Monday, April 21, 2014

Where is the lamb?


Today is the last day of Pesach. Our family sat down to a Seder dinner at our home a few days ago.
In Leviticus 23:2 God tells us, “These are My appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.”  They are the Lord’s specially appointed times (moedim) available to all God’s followers.  
On the Hebrew/Biblical calendar each of these Feasts begins and ends at sundown.
• Passover: April 13-14
• Feast of Unleavened Breads: April 14-21
• Feast of First Fruits: April 19-20
• Counting the Omer: April 20 – June 7

This year the “Christian” Easter and Feast of First Fruits coincided, which is as it should always be because that is when Yeshua actually arose. But the Catholic church and most of the Protestant denominations went their own way. On First Fruits the 50 day countdown (of the Omer) began. 
Here is a very succinct version of one of the sermons I heard this weekend from Bob Shirock (Oak Pointe church in Novi, Michigan). I thought it was very good - but it comes from a standpoint that remains separate from the Biblical calendar. 
"A common thread throughout the Bible is the Lamb. In the Tenakh (Old Testament) the question was "where is the lamb?: Genesis 22:7-8 “But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” Then he said, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.”
In Exodus 12:21 “Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb.”
During temple times, two lambs were offered everyday. 
But the paramount reference in the Tanakh is Isaiah 53: 5-7 “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. 6) All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 7) He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.”
In the New Testament John 1:29 “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Then came the time on Passover when the lambs were slain in the Temple that The Lamb died. Matthew 27:50 -52 “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised..."

Revelation 5:6 “And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
Revelation 19:9 “Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!' ” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.”
Amen. Thank you Lord.












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