Monday, June 5, 2006
Acts 2:1,4 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
THE FEAST OF PENTECOST
Pentecost was originally an Old Testament Harvest Festival -- the spring wheat harvest. It fell 50 days (pente-cost) after Passover.
The Passover Lamb depicted another -- far greater -- sacrifice.
The Pentecost festival depicted another -- far greater -- harvest.
Namely, the harvest of people into the Kingdom of God, people separated out from this weed-infested world, people made God's own for time and eternity, through faith in Christ the Savior.
Just as God knew the events of the crucifixion before they took place and positioned the Passover Lamb as a graphic and faith-inspiring preview, so also the LORD knew what He would do 50 days after Jesus' death and rising.
The harvest of the Spirit through the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ is not yet complete. Furthermore, the Spirit's harvest is not in just one part of the earth, one field as it were. The whole world is His field, all the nations. This is the work which began in earnest on the Pentecost after the Passover in which the Christ offered Himself in the place of the human race.
What shall we say? What shall we pray, when we think on the will and word, the mercy and grace, the love and compassion of the Lord our God?
All the world is God's own field,
Fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown,
Unto joy or sorrow grown;
First the blade and then the ear,
Then the full corn shall appear.
Lord of harvest, grant that we
Wholesome grain and pure may be.
