Dear Family,
Today is Monday, April 14, 2025. This is Day 2 of Week 1 in our Counting toward Pentecost.
This first week of the Counting is generally referred to as the week of crossing the Red Sea. It took a full week for Israel to move out of Egypt and be completely free of the threat of Pharaoh and the Egyptian army.
During that first Passover in Egypt all of the firstborn died except those covered by the blood of the lamb of the Passover. It was a foreshadowing of the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.
Revelation 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not ritten in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
All of the commandments to celebrate the Feasts of the LORD contain symbolic details that relate to God’s plan of salvation. They are a witness of His plan, and they help to explain what God is doing.
Why do we count toward Pentecost? We count the days and the weeks because God told us to do that. Let’s look at the context of the command found in Leviticus 23:4-16.
Leviticus 23:4-16 (4) These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. (5) In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’s Passover. (6) And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. (7) In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. (8) But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. (9) And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying;
(10) Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them; When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: (11) And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. (12) And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD. (13) And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. (14) And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. (15) And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: (16) Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
During that Passover in Egypt there was no mention of the wave sheaf or the Counting. The instructions regarding the wave sheaf appeared later. The first time we learn of the wave sheaf is in Leviticus 23.
This “wave sheaf” example shows how God reveals specific things regarding His plan in His time! Much of His plan is revealed little by little. God deliberately sequences events according to His purposes. Let us remember when the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written. Instructions for the wave sheaf and counting the omer were written in the wilderness, after Israel was completely out of Egypt.
The wave sheaf command required the people to have access to grain that was still in the field. And, it was only when Israel moved into the promised land after approximately 40 years of wandering in the wilderness that the wave sheaf command could be properly followed on a yearly basis.
This year the Counting of the omer began yesterday, on the First Day of Unleavened Bread (Abib 15). This parallels the year when Israel entered the promised land and God gave them the victory at Jericho.
Jericho was conquered on Abib 21; the Last Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That year, the Last Day of Unleavened Bread was a weekly Sabbath, just as it is this year. Counting of the omer had begun on Abib 15, which was both the day of the wave sheaf and the First Day of Unleavened Bread. (Reference Joshua 5:9-12 and Joshua 6 for the details of when Jericho fell.)
May our great God bless you richly!
Ben Faulkner, Pastor
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