The Feast of Weeks

00:03 Amen. Church, say amen this morning. Praise the Lord. Thank you for those songs this morning, Brother Justin. And thank you as a congregation for singing out. It was a good morning to sing. Amen? The sun is bright. The weather is clear. And we had rain this week. 00:21 And you know it's still a good morning to sing even when none of those things happen. Amen? It's always a good morning to praise the Lord. And we look forward to what the Lord has for us this morning through the message. I want to greet Kevin and Jean Baker especially, pastor out of Brownsville Church in Oregon. 00:39 I understand they are here for maybe two Sundays. I tried to get him to preach one of these Sundays when he was here. Since I'm going to be preaching there next Sunday, he should preach here next Sunday and do a pulpit exchange. But anyway, we'll honor his request to have a break. 00:58 And so appreciate each one that is here this morning. And if you're a visitor this morning, we welcome you as well as our home folks. And I want to have you turn in your copies of the Scriptures to the book of Leviticus this morning. Leviticus chapter 23. Can somebody tell me what last Sunday was? Biblically? 01:20 Pentecost. 01:21 Pentecost. And that means this Sunday is the Sunday after Pentecost. There's not really anything specifically significant except I wasn't preaching that last Sunday. And so this morning we're going to look at the Feast of Weeks. The Feast of Weeks or what has been also called the Feast of Pentecost. 01:40 And the Bible says in Leviticus chapter 23, verse 15 through 22, "And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath..." What Sabbath was that? The Sabbath of the Feast of First Fruits. Remember the First Fruits was a relationship to the resurrection of Christ. 01:59 "So 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 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord. 02:19 You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be a fine flour. They shall be baked with leaven. They are the First Fruits to the Lord. You shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year without blemish, one young bull and two rams. 02:39 They shall be as a burnt offering to the Lord with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the Lord. Now you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering. 02:56 The priests shall wave them with the bread of the First Fruits as a wave offering before the Lord with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priests. And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you. You shall do no customary work on it. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations. 03:17 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger. I am the Lord, your God." This feast before us this morning is the last feast in the spring feast. 03:38 The last feast of the spring cluster of feasts. There are three more feasts after this and those are in the fall of the year. And so sometime this fall we'll probably be ministering on those. But the first one, of course, is the Feast of Passover, which signified the death of the Lamb of God slain for our sins to deliver us from sin, 03:58 to redeem us from the land of destruction, spiritual Egypt, where we had been held captive by a slave master of Satan himself, to deliver us from sin so that we might walk in the relationship of forgiven people delivered from sin and redeemed, as we sang this morning. And then there is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, 04:19 which was right on the heels of Passover. Unleavened Bread signified the burial of the sinless Christ, the Christ, the Passover Lamb, who was sinless and who was buried and His body did not see corruption. 04:36 It was in no way corrupted and who expects a sinless people as ourselves being an offering to God in the New Testament. Then that was followed by the Feast of First Fruits, those three clustered right there together in a special cluster of feasts. 04:56 This signified the resurrection of Christ, who was presented to God as the First Fruits from the dead and the guarantee of the harvest that would come forth after Him. 05:06 It was the preliminary harvest with the guarantee and assurance that there was more to come, speaking of our resurrection from the dead as we had in our lesson this morning from 1 Corinthians 15. 05:20 Now we come to the last of the spring feasts, the Feast of Pentecost, counting seven weeks plus one day to get 50 days after the Sabbath of the Feast of First Fruits. So 50 days where you get the word "penta," which means 50 or five or 50. 05:42 And so we call it Pentecost. Pentecost, the Feast of Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks. Seven weeks plus a day. 05:51 It's also in Hebrew known as Shavuot, which also means weeks in Hebrew or Chag Hashuvot, which is the Feast of Pentecost or weeks in the Hebrew language. So the feast past and present. We have the Scriptures concerning this feast, which corresponds with the wheat harvest. 06:13 Now you remember that the Feast of First Fruits corresponded with the barley harvest. Now they went out to the barley fields, which was the first crop of the spring after the winter had passed. And they brought forth that grain offering and waved the sheaf before the Lord. 06:27 It was of individual grains in the sheaf of an unbaked or unrefined, uncompacted offering. Or it had been milled with fine flour to wave before the Lord as well. 06:45 But here we're to bring a grain offering that is actually baked in bread. And I thought about entitling the message this morning, "Baking Bread and Overcoming Babel." And so we're going to get to that overcoming Babel. But the breaking bread, baking, not breaking bread, but baking bread, 07:06 the baking of the bread was to bake this into two loaves and wave those loaves with leaven. Now up to this point, the sacrifices that have been made have been without leaven. But we know that Christ Himself was without leaven. And He wants us to be without leaven. But how many of you know that the church, 07:25 the church, which is what we're going to see in Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, the church doesn't have all the leaven out of it quite yet. Amen? We strive for a sinless church. But we all have, we have amongst us that old leaven, which still wants to do its work in the church today. 07:45 And so the holy convocation was held where they would come together and they would worship the Lord together, do no common work. So this was a big deal. This was a significant event in the life of the Jewish people. They would bring burnt offerings for a sweet-smelling savor to God. 08:05 Those offerings consisted of young bulls, rams, seven lambs of the first year, a kid goat for the sin offering, and then two more male lambs for peace offerings. A lot of different sacrifices, burnt offerings being offered here as they celebrated this feast. They would have a drink offering poured out before the Lord, 08:25 a grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil. But like I said, instead of single grains of barley, this would be baked into two loaves. And instead of unleavened bread, it was to have leaven. It was unleavened to represent Christ. It was leavened in our case or in this case to represent us, 08:48 to represent us. There are those who would believe that we can come to the place where we have the old nature completely eradicated, where that is we lose all potential to sin. And I don't find that in the Scriptures. 09:01 But we do have the freedom from sin, that we don't have to sin and we don't have to be under the control and domination and influence of sin. But that potential and tendency still remains in us. So after the destruction of the temple, things changed. 09:21 This was supposing that there was a temple to bring these things to. And of course, the temple was destroyed in 70 AD. And so what do we do now with the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Pentecost? Well, the Jews came to celebrate it as the anniversary of the giving of the law. 09:40 And so they were celebrating that the law was given in the third month of their deliverance from Egypt. And so you had Passover and unleavened bread as First Fruits. And then those were in the first month, about halfway through the first month. 09:56 And then by the time you get to the third month, then they had the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost. And third month after their deliverance from Egypt. And the two loaves came to be associated with the two tablets of stone, the two tablets of stone upon which the law was given in that form. 10:18 And so they began to celebrate the giving of the law. And in modern times, it became more elaborate. 10:24 Synagogues are decorated with greenery and floral arrangements become a reminder of the trees and the greenery and the vegetation that covered Mount Sinai and the grass and so on. 10:41 They rejoice over this beautiful setting where the law was given. And they have kind of ornamented it to being a beautiful setting. What they don't stop to think about and realize was that that beautiful setting was probably not so beautiful when God's presence got done with giving the law. 11:01 It was a mountain of smoke and fire. I think it probably consumed all the vegetation. But nevertheless, they celebrate it with greenery. And the Scriptures are read during the Feast of Weeks in modern days. Scriptures about the glory of God, Scriptures about the glory of the law, 11:21 Scriptures such as Ezekiel 3:12, "Then the Spirit took me up. 11:24 And I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing saying, 'Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place.'" By the way, it's fascinating to me that it's the term "a great rushing" because we're going to see in Acts chapter 2 in a few minutes that there was a rushing mighty wind. 11:44 So there was a great rushing Ezekiel talked about. "And the glory of the Lord came from his place." They read Scriptures such as Habakkuk 3:3-5, "God came from Temmen and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise and his brightness was as the light. 12:05 He had horns coming out of his hand and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence and burning coals went forth at his feet." And so it's Scriptures being read about the glory of the Lord in the giving of the law, in the manifestation of his presence on Mount Sinai. 12:25 The book of Ruth is also read. Why would Ruth be read? Well, one of the reasons is because she was there at the harvest. And so she was also a proselyte and she was a one who was a needy person. In fact, at the end of this passage there in verse 22, 12:45 it talks about not reaping the corners of your fields and do super gleaning of all of the off overflow of your crop and leave it for the poor people. 12:59 You remember how it was in the book of Ruth, how she was with the gleaners who went out to glean the cast-offs from the rich man's harvest. And so that would maybe be one of the reasons that she is read, her book is read. But also she embraced the law. You remember she said, 13:19 "Hitherto shall your people be my people and your God will be my God." And so they read the book of Ruth. Now here's something I found interesting is that food is a big deal in the Feast of Weeks. Food is a big deal, especially dairy products, especially dairy products. 13:38 And here's some interesting things about their food. They would use dairy products because they believe that God's law is like milk and honey to the soul. One of the things I appreciate about the Jewish faith historically, and it's interesting in modern times as well, is the symbolism, 13:58 the symbolism of their faith and the things that they do, meaning this, this means this, this means that. As you've been able to see through our series on the feast, that there's a lot of symbolism. A symbolism for the sake of symbolism is not all that helpful. But symbolism to help make a lesson, teach a lesson, is very biblical that God said many times. 14:19 In fact, we do it with communion, "Do this in remembrance of me." And so I think we do well to embody symbolic things in our faith for the question and answers that come from our children and keeping the faith alive even in our own lives. 14:39 And so they believe that God's law is like milk and honey to the soul. So dairy products were important. Cheesecakes and cheese blinces. Blinces would be those cheese-filled pancakes that are fried in a skillet and cheese dough pockets like a ravioli filled with cheese. 14:58 Now you're getting hungry. You're getting hungry. Don't become Jewish just because of the cheese. But here's some more symbolism. Some more symbolism is that the dough in these raviolis, cheese-filled raviolis, is baked into triangles, baked into triangles signifying three, 15:21 three parts of the Scripture, the law, the prophets, and the writings. Three groups that the law was given to: the priests, the Levites, and the Israelites. 15:36 Three people in the law-giving family: three children, Miriam, Aaron, Moses, three representing that the law was given through the third son, Moses. Three months, the third month of the Jewish year, 15:57 is symbolized by these three cornered raviolis. Now the problem is they missed the most important one. 16:07 The most important one is the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which you see coming to fruition and to fulfillment in the triune God being gifting or gifting the Holy Spirit to the church in the book of Acts chapter 2. 16:27 They would also stay up all night discussing Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, the law, the Pentateuch, drinking coffee and eating and having discussions. 16:37 And at dawn, they would make their way, and this goes back to the ancient times, at dawn, they would make their way from that night of sleeplessness and of fellowship around the Scripture. They would make their way to the temple for the prayer of blessing, for the prayer of blessing. 16:56 Now here's what I want you to see is that just like Passover was fulfilled to the hour or to the exact time, insomuch that when Jesus was being crucified, the Passover lambs were being slain. 17:16 And insomuch that the Feast of Unleavened Bread, while they were sweeping their homes from leaven, Christ was being buried without decay. 17:31 And just like at that moment when they were waving the First Fruits on the Feast of First Fruits, at that time, Christ was being presented to the Father in his resurrection. 17:46 Just like that, at the time when the law or when the blessing, the prayer of blessing in this Feast of Weeks was being offered, Christ was sending forth his Spirit. Down to the day, possibly down to the hour when those things were being fulfilled, 18:08 the symbols were being partaken of, 18:11 the substance of the symbols was being delivered to us in the faith. This is going to be important when we come to the fall feast because it's going to be some precision there, I believe, when it comes to the Feast of Trumpets, 18:31 the Day of Atonement, and Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles. So there you have the Feast of Weeks. Now what is this all about? Well, this is to understand the fulfillment, we need to go to Acts chapter 2, which is where we read about the Day of Pentecost. 18:52 So when we read about the Day of Pentecost, it's not happening in a vacuum. It's not happening just willy-nilly on its own out of the blue. It is founded in the Feasts of Israel, which mark the Messiah and the important aspects of the doctrines of the Messiah, 19:11 the teaching of the Messiah, the reality of the Messiah, the identity of the Messiah. And so here we have in Acts chapter 2, when the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. I want you to pay special attention with one accord in one place. That'll be important in a little bit. 19:31 And suddenly, there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. The word "mighty" there has the idea of a violent wind. This was a roaring wind. Now it doesn't say that it was actually a breeze wind, 19:50 that you could actually feel it in the natural. It doesn't mean that the drapes on the windows were blowing. It says it's a sound as of a rushing mighty wind. 20:01 God's presence was impacting the world around them, and their consciousness of God was heightened as this mighty wind came rushing in or as the sound of a mighty wind. And it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 20:19 "Then there appeared unto them or to them divided tongues as of fire, and one sat upon each of them." This word "divided" has the idea or in the King James, it's called "cloven tongues of fire," tongues like fire, and it says they were being separated. So where this vision of fire came from and what happened to it initially, 20:39 it was being separated and distributed to those in the room. And the fire, think about the fire, speaks of consuming impurities and empowerment. What is more powerful than a fire? What is more powerful? What is more refining than a fire? 21:00 This is the prophecy that John the Baptist spoke of Jesus in Matthew 3:11, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 21:21 His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor. 21:26 His winnowing fan, wind, wind, blow out the imperfections and the impurities and the chaff, and he is gathering his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Baptism of the Holy Spirit represented by fire, 21:47 the fire of judgment, the fire of cleansing, and the wind of cleansing. The Spirit became active in a greater way than he had ever been active in people's lives before. In chapter 2:4, he says, "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them other utterance." They were all filled, 22:09 not just some of them. You see, the Holy Spirit had been active in the Old Testament. He had been active in the Old Testament, but now his activity is spread out among many and not just the few. Before, his activity was limited to a few. Now his activity is spread out to all. 22:30 Before, his activity was kind of related to leaders, priests, and kings, and Levites, people with a special anointing, a special calling. But now it is available to us commoners. The working of the Spirit is for young and old, 22:49 for he says later on here, quoting Joel, "That your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams." And before, it was pretty much limited to men, but now the Holy Spirit is available to all, to men and women. 23:03 He goes on to say, "I will pour out my Spirit on your all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and speak God's word." And so a transformation of the human heart at the deepest level of our existence is where these tongues came from, 23:24 the Holy Spirit speaking, giving them utterance of a change, evidence of a change of life, a change of heart. 23:32 You remember what Isaiah said when his lips were touched by the coal from the altar? He said, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among the people of unclean lips. But my eyes have seen the Lord," and it transformed him in his heart, in his innermost being. 23:52 The Bible says of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, "That out of your innermost being, down in your heart of hearts, down in the pit of your existence, comes forth living water," Jesus said. A transformation at the deepest level of the human heart. Verse 5, "And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, 24:13 devout men from every nation under heaven. They came from various places. They came, verse 9, the Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya joining Cyrene, 24:33 visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs from every corner of the then-known world in the Roman Empire, devout Jews who gathered together in confusion." Now this was a new thought when I was doing some reading and studying. 24:52 Did everybody hear this wind, or did just the people in the upper room hear the wind? Well, we're not sure, but it says, verse 6, "When this sound occurred, the multitude came together." Could the masses in the community hear the wind or hear the rushing mighty wind? 25:12 We don't know for sure, but it seems to imply that that's what brought them together in amazement, astonishment, bewildered over how these Galileans could speak their language. How can these Galileans communicate with us, these ignorant and unlearned men? 25:39 These ignorant and unlearned men, by the way, that's what they were called later on in the book of Acts. When they beheld these ignorant and unlearned men, they took note that they had been with Jesus. And so what does this mean? In fact, the word there "confused" when the sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused. 25:59 The Greek word can actually mean "stirred up" because everyone heard them speak in his own language. The word "confused" can also mean "to throw into disorder." Well, I'll tell you what. You throw this large group of people. This is one of the three feasts that a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was expected. 26:19 Passover was one of those feasts where you were to come to Jerusalem. Feast of Weeks and Pentecost was where you were to come to Jerusalem. And in the fall, the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot, when you were to come to Jerusalem. So here you had people in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, which is a symbol and a picture of the giving of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church. And here it is happening right before their eyes. 26:41 Wow. What a day to have been in Jerusalem. What does this mean? What does this mean? They were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, "Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?" If you go over in verse 12, 27:02 again, it says they were all amazed and perplexed. You get the picture that they were amazed and amazed and bewildered and perplexed. What is going on? We have never seen a Feast of Weeks celebrated like this before. What's going on? 27:22 Oh, there were the skeptics and the mockers. Oh, these guys are just drunk, drunk with wine. And Peter says, "They're not drunk. It's only the third hour of the day. It's only 9 o'clock in the morning. You don't drink and get drunk early in the morning." This is something different. "Peter, 27:43 standing up with the 11, raised his voice and said to them, 'Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and heed my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, 28:03 says the Lord, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.'" By the way, when are the last days? The last days are from the birth of the church to the end of the age. And the last days is what is happening here. He says, "This is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel." Why is this happening? 28:24 It's a proof that the work of God is being established in the person of Christ. It's not being established because of the law and the giving of the Ten Commandments. It's being established because of the person of Christ. Remember, all these four feasts are about Christ, Passover about Christ, unleavened bread about Christ, first fruits about Christ, weeks about Christ. 28:46 It's all about establishing Christ as head of the church, as Savior of the body, and his giving of the holy heavenly Comforter, immersing us in the fullness of the presence of God, the fullness of God's presence now coming to live within us, 29:05 not taking a pilgrimage to a place, but the pilgrimage coming to us, the fulfillment of the Holy Spirit, the infilling us with purity, with power, and with passion from on high. And so he goes on to say, "I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. 29:26 Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. And on my men servants and on my maid servants." See, it's even for the poor. You don't have to be wealthy to experience the Holy Spirit. "And my men servants and my maid servants, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. 29:44 And I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Verse 22, "Men of Israel, hear these words, 30:04 Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, 30:23 have crucified and put to death, whom God raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be held by it." So we're talking about this being about Jesus, about it being about Christ, about his death, about his resurrection. I want to give you, in the time that remains, four things to think about. 30:44 Number one is the Spirit was given and is given in relation to the harvest. Number one, this is all about the harvest. Now, what do we say when we mean the harvest? We're talking about the ingathering of souls into the kingdom of God. 31:05 Jesus, when he looked at the fields and he saw the people, he saw the fields and the people as whitened to harvest, he said, "Behold, the the the fields are whitened to harvest. Pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth workers into his harvest field." You see, Pentecost is about the harvest. It's about bringing in the harvest, 31:26 and it's about the empowerment of the Holy Spirit into the church to proclaim the message of the gospel. The Spirit is given in relation to the harvest. What are the implications of this? What we see happening here is the proclaiming of Christ crucified, verse 22. We have proclaiming of Christ risen, 31:47 verse 32, "This Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses." We're talking about Christ ascended in verse 34. "For David did not ascend into heaven, but he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand.'" So that's a reference to the ascension of Christ. 32:06 We're talking about proclaiming Christ as Lord, verse 34. He calls him Lord, the Father saying to the Son, "To my Lord, sit, and I will make the enemies your footstool." We're talking about proclaiming the only name given to save. 32:23 And here's what you need to know and remember is that the gift of tongues here that day was given to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was given so the people might know the gospel. They might know Christ. They might hear it. They might understand it. 32:41 They might receive it, and the church be established and built upon the earth. The fields are whitened to harvest. I believe this may be right here, the greater things that Jesus talked about. He said, "These things will I do or will you do? 33:02 And greater things will you do because I go to my Father." By the way, why did he say he had to go to his Father? Because if he didn't go to the Father, the Holy Spirit wouldn't come. But if I go to the Father, the Holy Spirit will come, and that will equip you to do the greater things. What are the greater things? 33:19 I think the greater things is to preach to a greater number of people with greater results and greater tools. 33:29 We have no record that Jesus spoke in tongues, and yet here are these apostles and the people in the upper room speaking in languages that could communicate the gospel to people in their own dialect. One of the words here for language is the word dialect. So we're not just talking about a major language. 33:48 We're talking about being able to communicate in the dialect that the people were speaking. It's about communicating Christ crucified, buried, resurrected, coming again. 34:06 We have no record that Jesus preached outside of the 34:12 decapolis or the immediate area surrounding the 34:20 land of Israel. He didn't go far away from home. And yet here are these disciples now going around the world. Right here, they're starting. And the gospel being proclaimed, and these people that are believing here took that gospel and went home with it with great, 34:40 massive turnings to Christ. In just a few years, the gospel touched almost every continent of the world. 34:52 Second thing that we want to see here in this passage of scripture this morning is not only is the Spirit given in relation to the harvest, the Spirit is given in relation to the New Covenant. 35:03 The New Covenant, which had they understood what that New Covenant was, they would have seen that this is the fulfillment of what God said to the people of Israel in Isaiah 59:20 and 21, "The Redeemer will come to Zion. And to those who turn from transgression in Judah or in Jacob, 35:23 says the Lord, 'As for me,' says the Lord, 'this is my covenant with them. My Spirit who is upon you and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth.'" Interesting, the mouth here, the mouth again, communication. "Shall not depart from your mouth, 35:42 nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants,' descendants, says the Lord, 'from this time and forevermore.' This is the New Covenant that Jeremiah 31:31 talks about. 35:56 "Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them," says the Lord, 36:15 "but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days," says the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." This is the fulfillment of the New Covenant. This is the initiation, I should say, of the New Covenant. 36:34 No longer are they to be following the law and the code. Now they are to follow the Spirit and the law of Christ, the law of Christ from the heart, from the heart, not from a fear that they will be punished, 36:55 but from a love that is fulfilled and comes to fruition as we obey gladly from the heart. The third thing we want to see this morning is that the Spirit is given in relation to the birth of the church. The Spirit is given in relation to the birth of the church. 37:17 What we have here is two loaves, 37:23 not representing the law and the prophets, not representing necessarily the Old Testament and the New Testament, but representing two groups of people, Jew and Gentile, coming from the same batch, 37:37 coming from the same lump as one offering to the Lord. It's about the Jew and the Gentile being one in Christ, coming from the same lump. It's about the New Testament fulfilling the Old Testament. 37:55 It's about the third person of the Trinity filling out the chord on the musical scale of harmony in the gospel melody. 38:06 As somewhat of a musician having been immersed in music for 50 years, I'm intrigued with the way that music represents 38:20 God's universe. And there's something about music that is empty without the third. So if you're a musician, you know what I'm talking about. You have the tonic, the one, the chord's author, so a C. 38:39 You have a fifth note above that, and it's just kind of a little hollow. But you add the third, and what happens, Brother Justin? 38:52 Well, it completes it. 38:53 It completes it. It completes it. 39:01 Without it, it's just kind of there, and it gets the job done. But with it, it's beautiful. And so it is with the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit is given, the things of God that were there, and they were powerful, 39:20 and they were authentic, but it adds the beauty and the fullness of the major chord in the communication of the gospel melody. Again, it's a picture. It's a picture. 39:37 It's about the birth of the church. Notice what happens in chapter 2, verse 47. 39:52 At the end of the day of Pentecost, when all the dust settles and they begin to keep track of what happened that day, 40:02 the Lord added to the church those who were being saved, and about 3,000 of them. We have no idea how many people were there. We had no idea how many people turned away and didn't believe, 40:21 but we know that at least 3,000 souls were added to the church that day. It's about the birth of the church. And so the Holy Spirit is given in relation to the harvest, the New Covenant, and the church. Maybe I have those in the wrong order. It's about the church embracing the New Covenant and harvesting the lost. 40:45 One more thing I want to share with you this morning as we begin to wrap this up, and that is the Spirit is given to bring unity. Interesting. Chapter 2, they were all with one accord in one place. 41:05 I believe that what we have in the day of Pentecost is the overruling of the curse of Babel. 41:16 So that's why Tongue in Cheek titled the message Baking Bread and Overcoming Babel, because there are some interesting things happening on the day of Pentecost that relate to Babel. If you were to go back and read in Genesis 11, you would find out that they were of one language and one speech. We know that. 41:36 God came down and confused the languages and spread them out. Now he is overcoming that and saying, "This one speech thing, I'm bigger than that. My kingdom is bigger than that. 41:50 And I am able to bring one people out of confusion and chaos and make them understand me and walk in my ways." You see, the problem with Babel was not just that they wanted to disobey God's command to spread out and replenish the earth and populate it. 42:11 That was part of it. But the problem with Babel was they wanted a one-world government without the authority of God. They didn't want God didn't factor into their equation. God was not part of their package. It was us. We will do this. 42:32 When God comes on the scene on the day of Pentecost, he says, "Now I want to show you what a united people look like under the authority of Jesus." And he reversed the effects of Babel. The second thing that happened there on the day of Babel was they will build a city. 42:51 We will build a city and make a name for ourselves. Now Christ came, and he's building a city. 43:01 It's called Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, Hebrews says. So he's bringing a city under his authority of which we can come into and be a part of. 43:21 The third thing that happened on the day of Babel was they were building a tower to heaven. Incidentally, that tower, Tongue in Cheek, never got off the ground. Or they may have built it. I don't know how far in the building they got, but God destroyed it, demolished it. It didn't work. 43:39 But now Christ is built up to heaven. So you want to build a way to heaven, you come by Christ. And he himself is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. You want to get there? You're not going to build a tower to get there. 43:58 You're going to come under the one name, which is another thing that happened on the day of Babel. They had a name for themselves. They said, "We will make a name for ourselves." Acts 2:21 says, "It's not about man making a name for himself. 44:12 It's about man coming under the authority of the name of Christ." So there is no other name given among men under heaven whereby we must be saved, that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And one people, we will be one people. God scattered them all over the whole earth. 44:32 But now he is gathering a new humanity, the Bible says. "He hath made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us for to make in himself of twain, that is Jewish and Gentile, one new man so making peace, 44:53 that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you who were far off and to them who were nigh, and given us access by one Spirit so that we are now no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens of the saints and the household of God." So what do we do with this? 45:15 What do we do with this? 45:19 Two things I think we'd like to have us consider to do with this day of Pentecost, this feast of weeks. 45:27 Number one, open your heart and open your mouth. Number two, open your heart and open your mouth. Open your heart. There were some who closed their heart to this work. There were some who opened. We as Christians open our heart to the work of the Holy Spirit. 45:50 And I want to just say this, in my own personal experience, I all too often allow the devil to rob me of an open heart to the working of the Holy Spirit. And it goes like this. I see the unbiblical things that are not or that are counterfeits of the genuine working of the Holy Spirit. 46:12 I see those things in excess around us. And so it makes me want to pull back from a legitimate, real God-given working of the Holy Spirit. 46:29 So open your heart. The Bible says, "Quench not the Spirit." The Bible says, "Despise not prophesying." And because of an overemphasis or an excess or a false teaching, it's easy to disregard the Holy Spirit. 46:46 But we want to open our hearts to the message of the apostles. We want to open our hearts to the baptizer. You see, so many people emphasize the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and they forget about the baptizer. The baptizer is Jesus Christ. 47:08 That's why Peter's message is about Christ. It's about Christ crucified. It's about Christ's name. It's about Christ's salvation. It's about Christ being buried. It's about his ascension. It's about his resurrection. It's about his lordship. We want to open our hearts in faith to the work of God. We serve an amazing God. 47:28 Amen? 47:30 But how many times do we close our hearts from God doing amazing things because we are satisfied with our status quo or we're afraid? Another thing we open our hearts to is the needs around us. In the chapter, 47:49 he said they began to, I almost said, had a point of opening your pocketbook because that's what they did. They began to open their hearts, open their hearts to the Spirit, open their hearts to the Lord Jesus, open their hearts to the apostles' message, open their hearts to the good works of God, and open their pocketbooks to share with those who had need. 48:09 And open your heart to the church. Open your heart to the church, to the people of God, this new humanity which is overcoming the curse of scatteredness through coming together in unity and agreement in the truth, agreement in the truth of Jesus Christ. 48:28 The second thing that I leave you with is open your mouth. Open your mouth because this harvest thing is about witness. It's about witness. They're witnessing to the gospel. It's about spreading the gospel. It's about praising God, 48:48 chapter 2, verse 47, praising God and having favor. It's about sharing the word of God with boldness, chapter 4, verse 29 and 31. When they were filled with the Spirit, they opened their mouths and spoke with boldness, "Oh, that we might have Holy Ghost boldness to testify of Christ." And bring in that harvest, asking God to overcome our fear. 49:10 Hear you, brothers and sisters. He may not fill your mouth with tongues, but he will fill your mouth with his word. Amen? You're off the quiet. Open your mouth. He may not fill your mouth with tongues and the ability to speak in other languages, 49:30 but he will fill your mouth with his word. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it, the psalmist says. Open your mouth. Oswald Chambers said, "The baptism of the Holy Ghost makes us witnesses to Jesus, not wonder workers. The witness is not to what Jesus does, 49:52 but to what he is." I like that. 49:59 Charles Spurgeon said, "The great king, immortal, invisible, the divine person called the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. It is he that quickens the soul, or else it would lie dead forever. It is he that makes it tender, or else it would never feel. It is he that imparts efficacy to the word preached, or else it would never reach further than the ear. 50:19 It is he who breaks the heart. It is he who makes it whole." Speaking of Spurgeon, I'll close with this illustration because it's the Spirit of God in our brokenness and our weakness that is powerful to make Christ known. 50:39 It's not our cleverness. It's not our oratorical ability. It is the Spirit of God. Spurgeon preached a message one day that he came home, and he said that was the worst message. It was an awful message. He said, "Lord, thou canst do something with nothing. 50:57 Bless that poor sermon." 51:02 He vowed and committed himself that the next week he would preach a great sermon, and he did. He had the crowds, he had their attention. He was covered with praise. He went home and pleased with himself, and that night slept like a baby. For the first sermon, he couldn't sleep at all. 51:22 He was so troubled. But he said to himself, "I'll watch the results of these two sermons." What were they? From the one that had seemed a failure, he was able to trace 41 conversions to that message. From the magnificent sermon, he was unable to discover even a single soul that had been saved. 51:44 Spurgeon's explanation was that the Spirit of God used the one and not the other because the first one was preached in the weakness of human flesh, brokenness. The second one was preached in pride and self-sufficiency. Open your hearts. 52:03 Open your mouths. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Lord, don't let us pull back from a legitimate, genuine, genuine working of the Spirit of God in our hearts, in our midst, in our church, 52:23 in our families, in our ministries. 52:28 Don't let us pull back. Let us open our hearts, and let us open our mouths. 52:40 For your word says, "Open your mouth, and I will fill it." And there's some of us that are tongue-tied that need a touch from the Spirit of God to energize and empower and motivate and stimulate a message being shared of the gospel. 53:03 And so, Lord, fill us with your precious Spirit and bring Pentecost into our hearts, not just once a year, but every day. Through Christ, we pray. Amen.