaven of Pharisees but calls us for remembering new identity and purpose s and way of life.
He is the fulfillment of all these sacrifices, but especially the atoning Lamb. Every Lord’s Day remember that sacrifice only way to - make it a special Easter - I am the new Israel - led out of the slavery of sin into freedom and nation of priest and kings.
iii. Feast of Weeks /iv. Pentecost./SHAVUOT
This was the second great national feast, also called here the day of first fruits, at the end of the first harvest, the barely harvest. But what you need to understand about this feast is what it spoke of who Israel was - God would given them the land, the blessing, the prosperity. It looked forward to these blessings. 7 Sabbaths times 7 - completed time of sojourn, spoke of the time that God met with them in the wilderness Journey, came to celebrate his revelation 50 days, after the feast of unleavened bread. The day after that an eight day marked the beginning of a new era of grace and God’s revelation about how to live in that grace!
Listen to the significance of 50 days. - feast of weeks = 5oth days, 7x7 plus one = According to Jubilees, written probably in the second century BC, God’s covenants with Noah (Jub. 6.17), Abraham (15.2), and Moses (1.1–2) were all completed on the same day of the Jewish calendar—the Feast of Weeks. Dating the giving of the law on Sinai fifty days after the departure from Egypt The title of the book, “Jubilees,” is itself a reference to the number fifty (seven times seven plus one), and it contains fifty chapters. Thus, the celebration recalls the covenant with Noah in which God vowed that “as long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest … shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22). It also recalls the promise to Abraham that God will give them the land of Canaan (12:1), a promise whose partial fulfillment is celebrated in Deut. 26:8–9. And finally, it celebrates the giving of the law to Moses on Sinai, an event also associated with the cloud and fire of God’s presence.
Spirit poured out… not peace offerings but all for the LORD burnt offerings…centrally a celebration of God’s guidance of Israel, both directly and through the law, toward the fulfillment of God’s purposes for it. The harvest of Deut. 26, the pillar of cloud and fire, and the covenants are all symbols of the guiding care of God for his people. The New Testament Feast of Pentecost begins the fulfillment of the “new covenant” prophesied by Jeremiah (31:33). The tongues of fire and loud sound recall the events of Sinai, but rather than the law being given the Spirit is instead poured out on all
Those are the festivals of the first half o the year and they find fulfillment in Christ ministry in our lives - and like Israel though don’t celebrate those rituals, these should mark our identity and vocation. But the festivals of the second part of the year, point forward, especially that last one the feast of trumpets. Chapter 29
v. The Feast of Trumpets:
The seventh month, now celebrated as Rosh Hashanah - or the Jewish New Year, was when the last harvest were completed,fruits, olive trees. And with the harvest coming in, as a new season of plowing and planting and then dry spell. New Year of the civil calendar. And how are these signaled it is literally the sounding of the trumpets: Numbers 29:1
“On the first day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a day for you to blow the trumpets,
It speaks of what will happen on the Day of the Lord when Christ returns. And we are to be a people who aren’t just trudging through meaningless cycle of days and months and years. But progressing to the Day of the LORD. Joel tell us that this is the end of the ages and we will all have to give a reckoning not just of what we’ve done in the year, but in the life God’s given us. There were be terrible judgment not only on the nations opposed to the LORD but on God’s people, like the Book of Numbers who rebelled and ignored the LORD.
So like the book of Numbers that judgment doesn’t just fall on the nations but on Israel too. But it is called the feast of ingathering because now all the summer fruit most important of all grapes and olives are gathered. In light of the grapes of wrath, this was seen a symbolizing the day of judgment and penitence for all - give an account of the actions of past year and life.
v. Then the tenth Day of the Seventh Month comes and that is the one great
vi. Day of Atonement
NOW INSTEAD OF DO NO WORK, there is the qualification that now in agricultural land, do know Regular work. And though the bull of atonement for the high priest - which is a sin offering , and though the two goats offered - still another offering of a bull is given as a burnt offering - for fellowship and thanksgiving to God. It shows us that only Christ’s final sacrifice is complete, blood of bulls and sheep can’t purify us - all looking to the perfect sacrifice. In justice he remembers mercy and covers sin, and as a result we are to live lives of repentance, what afflict yourselves mean. !
vii. But then comes the greatest festival of festivals,
vii. SUKKOT/ Feast of Tabernacles Booths… which our lives, our church this world should be pointed towards. It is the one festivals that Christ has not yet consummated.
Look at the chart of the sacrifices! There are double the number of lambs compared to any other festival. 14 vs. 7 in the one week holiday. Representing the double blessing of harvest and double honour from God. The total of 70 bulls offered plus one. 70 nations of Genesis 10 and then plus one for Israel. God is working a salvation for all nations. But each day the numbers are reduced, right to one burnt offering, one bull, ram! Picturing that all the sacrifices can’t remove sin, but only the one sacrifice of Christ.
So important the Jews just called it THE FEAST. They build booths and remember their wilderness sojourn of the book of Numbers. It pointed to people who realize how short and fragmentary this life is . For ages to come they would leave their nice permanent homes and remember what this life really is.
Then each day they would process in parade to the altar and with psalm and prayers - call out Hosanna - Save US. Each day the large number of sacrifice would be reduced. Pointing to Christ’s one and final sacrifice. Then on the eighth day - after all the judgment remembered, all of God’s promises will be consummated and all creation will enter into the REST OF GOD’s Promises. Zechariah 14:9 paints the picture this way:
And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.
As a result all the people left after the battle Zech 14:16
Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths.
Then comes the final victory of God, when evil is destroyed and even the most common things and people like you and me - it all becomes holy to the LORD, and Christ will be all and in all! Zech pictured it this way Zech 14:20
And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “Holy to the Lord.” And the pots in the house of the Lord shall be as the bowls before the altar.
DO you see it God begins the year with Passover - redeeming us buying back out of life of sin for a purpose, and he concludes the year reminding us that that purpose - you and I holy to the LORD in all the earth will be reached through Christ.
And so these feasts fit the story of the whole book: God says blow the trumpets in Numbers 10 , but Israel herself is found as the one rebelling and being judged. And by the seventh rebellion, judgment is complete but what happens at the end of it - remember 6th rebellion sign of the snake on the pole and all who look to it are saved. And the 7th Phineas make s atonement and the second generation is accepted by God. And now God says with the feast of tabernacles, look forward I will bring you the promised land, the kingdom of heaven, you still have to dwell lint tents now - but live your life for the glory that is coming!
Do you see it, the feasts and sacrifices the sacred calendar of Israel was the catechism of Isreal Sanctifying time unto the LORD - message of God’s grace, holiness, atonement, purification, future heaven - all pictured their pointing to Christ.
And we as Christians punctuating our day with worship morning and evening, weekly Lord’s Day, seasons to evaluate ; and with New Passover of Christ Death and Resurrection the celebration of the Pentecost - for giving us not of the law but of the Spirit , all pointing to Christ’s Second Coming - when Christ’s reign will be complete in this world.
John cried it as Christ came into the word:
Numbers Festival of Booths: Sukkot (29:1–40)
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.… Prepare the way of the Lord.… Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?… Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees” (Matt. 3:2–10)
We’ve celebrated Good Friday Easter, we’ve celebrated Pentecost. But what is the next church season? Advent - not really about Christ’ first coming, but at the end of our church calendar - it marks us looking for Christ bringing the fulfillment of the Feast of Booths.
DO you understand it and live your life according to this timetable: In that great harvest and ingathering at the end of the age (14:17–18), “all nations will come and worship before you, for your judgments have been revealed” (15:4). After judgment and atonement comes the great feast, the eighth day, the day of resurrection, the marriage feast of the Lamb (19:7).
Oh people, total annual sacrifice here as 113 bulls, 32 rams, and 1,086 lambs, more than a ton of flour, and a thousand bottles of oil and wine. God doesn’t require this because he needs it, but for our benefit. He shows us how in Christ we are to be a new people with a new job. He shows how we can find the favour of God and be purified. Holy days served to form Israel spiritually. Holy days in the Christian calendar can do the same for us.
Isreal was coming int her inheritance, and organizing their lives, space and time would enable God to continue dwelling with them.
The time between Weeks and Tabernacles was a busy period when Israel laboured for the harvest. Similarly, between Pentecost and the second coming labourers are sent to reap the harvest among the Gentiles (Mt 9:37–38; 13:30–39; Lk. 10:2; Jn. 4:35). At the end of the age, the harvest will be gathered in and the weeds thrown into the fire (Mt. 13:39; Mk. 4:29; Rev. 14:15).
The harvest was also a time to remember that God had brought them into the land and blessed them bountifully there (this was why they lived in booths, recalling their journey to the land). Similarly, at the end of the age, God’s people will rejoice in him who has brought them into the eternal kingdom. Thus the Feast of Tabernacles celebrates the inheritance, the key theme in chs. 26–36