Sun.’s Devo - The Feasts

Read: Leviticus 22:17-23:44; Mark 9:30-10:12; Psalm 44:1-8; Proverbs 10:19 God gave them instructions about what kinds of offerings would be acceptable and which would not. Voluntary offerings had a wider category than sin offerings and covenant offerings. He told them all of this before he told them about his feasts when they would bring the offerings. The feasts were set times God chose to meet with his people. They would be rehearsals for events that would happen on these days then and in the future. They were looking forward to the future. The feasts were in three different harvesting seasons. The Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread and First Fruits were in the season of the wheat harvest in the spring. It looked forward and was a shadow of Jesus death, burial and resurrection. The next feast was Pentecost or Feast of Weeks. It was 50 days later and celebrated the barley harvest. It was looking forward to the day that God would give his Holy Spirit to the Church. The last three feasts were in the fall. They were Roshashana or Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippor or Day of Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles. They look to the events of the Rapture, the Judgement Day and the Second Coming of Christ. Every year they were to celebrate these feasts exactly like God said because the details explained what would happen when they were manifested in the future. Every year the events at the time would give them hints to his plans. We still see that today. We see the harvest of souls in the spring and in the fall around the events we call Easter and Thanksgiving. We go through the seasons of planting seed and watering the seed of the Word in people’s hearts. During those times it doesn’t look like anything is happening because it is happening in the heart. We have to be patient farmers and wait for harvest times. But in the last days the harvest will come in such abundance that the plowman will overtake the sower. People will be coming into the kingdom all year long. That is what we are entering into right now! In Mark, we see Jesus tell his disciples again that he is about to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies, and killed, but in three days he would rise from the dead. Once again, they didn’t understand this because they had it in their minds just how it was going to happen. They were going to go to Jerusalem and Jesus was going to become the king of the Jews just like the prophets said. Jesus perceived that his disciples had been discussing who would be the greatest in the Kingdom that Jesus was about to set up. Jesus sat them down and explained that his kingdom was an upside down kingdom and the greatest would be the servant. Whoever welcomed and honored the least or smallest would be welcoming and honoring him and his father. John told him that someone else had been caught casting out demons in his name and they made him stop. Jesus told him to let the man use his name to do a miracle because it was impossible to use his name for good and then to speak evil of him. He warned them of the punishment of causing someone else to sin or be deceived. The penalty was hell. In the end our works will all be tested with fire and what in our lives will come through the fire as gold or will be burned up as wood, hay and stubble. The Pharisees came to Jesus with a trick question. They wanted to know if a man should divorce his wife. The law of Moses clearly gives a man the right to do this if he writes her a writ of divorcement legally taking care of her expenses. The way they were divorcing then was just putting their wives out and not doing it legally and taking no responsibility for their livelihood. Jesus explained that God gave them the way out only because their hearts were hard and they could not choose to love or forgive. Divorce was never God’s will. Since they were not legally divorcing their wives, they were causing both parties to commit adultery. Lord, may we honor the least and choose to serve. Advancement in your kingdom comes from you and you look at the heart. May our hearts be broken for others and for You.