Well we are in the time of counting the omer and looking to celebrate Shavuot. In pondering what to write in this release I went to our web site to see what I have written on Shavuot. Honestly the article under Feasts / Shavuot found on www.oimm.org is pretty informative. No sense covering the same material so I have decided we should do a bible study on the passages read during this season. The operative word is we. I am counting on feedback. To cover the readings we will have several parts of this series as we did at Hanukkah.
Ok, the scriptures readings are 19th and 20th chapters of Exodus, Ezekiel 1:1-28; 3:12 and the whole Book of Ruth.
I want to start with what is considered the first Shavuot when Moses received the written instructions from God on how He wanted us to relate to Him and each other.
Moses went up the mountain to be with God and God said the following:
Exodus 19:
Obviously He had a plan for the Hebrew people. A people to be a Kingdom of Priests. For what? Just themselves? I think not. They were to be a Kingdom to intercede for the nations and through which salvation would come from the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He restates that in Isa. 49. Peter tells the Gentiles who believe Yeshua died for them that they also have been grafted into the commonwealth of Israel through the blood of Yeshua ( Eph.
2:13-15) and they also have the responsibility of Priest.
1 Peter 2: [9] But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellences of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; [10] for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY
So based on the above I submit to you that Mt Sinai at the first Shavuot was the birthplace of what most call the church. Let me continue on to show you.
Lord continues
“This is what I want you to tell the People of Israel.” 7] Moses came back and called the elders of Israel together and set before them all these words which GOD had commanded him. [8] The people were unanimous in their
response: “Everything GOD says, we will do.” Moses took the people’s answer back to GOD.
God responded by giving Moses instructions for the people to receive the presence of the Lord. And then He joined them.
Ex.19: [16] On the third day at daybreak, there were loud claps of thunder, flashes of lightning, a thick cloud covering the mountain, and an ear-piercing trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp shuddered in fear. [17] Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God. They stood at attention at
the base of the mountain. [18] Mount Sinai was all smoke because GOD had
come down on it as fire. Smoke poured from it like smoke from a furnace. The whole mountain shuddered in huge spasms. [19] The trumpet blasts grew louder and louder. Moses spoke and God answered in thunder. [20] GOD descended to the peak of Mount Sinai. GOD called Moses up to the peak and Moses climbed up.
Whenever I read about the Trumpet blasts in the bible I am reminded of a time in my life I was inquiring of the Lord about what actually happens when we pray. One evening I was with a prayer group and I looked up to see four angles blowing trumpets. As the blasts grew louder the walls of the room we were in disappeared and the floor turned into a large black and white checked floor and began to rise up to the throne room of the Lord with each of us seated ( although in the natural some were standing) and each continuing to bring their petitions before the Lord. I looked to the right and there was a huge desk and a huge angel recording our petitions in a book. As the angel would complete an entry I saw the arm of the Lord reach over the words and dispatch angels on behalf of the petitioners request.
I bring this up here that you might inquire of the Father to enlarge your understanding and revelation of the fullness of the spirit. We are entering into a time to celebrate the outpouring of the spirit. Visions, dreams and angelic visitation should be your daily portion. It is not just for an elite group it is for those hungry for all of what God has for us. I believe God is wooing us to understand His ways rather than His mighty acts of healing and deliverance and miracles. His ways are revelations of His heart and His directions. He longs to communicate with us, spirit to spirit. The Israelites had seen His acts but, when push came to shove, they ran from intimacy with Him telling Moses you go to Him for us and ultimately they fell away to worship the Golden Calf.
Moses then came back with the ten commandments but the people were now so afraid of the Lord they no longer wanted direct contact. So Moses goes again before the Lord. In Exodus 21 to 23 God continues to give Moses instructions. Let’s read together in Exodus 24.
Exodus 24: [24:1] Then He said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel, and you shall worship at a distance.
Our God is a God of community He invited the leaders as well as Moses. Moses once more recounted the words of the Lord to the people and once more they
said. “All the words which the LORD has spoken we will do!”
[4] Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Then he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Here again a symbol of community with 12 pillars for twelve tribes.
[5] He sent young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the LORD.God is a God of generational blessings and Moses knowing that sent the young men to offer the burnt offerings and peace offerings .It was very significant that first a burnt offering was made.
A burnt offering allows a person opportunity to dedicate himself whole to God for the animal is fully consumed by burning on the altar. Only after a burnt offering can there be a fellowship offering or peace offering. This fellowship offering is the only one a worshiper can eat in the temple. It represents fellowship with God. God having a portion fully burned before Him the rest shared with the priest and the presenter.
[6] Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. [7] Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!” [8] So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these
words.” [9] Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy
of the elders of Israel, [10] and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. [11] Yet He did not stretch out His hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel; and they saw God, and they ate and drank.
Look carefully not only did the Lord call the community of leadership to worship in the throne room He revealed Himself to them and ate with them. Do you hear Jesus words in your spirit saying :[20] ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. [21] ‘He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. [22] ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'” Rev 3:20-22
The first Shavuot God revealed Himself and His ways beyond His acts. He gave the community of Israel the plan of His ways in the book Moses recorded and then on stone. He showed all things are to be sanctified by the blood. It is recorded again in Heb. 9:
Hebrew 9: [19] For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, [20] saying, “THIS IS THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD COMMANDED YOU.” [21] And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. [22] And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
One more time Moses showed the Israelites the significance of the blood on the doorposts of their home as they left their old life and began a new one.
At Mt Siani God gave them the very constitution for the new Holy Nation of Priest. This would be the beginning of the mystery yet to be unfolded of the One New Man, when Jew and Gentile enter in to what God fulfills Jeremiah 31.
[31] “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. [33] “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,”declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. [34] “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
[35] Thus says the LORD,Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: [36] “If this fixed order departs From before Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever.” [37] Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens above can be measured And the foundations of the earth searched out below, Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel For all that they have done,” declares the LORD.And make no mistake this covenant did not represent the start of a new religion but the empowerment of the fullness of the call of Israel and the grafting in of the Gentiles a mystery not yet revealed until the cross and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
So my revelation of the first Shavuot is that God revealed not only His acts but more importantly His ways to a people set aside by Him to represent the Priesthood of God for the Nations that ultimately would become the One New Man.