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Pentecost Sunday

Today's world seems a long way from the events celebrated at Pentecost. America at war with itself Covid-19 has ravaged economies around the world. David Wilkerson sounded warnings but not many have listened.

What then is the message of Pentecost? A countdown is underway to the harvest.

Five phases that relate to Pentecost

Festival of Weeks (Shavuot) is reckoned as 49 days (seven weeks of seven days) after Passover and is a celebration of first fruits in May, being the barley harvest. The later harvest of wheat is in view. Both harvests are between the early, spring rain which ends by April, and latter rain which begins in October after the harvest and peaks in January.

Sinai - Festival of Weeks - Torah

The inaugural Festival of Weeks took place 49 days after the deliverance from Egypt in the Exodus. It was marked by the giving of the Law on Mt Sinai, where the people of Israel had separated themselves after their escape from Egypt. God declares Israel as a holy nation, separated to God, who will bring a harvest of people to God and is described in

Exodus 19: 5-6 5 Now if you will listen to Me and carefully keep My covenant, you will be My own possession out of all the peoples, although all the earth is Mine, 6 and you will be My kingdom of priests and My holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites.”

Sinai was a time of purification and separation, where a covenant was made between Israel and God and codified in the Torah. Those that rebelled and worshipped the golden calf were killed by the Levites with 3000 dead (Exodus 32) in judgment.

Prophecy of Joel

Joel 3: 1-5 Joel prophesies that around the world God will pour out his Spirit to bring in a harvest before judgment comes to the earth. An outpouring of the Spirit of God will occur before the Day of the Lord, a description of judgment.

Pentecost - first fruits

Acts 2 the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the upper room which Peter announces to the gathered crowd is a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy. 3000 people were added to the church which represents the New Covenant; and the Spirit infilling being the purification. Although this outpouring started amongst Jewish believers in Jesus it rapidly became predominantly a Gentile church. Judgment followed a few years later in 70 AD when the Temple of the Old Covenant (Torah) was destroyed and the people of Israel were scattered around the world.

I’m going to give you a new heart, and I’m going to give you a new spirit within all of your deepest parts. I’ll remove that rock-hard heart of yours and replace it with one that’s sensitive to me. 27 I’ll place my spirit within you, empowering you to live according to my regulations and to keep my just decrees.

Ezekiel 36 : 28-27

Pentecost Renewal - Latter Rain

For centuries the evidences of the Holy Spirit were largely lost to the church apart from small movements such as amongst the Mennonites and among individuals such as Saint Hildengard.

“Many in the Church,” says Iraeneus in A.D. 176, “possess prophetic gifts, and speak through the Spirit in all kinds of tongues”;

“of miraculous powers,” says Chrysostom, about A.D. 400. “not even a vestige is left”: somewhere between these dates Divine miracles ceased. The Didache (pp. 50-55) directs how Prophets, obviously customary guests, were to be entertained.

History of speaking in tongues Edward Irving was a more modern forerunner of the renewal leading to the events around the beginning of the Twentieth Century with Charles Parham in Kansas, the Welsh revival in 1904 and Azuza Street in Los Angeles in 1905/6 that led to the Pentecostal church growth and the Charismatic movement amongst mainstream church organisations that has since gone global and numbering hundreds of millions of believers. If Acts 2 was first fruits, this is the time of the full harvest and signals that judgment is not far ahead.

Rapture - Full Harvest

2 Peter 3:3-10 Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)

3 It is important for you to understand what will happen in the last days. People will laugh at you. They will live following the evil they want to do. 4 They will say, “Jesus promised to come again. Where is he? Our fathers have died, but the world continues the way it has been since it was made.”

5 But these people don’t want to remember what happened long ago. The skies were there, and God made the earth from water and with water. All this happened by God’s word. 6 Then the world was flooded and destroyed with water. 7 And that same word of God is keeping the skies and the earth that we have now. They are being kept to be destroyed by fire. They are kept for the day of judgment and the destruction of all people who are against God.

8 But don’t forget this one thing, dear friends: To the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord is not being slow in doing what he promised—the way some people understand slowness. But God is being patient with you. He doesn’t want anyone to be lost. He wants everyone to change their ways and stop sinning.

10 But the day when the Lord comes again will surprise everyone like the coming of a thief. The sky will disappear with a loud noise. Everything in the sky will be destroyed with fire. And the earth and everything in it will be burned up.[a]

Event	Concerns	Romance	Response
1)Shavuot Mt Sinai Torah	The Feast of Harvest	Israel Chosen by God Betrothal Covenant	Judgment 3000 die for calf worship
2)Pentecost Birth of Church	Mostly Gentiles	Cleansing, Preparation 3000 saved	God the Holy Spirit
3)Rapture John 14 Reign of Christ	Mystery Israel and Gentile	Marriage Supper of Lamb Full number of Gentiles saved	Son of God