Feast of Pentecost

Shavuot

Seven weeks after the feast of Pesach comes the feast of Shavuot or Weeks, called Pentecost in the Greek, meaning fifty days.

Just as Pesach marked the beginning of the barley harvest, so Shavuot marked the end of the wheat harvest.

It is significant that all the feasts have agricultural applications as God is involved in harvesting the Jewish people back to the land of Israel and back to himself, while also harvesting the Gentiles, grafting them into the olive tree of Israel through faith in Yeshua.

This feast relates to the theme of thanksgiving ... thanksgiving for the harvest and also thanksgiving for the Word of God, as Jewish people believe that the Torah (Law) was given to Moses on Mount Sinai on this day.

Its theme is revelation - the revelation of God Himself, His Power and His Word.

We find fulfilment of this feast in Acts 2:1-4

The festival of Shavuot arrived and the believers all gathered together in one place. Suddenly there came a sound from the sky and the roar of a violent wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Then they saw what looked like tongues of fire, which separated and came to rest on each one of them. They were filled with the Ruach HaKodesh (The Holy Spirit) and began to talk in different languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

With the coming of the spirit of God, the Law (Torah) of God, would in future be written on believer’s hearts, (cf. with Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:26, 27), both Jew and Gentile

During the feast of Shavuot, the priests took two loaves of leavened bread and waved them before the Lord. These two loaves of bread represent the Jews and Gentiles whose sins have been forgiven through belief in the Messiah Yeshua, joined together to make one new man. Unlike the Feast of Unleavened Bread, in which the bread was unleavened because it represented the sinless son of God, the Shavuot loaves are leavened because they represent the church made up of Jews and Gentiles who, while accepted by God as righteous, because of the work of Yeshua, have not yet attained perfection. There is still leaven needing to be removed from all of our lives!!

Therefore, remember your former state: you Gentiles by birth - called the
Uncircumcised by those who merely because of an operation of their flesh,
are called Circumcised - at that time had not Messiah. You were estranged
from the national life of Israel. You were foreigners to the covenants
embodying God's promise. You were in this world without hope and
without God. But now you who were once far off have been brought
near through the shedding of the Messiah's blood. For He Himself is
our shalom - he has made us both one

Ephesians 2:11-14.

So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers.
On the contrary you are fellow citizens with God's people
and members of God's family. vs.19

...and if you read what I have written you will grasp how
I understand this secret plan concerning the Messiah. In past
generations it was not made known to mankind as the Spirit is
now revealing it to his emissaries and prophets that in union
with the Messiah and through the Good News the Gentiles were
to be joint heirs, a joint body and joint sharers with the Jews in
what God has promised.
Ephesians 3:4-6.

Shavuot is also called the Day of First Fruits and the Jewish believers who received the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost were the First Fruits of all ... both Jew and Gentile ... who would come to believe and be joined together as one new man to worship the Lord forever.

Jewish tradition suggests that the birth and in some instances, the death of King David, took place at Shavuot and the book of Ruth, David's grandmother, is read about in synagogues on that day, again, a beautiful reminder that Jew and Gentile would be joined together in worship of the one true God through the Messiah. The following study brings out the rich truths hidden in this book for us to apply to our lives.

Ruth the Gentile Bride

The story of Ruth, the Moabitess, is the story of one young woman's commitment and dedication to her aged, weary mother-in-law, and to her God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is also, I believe, a picture of God's will for the church with relation to the Jewish people.

The story begins with a man called Elimelech, who, along with his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, left their home in Bethlehem during a famine and journeyed to the land of Moab.

We are then presented with a few brief sentences, with the history of the family's sojourn in Moab over the next ten years. The brevity of the sentences makes it easy to quickly skip over the pain and anguish that Naomi experienced as she was bereft not only of her husband, but her two sons as well. She was left completely alone with her two Moabite daughters in law

Hidden in these five short verses are some truths concerning the Jewish people and their relationship to the Land of Israel and their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God had promised the children of Israel blessing and peace if they remained in the land and obeyed Him.

The Land of Israel will always be the place where God will bless and meet with His people as He has joined them to it and Himself in covenant relationship (Genesis 12:1-3; 13:14-17; 15; 17:7&8; 28:13-14; Ps 105:6-11 etc).

The name Bethlehem means "House of Bread" and Elimelech and Naomi had chosen to leave the place of God's provision for them and their family because things got too difficult. They chose to move out from under the Lord's protection into a Gentile land. Their sons’ names mean "sickly" and "pining" and they serve as a reminder of what the Lord said would befall His people should they disobey Him (Deuteronomy 28).

Elimelech's name means "God is my King" but he had let fear interfere with faith and chose to use natural reasoning to solve his family's difficulties.

Naomi is surely a picture of the Jewish people and all they experienced during 2000 years of living in Gentile lands. They sought peace and prosperity and instead found persecution and suffering. Many Jewish women have known the loss of husbands and children in tragic circumstances.

The holocaust was the greatest tragedy which saw so many European Jewish Families who had believed themselves safe in the lands of the Gentiles, find only loss, destruction and grief.

Naomi's words to her friends on her return to Bethlehem "Call me not Naomi (pleasant); call me Mara (bitter) for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. I went out full and the Lord has brought me home again empty; why call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?" - must surely echo the feelings of many Jewish hearts down through the ages. In these days in which we live there are still many Jewish people who have known suffering and loss in the lands of the Gentiles who are making their way, wearily home to Israel from the four corners of the earth (Jeremiah 31:1-17).

Bringing the people back to the land of Israel is a central part of what God is doing in the earth in these days. To miss His heartbeat on this is to have missed one of the most remarkable events of the ages. throughout scripture, restoration to the Lord is always preceded by restoration to the Land (Ezekiel 36 & 37; Jeremiah 31 & 32; Psalm 102:13-16). In the bible the Jewish people are frequently referred to as the olive tree.

A tree cannot bear fruit if it is continually uprooted. It is only as it is allowed to put its roots deep down into good soil that it produces fruit. So it is with the Jewish people. They will produce their greatest spiritual fruit as they return to the land and put their roots down deep into its soil.

It is also true that the land is becoming fruitful again as the people return. It has been in mourning while the people have been in exile (Zechariah 7:14) but now that they are returning the land is blossoming like a rose (Isaiah 35:1-2) and Israel is sending produce and flowers all over the world (Isaiah 27:6). It is also the only place in the world where the desert is actually diminishing (Isaiah 49:18 & 19).

Left alone with her two daughters-in- law in Moab, Naomi hears that the Lord has visited his people once again and the famine is over so she decides to return to Bethlehem. She encourages her daughters-in-law to return to their own land to make new lives.

Orphah decides to return to her people and her god. Jewish oral tradition says that she became the grandmother of Goliath, the giant Philistine who was an enemy of Israel. Her name means "back on one's neck" and she is a picture of those Christians who have been content to take all the blessings that come from being grafted into Israel (Romans 11:17) - the scriptures, the prophets, the apostles, Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua's relatives, the Jewish people .

Just as Orphah went back to her people and her god, so a church that believes it has replaced Israel and the Jewish people in God's plans and affections has absorbed much that is unscriptural and pagan.

Ruth, whose name means friend, chooses instead to continue on with Naomi towards the Promised Land, uttering those wonderful words of commitment which continue to be a challenge to those who have chosen to walk with the Jewish people.

"Urge me not to leave you or return from following you; for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God."

She became one of the first to be counted amongst the ten from every nation who will take hold of the prayer shawl of him who is a Jew and say "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you" (Zechariah 8:23).

Two women, walking together towards the Promised Land, one born into a covenant relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the other entering that relationship through marriage ... Jew and Gentile together ... the wall of hostility being broken down to produce one new man worshipping the God of Israel (Ephesians 2:14-16).

As they walk towards Israel, Ruth helping her weary mother- in- law who had suffered so much, we see a beautiful picture of what was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah (49:22)

"Behold I will lift up my hand to the Gentile nations and set up my Standard and raise high My banner to the peoples and they shall bring your sons in the bosom of their garments and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders."

Today this scripture is being fulfilled as Christians from many nations, work for such organisations as the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem, to bring the Jewish people home to Israel. They are able to do this because of the prayers and financial help of Christians around the world (Jeremiah 3:18; 23:8; 16:15-16, Isaiah 49:12).

Once back in the land, Ruth goes into the fields to glean for food for herself and Naomi in accordance with the provision made for the poor in Leviticus 23:22. Believers in the Jewish God through Yeshua have been gleaning for spiritual food in fields prepared for us by Jewish prophets for millennia, usually without offering thanks to those from whom our spiritual heritage springs. It is while working in the heat of the day to care for Naomi that Ruth is noticed by her future bridegroom, Boaz. He says to her ...

"I have been made fully aware of all you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband; and how you have left your father and mother and the land of your birth and have come to a people unknown before to you. The Lord recompense you for what you have done and a full reward be given to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.

Yeshua, our bridegroom, in speaking about how we should care for His brothers the Jewish people says,

"In as much as you have done to the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me " Matthew 25:31-46

Isaiah 40:1-2 tells us to offer comfort and support to the Jewish people. In doing this we are preparing the way of the Lord, removing stumbling blocks of mistrust and fear which have been built up between Christians and Jews over centuries when the church acted more like Orphah, the one who turned her back, than Ruth, the friend (Isaiah 40:3-4) The result, verse 5 tells us, will be ...

"The glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh (both Jew and Gentile will see it".)

Ruth, the humble little Moabitess, who by her very origins was forbidden to enter the congregation of the Lord (Deuteronomy 23:3) went on to become the grandmother of David, Israel's greatest King, and his descendant, Yeshua, the Messiah, the greater David. She is a beautiful picture of God's grace and mercy offered to Gentiles through Yeshua, but she is also a prophetic word to the church in our day that we are to say to the Jewish people

"Urge me not to leave you or to return from following you, for where you go, I will go, where you lodge I will lodge, your people will be my people and your God my God."

That kind of unconditional love and commitment, one which says, "Let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you" is what God is requiring of us in this day and hour when He is bringing the Jewish people back to the land and back to Himself.

We should also note that Ruth gave her son to Naomi to care for him. The village women said to her "May he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher and supporter of your old age". What a beautiful picture of the ministry of the Messiah and what he longs to do for the Jewish people.

How very sad that the church, unlike Ruth, chose not to give the Messiah back to the Jewish people but turned him into a Gentile, totally unrecognisable to his own people. Then, having changed him into a Gentile, they persecuted his brothers in his name.

It is time for Christians to allow Naomi, in the form of the Jewish people to have the joy of rediscovering that Yeshua is Jewish, is family.

The book of Ruth is read in synagogues during the feast of Shavuot or Pentecost when two loaves of leavened bread are offered, signifying the bringing together of two peoples, Jew and Gentile, to become one people, worshipping the Lord together.

How perfect are God's ways ... How wonderfully He reveals Himself to those who search for His hidden truths.

As the apostle Paul says in Romans 11 ...

O the depths of the riches of wisdom and knowledge of God!

How inscrutable are His judgements!

How unsearchable are His ways!

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