Shavuot (Pentecost) 2011

Shavuot is June 7, 2011.  “Shavuot” is taken from Hebrew meaning “seven sevens” and reflects the counting of seven weeks, or forty-nine days after Passover.
The Feast of Shavuot is celebrated the next day, the fiftieth day, by staying up all night reading various passages from the Bible because this is the traditional date of God giving Moses the Torah.  It was also celebrated with waving two loaves of leavened wheat bread before the Lord in the Temple. 

            When Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples on Pentecost (fifty) He was fulfilling the Feast of Shavuot. The two loaves are a picture of Holy Spirit dwelling in man.  Jesus commanded the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they were given the baptism of the Holy Spirit which the Father had promised.  This baptism was for the purpose of giving them power to be witnesses about Jesus.  When Holy Spirit came upon them, it was a literal fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that the Spirit would be with them and would dwell inside them.  John 14:16-17.

            How marvelous this gift of Holy Spirit is!  The first disciples were saddened that Jesus was leaving them, but Jesus said it was to their advantage that He leave because He would send His Holy Spirit to live inside them.  Stop and meditate on the magnitude of that miracle.  The Third Person of the Trinity actually comes and fills you with His presence.  The result is an intimacy with the Father that you never knew before.  The Spirit can pray through you and intercede for a lost world.  You are given power to be a witness for Jesus.

            Let’s celebrate Pentecost (Shavuot) by pressing into the Father and praying the prayer Jesus taught:  “Father, Your will be done—on earth as in heaven!”  Baptize us with a fresh outpouring of Your Spirit that we may be effective witnesses for Jesus.

The Feasts of the Lord.

            Lev. 23 lists eight appointments God wants to have with each us.  The first is a weekly appointment on Sabbath.  The other seven are annual feasts.  These have been referred to as the Jewish feasts, and the Jews do celebrate them.  But these belong to all who call themselves God’s people—they are “the feasts of the Lord.”  The reason I say they belong to all of God’s people is that Jesus has already fulfilled the first four of these feasts and will fulfill the other three upon His return.

            The feasts are:  Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Shavuot, Feast of Trumpets, Atonement, and Booths (or Tabernacles).  The first three occur in one week in the Spring.  The fourth is celebrated 50 days after Passover in early Summer.  The last three are celebrated in the Fall, usually late September or early October.

            Jesus perfectly fulfilled the first three.  He is the Passover Lamb (I Cor. 5:7), a perfect lamb that was selected (on Palm Sunday) and carefully watched for four days.  He was then slain and His blood is what protects us from death, just as the blood applied to the door posts protected Israelites from the Death Angel.

            Jesus also is the sinless Man, a perfect picture of Unleavened Bread.  We, too, are called to live holy lives, free from sin.      

            Then on the feast of First Fruits, Jesus rose from the dead, the first of those who are to be resurrected (I Cor. 15:20-23).

            Now, as we celebrate Pentecost on June 7^th, we remember how the early Church was filled with the Holy Spirit, exactly fulfilling the Feast of Shavuot.  The Jewish celebration of Shavuot is remembering the giving of the Law to Moses.  Jesus said the Law would be written on our hearts, which is what happens when we are given the Holy Spirit—He comes, lives inside us, writing God’s Law on our hearts.

            The feasts are God’s snapshots of His Son.  By looking at the feasts we see what Jesus would look like and by celebrating them, we celebrate what God has done through Jesus in our hearts.  There is much more that could be said on each of the feasts.  Hopefully this will give a framework to understand God’s wonderful work in our lives.

The Helper Is Coming

            In introducing Jesus, John the Baptizer pointed at Jesus and declared two foundational truths:  first, that Jesus was the Son of God who would take away the sins of the world, and second, that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. 

            Stop and think about the impact of those two things.  Jesus has taken away your sins—He has reconciled you the God the Father!  You have received mercy instead of Judgment!  You have been made a child of God through His sacrifice!  You have eternal life!  AMAZING!

            But in addition to that, Jesus has promised you His Holy Spirit.  Jesus told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for what the Father had promised:  “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”  The result of that baptism would be power to be His witnesses “even to the remotest part of the earth.”

            June 7^th is Shavuot, the fourth Feast of the Lord.  This is another feast that Jesus fulfilled by sending Holy Spirit in power on the early Church.  I will give a fuller explanation of the Feast in another blog entry later this week.  I just want to tweak your attention to this upcoming celebration next week and urge you to be in a seeking attitude. We all need fresh infilling of our precious Holy Spirit.  If you have never been baptized with Holy Spirit, I urge you to set aside time to pray and seek for Him as the Church did in Acts 1 and 2.  If you have been Holy Spirit baptized already, take time to place yourself before the Lord and receive a fresh infilling of His Spirit.  We all need this to overcome the fear of man in order to be His witnesses.  Remember Jesus’ promise in Luke 11:13:  “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”  Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find;  knock, and it will be opened to you.

            May this be the best Pentecost you have ever experienced!  Shalom.  Wes

Are you faith-full?

            In addition to commenting about Israel, I also want to post some personal insights occasionally.

I’ve been going through some really tough times over the past year.  A year ago I was diagnosed with cancer that had spread from my tail bone to my right hip.  I endured 25 radiation treatments and spent eleven days in the hospital last July and then several months convalescing—regaining strength.  I am thankful for the medical treatments available, but I know that I have regained the health I have because God’s Word is true and He has been healing my body through prayer and faith in His Word.  Blood tests this week showed no trace of cancer.  Praise Jehovah Rapha, my Healer!

            But I’ve also been tested in my faith on the financial front.  A perfect storm hit—a combination of no work due to winter weather combined with a downturn in the economy.  I own a painting business and these are tough times for anyone in the construction trades. As I have prayed and prayed without seeing the needed work come in as a result of those prayers, I realized I was in a war that was being waged against my faith.  Would I continue to believe God is for me, that He would provide for me according to His riches in glory?  It has been in a purifying process, to say the least.. 

            Luke 18:1-8 is an exhortation from Jesus for us to press in to the Father in prayer, even when it doesn’t seem that we are getting the answer we feel we need.  The bottom line of His exhortation is that we should continue to pray in faith.  Are you praying with faith?  Or are you praying with an edge of anger because things haven’t come the way you wanted or expected them to?  Have you quit praying because you didn’t get the answer you wanted or it doesn’t seem to make any difference when you pray?   

            Are you in a battle for your faith?  Will Jesus find faith in your heart when He returns?  Wherever you are in your battle, remember that God is faithful and wants you to look to Him in faith.  When Jesus comes, I pray He will find you full of faith. 

Is Israel an apartheid State?

            Many who are against Israel often throw out the charge that Israel is an apartheid state that persecutes Arabs/Palestinians.  If that is true, how can Rana Raslan, an Arab, be elected as Miss Israel?  Or how can Walid Badir, an Arab, become captain of the HaPoel Tel Aviv football team?  Then there is Salim Jourbran who is an Israeli Supreme Court Justice (who also just happens to be Arab).  Arabs and Jews shop side by side in many locations across Israel, swim in the Dead Sea together, and do many other day to day activities in peace.  You can see pictures of those mentioned in this paragraph at Revive Israel’s May 15^th newsletter:  Webmanager [webmanager@reviveisrael.org] 

            Muslims are permitted free access to the Temple Mount to worship and pray in their holy places.  Were Jews allowed unlimited access to the Western Wall to pray at the site closest to their holiest site between 1948 and 1967 when the Old City was under Jordanian control?  NO! 

            When the Palestinian Authority declares that any Arab who sells land to a Jew should be put to death—that sounds like apartheid to me.  Or when Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, declared in 2010 to Egyptian media that “I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land”, that sounds like apartheid to me.

            Beware of the bias against Israel that is endemic in most media sources in the West or from Europe. 

Two State Solution?

 The pressure on Israel to embrace a “two State solution” by carving out a Palestinian State on the “West Bank” is enormous and growing.  But what is going to be solved by this “two State solution” that hasn’t been solved by the “Multi-State Solution” already in existence?  This proposal is the same “solution” that has been proposed  for the last 90 years or more.

When Britain was given the task of creating a homeland for the Jews by the San Remo Conference of the League of Nations in 1920, they promptly gave 77% of the land to King Hussein and called it Trans-Jordan (now called Jordan).  With Anti-Semitism becoming open virulent hatred across Europe, Jews began immigrating to Palestine in droves in the early part of the 1900s.  As the Jewish population grew to a majority of the population of Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s there were also several massacres of Jews by Arabs.  Couple this with Britain’s refusal to protect the Jewish population and their outright enforcement of laws allowing Arabs to carry weapons while not allowing Jews to do so—it is no wonder that the Jewish leadership finally proclaimed a Jewish State in 1947.  It was a matter of survival.

            Thus, when Israel became a sovereign nation in 1948 it was in the context of hostile Arab nations that refused to recognize or give any room for a Jewish homeland.  One day after becoming a nation, Israel was attacked by four surrounding Arab nations. Since that time, there has been unrelenting pressure on Israel to give up more land, with the ultimate goal of elimination of any Jewish State or presence in the Middle East.  Israel only expanded its territory to include the Old City of Jerusalem and the “West Bank” in 1967 after being attacked by surrounding Arab nations (Syria, Jordan, Egypt, etc.).  In winning that conflict, Israel included this territory that was originally part of the land designated for a Jewish homeland by the British Mandate. 

            This pressure now to carve out a “Palestinian State” is the same pressure they have been under for the last century.  And the creation of a new Arab state will not satisfy the demands from Muslim-motivated nationalists who want all Jews out of the region.  Such a state will only embolden those who want to eliminate Israel completely. 

Defensible Borders

It is difficult for us Americans to understand how difficult it is for Israel to defend itself because we have the perspective of a large country with hundreds of miles of land.  From North to South, Oregon is almost 300 miles.  Israel is about 60 miles wide.  You can fit 13 Israels inside Oregon!

Take a five minute look at the following explanation of Israel's defensible borders.  Select the English version unless you are fluent in Hebrew.

http://www.youtube.com/user/shaharclips#p/a/u/0/k2hZ6SlSqq0

Later this week I will post a viewpoint about spliting Israel into two states.  Meanwhile, pray for the peace of Jerusalem.  Shalom!