Lessons from Israel's feasts in the seventh month

Text Numbers 29 Time 07/04/13 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church     

 

We are looking at the Book of Numbers and we looked last week at Numbers 28. That chapter begins to enumerate the various sacrifices that Israel was to observe at this time. It is a sort of calendar of events. You get the calendar in various forms in Exodus (twice), Leviticus and Deuteronomy and here in Numbers. It begins (28:1, 2)

The Lord said to Moses, Give this command to the Israelites and say to them: Make sure that you present to me at the appointed time my food offerings, as an aroma pleasing to me. Chapter 29 ends In addition to what you vow and your freewill offerings, offer these to the LORD at your appointed festivals: your burnt offerings, grain offerings, drink offerings and fellowship offerings. Moses told the Israelites all that the LORD commanded him.

Now as we said last time for us such chapters are a little tedious and it's difficult to know what to do with them. When you come to certain places in the New Testament it is pretty obvious how to respond but many parts of the Bible aren't like that. There are often things you need to know not that you need to obey. A lot of knowledge is like that. You may remember me saying that it's one of the things that makes school frustrating for some. Some children have a pragmatic approach. “Is it in the exam, miss?” is their only question. If it is, they just learn it. For others that is not enough. The Battle of Waterloo was in 1805 – yes but what has that got to do with me today? Today we are going to be looking at Snell's Second Law – but why do I need to know about that?

When we come to a chapter like this we can feel a bit like that. So we started last time by asking why we need to know about this. It's not something you need to know in order to become a Christian. However, it is not useless. It can do at least two things for you if you bother to spend some time on it.

1. It will make you thankful that you do not have to know this today. The instructions found here no longer have to be followed as far as the letter is concerned. The sacrificial system was quite demanding. There were sacrifices to be made on a daily, weekly, monthly and an annual basis. All that has gone and we should be thankful that it has gone and that we no longer have to follow such a demanding ritual.

We should have the same attitude to a chapter like this as we might have when we see an old school exercise book or examination paper. Have you ever had that feeling? You see something like that and you look back and you remember how strange it all was when you started on it – learning to read, learning your times tables, the first class you took in French or Physics or Food Tech or what ever it was – and (if you have been successful in it) you think to yourself, I'm glad I haven't got to go through all that again.

So let's be thankful that we live today when all we have to do is to put our faith in Christ. There is no daily, weekly, monthly or annual sacrifice to be made. The only sacrifice needed has been made once and for all by Jesus Christ. It is enough and if we trust in him then all is well.

2. It will give you an insight into what Christ has done and into how to live as a Christian

The second thing such chapters do is to give you some insight into what Christ did on the cross as all these sacrifices were designed to point forward to what he was going to do in what was then the future. Further, although strictly speaking sacrifices have come to an end and the feasts no longer need to be kept, nevertheless there is a sense in which sacrifices are still to be made. It helps with that too.

We then went on to consider how Chapter 28 helps us to learn to live our Christian lives day by day, week by week, month by month and relying both on the death of Jesus Christ, pour Passover Lamb, on the cross and the Holy Spirit who was poured out on the Day of Pentecost after the resurrection.

Now in Chapter 29 we come on to what was to happen in the seventh month. This is the equivalent to our September and October. In the Jewish calendar this was a busy month with at least three things happening and in each case sacrifice required at the Temple in line with these feasts.

So we say

1. Consider the sacrifices at the Feast of Trumpets and learn how to start a year

We read that On the first day of the seventh month they were to hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. It is called a day for you to sound the trumpets. Trumpets would be sounded at the start of each month but this was the start of a new year. Along with the usual offerings of the day and month (6) there was to be As an aroma pleasing to the LORD, ... a burnt offering of one young bull, one ram and seven male lambs a year old, all without defect. With this there was to be the usual grain offering (3, 4). They were also to Include one male goat as a sin offering to make atonement for you.

This day marked the beginning of the civil new year in Israel. As you know in our culture January 1 is the first day of the new year but there are other new years too. The academic year begins in September and the legal year in October. Yesterday was the first day of the financial year. As individuals when our birthdays come around we mark the completion of another year and the beginning of another new one. It is the same with anniversaries such as wedding anniversaries or church anniversaries.

Now the feast of trumpets gives us an insight into how to mark such passages of time.

It was a time for sacred assembly and sacrifices. This day was to be a holy Sabbath of rest and there were to be special sacrifices. Now, of course, that is a very Old Testament form but it is right that we also worship God in a special way at such times and take opportunity to reflect and consider, giving thanks fir the past and praying about the future.

There was to be a sin offering, a reminder that there ought to be confession of sin on such occasions. There were also offerings that spoke of thankfulness and the burnt offering which always reminds us of the command to be living sacrifices in God's service.

Every year that passes however we record it is a reminder of God's mercies and of how little time there is left to serve him. It struck me the other day, I will be 54 next birthday. That leaves only 16 years until I am 70 – if I live that long. Time is going fast.

2. Consider the sacrifices for the Day of Atonement and learn to confess your sins

Then in that first month on the tenth day they were again to hold a sacred assembly. They were told You must deny yourselves and do no work. It was to be a Sabbath then and a day of fasting. The full day is described in Leviticus 16 but along with all that is described there about the scapegoat and so on they were to Present as an aroma pleasing to the LORD a burnt offering of one young bull, one ram and seven male lambs a year old, all without defect. This with the grain offerings and (11) one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the sin offering for atonement and the regular burnt offering with its grain offering, and their drink offerings.

One day in the year then (Yom Kippur or the Day of atonement) was to be set aside for thinking about their sins. It was a time for humbling themselves before God because of their sins. The fasting was a reminder of the need to put to death their sins. There was only one day of fasting in the calendar and even then the sick and children were exempt. Under the gospel there is no set day for fasting, although fasting can be of some use. However, every day we are to fast from sin and deny ourselves, of course.

The offerings here speak again of thankfulness and commitment to God again. The whole is a reminder again of the need for sacrifice to take away sin. Of course, the Day of Atonement went on year after year and still goes on though now without sacrifice. The continuation of the sacrifices showed that no complete atonement had been made. When Christ came and made the sacrifice of atonement that he made he did it once for all. “Full atonement can it be? Hallelujah! What a Saviour!” How we should praise God that all our sins are removed through his expiation and propitiation before God turning away God's wrath that stood against us.

 

3. Consider the feast of Tabernacles and learn

Nothing is said again of the feast itself but the sacrifices are set out. This is the feast of booths or Succoth when they were to make tents open to the sky and live in them for a week. It was a reminder of their days in the desert after they left Egypt. It was also something of a harvest festival coming at that time of the year. It was a feast marked by joy and thanksgiving.

They are told (12) On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. Celebrate a festival to the LORD for seven days.

Far more offerings were required for this festival than any other – 14 rams, 98 lambs and 70 bulls.

The feature of offering 13 bulls, then 12, then 11 down to the eighth day is interesting too. Some of the older commentators suggest that the Jews were being taught that the old dispensation would slowly wind down until there was one great sacrifice at the end.

In John 7:37, 38 we read that On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. John adds By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

This was probably an allusion to the practice at that time in the Feast of Tabernacles of the priest taking a jug full of water from the Pool of Siloam and pouting it out as he said (from Isaiah 12:3) With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

Last week we made the point that with the references to Passover and Pentecost we were being reminded of the centrality of Christ's death on the cross and of the pouring out of the Spirit. You have the same reminder here in the Day of atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. We must never forget Jesus Christ and him crucified as the atonement for sin nor the Holy Spirit who we all need poured out upon us.

In Romans 8:3, 4 Paul says that

what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Christ has been made a sin offering and we live according to the Spirit. May it be so.