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We have been considering the Feasts of Israel as the prophetic foundation for the proper identification of the Christ. As religions abound and the religious scene becomes more and more confused and complicated, this question of who to believe becomes more and more critical.
If the testimony of thousands of years of witness from God is to be believed, there is a real Heaven and a real Hell, and all human beings will endure in one of them forever. The experience of Heaven for eternity is declared by the apostle Paul as an experience of such glory that human words fail in the attempt to describe it. An extraordinary level of high ecstasy is the bottom line. On the other hand, the experience of Hell forever is such a fearsome idea that most people shun the thought altogether. In order to not have to think of it, it is now considered too unsophisticated a concept to have any reality behind it. But the interesting thing about that idea is that no one who has been there has come back to tell us it is a myth. It is no myth to those who have died and discovered too late that the reality is far worse than human words have been able to describe.
So Heaven and Hell exist. Therefore, it is more than critical that a person have peace with God through the real Messiah before he enters the eternal domains. The Feasts of Israel were designed to clear away the fog and clearly identify the true Deliverer from the wrath to come.
In our study we come to the fourth such feast. It is called the Feast of Pentecost. Most folk who have had some exposure to what the Bible teaches know that the Church of Jesus Christ was born on the day of Pentecost, fifty days from His death and resurrection. The name Pentecost refers to this 50-day period of time. Interestingly, in the history of Israel, the nation was delivered on the fifteenth of the first month; they were given manna after they complained of hunger on the fifteenth of the second month (thirty days later); and on the third day of the third month (forty-eight days later) God revealed Himself to them on Mount Sinai in lightning and thunder, which led to the giving of the Ten Commandments. So, Pentecost is historically associated with God's revelation of Himself to His people.
Pentecost has this same significance in the New Testament. In Acts 2 we read that when the day of Pentecost was come, God descended upon His Church with a mighty sound from heaven (corresponding to the thunder of Sinai) and with cloven tongues of fire (corresponding to the lightning of Sinai). This led to the revelation of God to His people by the Spirit of God who inspired the writings of the New Testament. Thus, in the Bible we have the record of the revelation of the true God--and this is associated with Pentecost. Its significance is that once life has been purchased by the death of the Lamb of Passover, the Spirit of God descends to impart the life giving Spirit of Jesus to every person who puts his trust in Jesus as the Lamb. Life begins when the Spirit of God comes. But He only comes to the person whose faith is in the death of the Lamb.
Is Pentecost real to you? Do you possess the Spirit of God?