3 festivals

Exodus 23:¹⁴ "Each year you must celebrate three festivals in my honor.¹⁵ First, celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days the bread you eat must be made without yeast, just as I commanded you. Celebrate this festival annually at the appointed time in early spring, in the month of Abib, for that is the anniversary of your departure from Egypt. No one may appear before me without an offering.

¹⁶ "Second, celebrate the Festival of Harvest, when you bring me the first crops of your harvest.

"Finally, celebrate the Festival of the Final Harvest at the end of the harvest season, when you have harvested all the crops from your fields."

We learn that God instructed the people of Israel to celebrate three festivals each year from Exodus 23.  Each one seems to be a picture of important transformations in the lives of people individually and perhaps for major events in the Lord's timetable of eternity.  The Festival of Unleavened Bread marks the historical departure of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt.  This seems to also be a picture of our personal salvation and perhaps of the coming of Jesus to deliver.  The Festival of Harvest marks the annual harvest and seems to picture fruitfulness in personal believers' lives as well as the building of the church through the harvest of souls across the generations.  The Festival of Final Harvest remembers how God has a plan to provide following the final harvest and seems to picture the transition to Heaven for the believer at the end of his days and the coming eternal rule of God that follows the completed church at the end of time.  It is apparently good and necessary to turn our thanks to God for the great works of redemption, fruitfulness and restoration that He has planned and is carrying out, first for Israel and then for the Church that we would ultimately know His plan is being carried out!

blessings,

Rob Smith