App
(Day 49)
Byron Norrod—May 15, 2021
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Happy Sabbath to you all, it's so nice to be in Church and to be in services with everybody.
Today I have a short message. A question had come up and it was on the count to Pentecost. This year is kind of a strange year as far as the count goes. A lot of times we don't have to worry about too much of an understanding of this at all. We simply count from the Sunday after the Sabbath within Unleavened Bread.
But this year it was a little bit different. We didn't have a Sabbath within Unleavened Bread until the last day of Unleavened Bread. So, the question now comes:
- Is it the Sabbath that we now count from the Sunday after the Sabbath within Unleavened Bread?
or
- Is it the Sunday that is within Unleavened Bread?
Today we will explore this. The Wave Sheaf has to be offered during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The only Sunday within Unleavened Bread this year was the first Day of Unleavened Bread. That means that the Saturday that became before it wasn't within Unleavened Bread.
Other people say that the count begins from the Sunday after the Sabbath within Unleavened Bread, and that would be the last day, 7th day of Unleavened Bread.
We're going to be a week off if we don't do it right. We all know that God wants us to do things correctly, according to Him and His designation.
- What do we do?
- Do we rely on somebody's opinion?
- Do we have to kind of guess at it?
- What does God want from us?
- Who is correct?
- How can we discern it?
Let's look in the Scriptures and see if there are some passages that will allow us to understand this. Today, I would like to discover if we can rightly divide the Word of Truth about the proper count of Pentecost.
I'm going to give some recitals that will just help us to kind of be on the 'same page.'
- the Wave Sheaf was offered by the priests and it was the first of the firstfruits
It represented Jesus' unleavened offering to God as the Redeemer for mankind. It was to pay for the sins of mankind; Jesus was our Passover Lamb. He was offered and a wonderful blameless, perfect unleavened Sacrifice and waved as if He was being lifted up to return to God as a sacrifice.
- Jesus was resurrected at the appointed time during the days of Unleavened Bread, and not after Unleavened Bread.
IF we choose to offer the Wave Sheaf after Unleavened Bread would that be truly representing Jesus Christ's resurrection during Unleavened Bread?
- Which Sunday was the Wave Sheaf Offering offered?
- Could the Wave Sheaf be offered on the first Holy Day, because it doesn't seem right, initially, to the human mind?
or
- Should it be the Sunday after the Sabbath during Unleavened Bread?
Let me just explain this year's chronology: Sabbath—March 27—Passover Day. We celebrate the Passover—the ceremony—on the night before, the previous evening. We washed feet on what night if Saturday day was Passover Day? Friday night!
After the Sabbath, at sunset, it began a new day. The next day is Sunday, a beginning date, which is the first day of Unleavened bread the 15th of Nisan, the 14th was Passover Day and the 15th was the first day of Unleavened Bread. It was initiated with: The Night to Be Much Observed—March 27 at sunset.
So, sunset Saturday night began the first Holy Day of the first day of Unleavened Bread and we started it with a joyous occasion thanking God for allowing us to come out of Egypt with the Night to Be Much Observed.
If we start the count on that first day of Unleavened Bread, and we counted out seven weeks plus one day, then that would be May 16th.
If we chose not to do that and say that the Sabbath is the important thing, so we have to have it from the Sabbath within the Holy Days, which would have been the last day of Unleavened Bread, which was the Sabbath.
So, we have the first day of Unleavened Bread in Sunday, the first day of the week (Sunday) and the last day of Unleavened Bread on the Sabbath, Saturday.
So, if from that last day of Unleavened Bread we start the count to Pentecost—outside of Unleavened Bread—then Pentecost would be, the is year, on the 23rd.
There's the controversy!
Leviticus 23:4: "These are the appointed Feasts of the LORD, Holy convocations, which you shall proclaim in their appointed seasons."
{not our book: The Appointed Times of Jesus the Messiah by Fred R. Coulter}
Verse 5: "In the fourteenth day of the first month, between the two evenings, is the LORD'S Passover, and on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD. You must eat unleavened bread seven days. On the first day you shall have a Holy convocation…. [Holy Day] …You shall not do any servile work therein, but you shall offer a fire offering to the LORD seven days. In the seventh day is a Holy convocation…. [Holy Day at the end of the 7 days] …You shall do no servile work therein"' (vs 5-8).
Verse 9: "And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, "When you have come into the land, which I give to you… [the 'promised land' that hasn't occurred yet at this time. This is instruction for what will occur] …and shall reap the harvest of it… [didn't say you could eat it, yet; there's a precursor] …then you shall bring the premier sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD to be accepted for you. On the next day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it" (vs 9-11).
There's the thing! "…the next day after the Sabbath…" It doesn't say the Sabbath within the Holy Days, it just says "…the next day after the Sabbath…" This will be key when we go to Joshua 5!
Verse 12: "And you shall offer that day when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering to the LORD. And its grain offering shall be two tenth parts of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the LORD for a sweet savor. And the drink offering of it shall be of wine, the fourth part of a hin. And you shall eat neither bread, nor parched grain, nor green ears until the same day, until you have brought an offering to your God…." (vs 12-14).
Tie v 14 with vs 10-11, because they weren't suppose to eat of the land of the harvest until they bring the premiere sheaf, the first of the firstfruits.
"…It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. And you shall count to you beginning with the next day after the Sabbath… [He's not telling us which Sabbath] …beginning with the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering…" (vs 14-15). Oh, He did tell us which Sabbath!
He's telling us that it's the Sabbath beginning with the Wave Sheaf, which isn't a Sabbath, it's a Holy Day in the case of this year. We will see that. He's saying it's going to be "…the next day after the Sabbath…"
What day comes after Saturday? Sunday! It's going to be a Sunday and that's the day that we offer the Wave Sheaf, and then the people could eat of the land!
Verse 16: "Even unto the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall number fifty days. And you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD." Now it goes into Pentecost!
The reason why I wanted to read all that section is because when you look at it, God spends and inordinate amount of time from our perspective on something that is not a Holy Day necessarily. He's talking about these are the Festivals of the Lord, the appointed times, but He gives us quite a number of verses—from 5-16 (12 verses)—about the Wave Sheaf and the count. He's saying this is important! He spends a couple of verse on the first and the last day of Unleavened Bread, and when He talks about Pentecost it's a short bit, then Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles.
Nothing has as much time as what is devoted to the Wave Sheaf. That indicates to me that it's pretty important to God, and He wants to get it right.
Verse 10: "'Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, 'When you have come into the land, which I give to you, and shall reap the harvest of it, then you shall bring the premier sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD to be accepted for you. On the next day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it" (vs 10-11).
Verse 14: "And you shall eat neither bread, nor parched grain, nor green ears until the same day, until you have brought an offering to your God. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings."
Now let's look at the fulfillment of this, when they actually went into the land—the promised land that God had given them—and this is time that is specified in Lev. 23. It's saying 'Wait until this time, don't do it before this, and once you enter into the land offer the premiere sheaf, then you can eat of the harvest of it; but not before.'
Josh. 5 is the fulfillment of Lev. 23 on the instructions that God had given them. It's going to show that the count to Pentecost and the same setup that God had in the very first fulfillment of these instructions was in the same manner that we have this year.
- Sabbath—Passover Day (ceremony the night before)
- Saturday night (beginning of next day Sunday)—Night to Be Much Observed
- Sunday—first day of Unleavened Bread, and also the Wave Sheaf Offering
It's interesting that it is also vs 10-11, just as it was in Lev. 23.
Joshua 5:10: "And the children of Israel camped in Gilgal and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho." Exactly what God told them to do in Lev. 23!
- How did they do it?
- Did they keep it during the daytime?
or
- The night before?
We know that they kept it the night before, because that was God's instruction!
Verse 11: "And they ate of the old grain of the land on the next day after the Passover…[day] …unleavened cakes and roasted new grain in the same day."
How could they eat of the new grain if they hadn't offered the premiere sheaf, yet; and it's the day after Passover? It's the day once they had come into the 'promised land'!
It's the same setup as it was this year in 2021!
Sabbath was the Passover, they ate the Passover the night before. The next day after the Passover day they ate Wave Sheaf, the Premiere Sheaf Offering, the first of the firstfruits, and the grain, that day.
It's the same setup as it was this year in 2021!
An additional proof is v 12: "And the manna stopped on the next day after they had eaten the grain of the land. And there was no more manna for the children of Israel, but they ate the fruit of the land of Canaan that year."
They kept the Passover the evening before, and then the Passover Day was the 14th day. The next day was the 15th day and that was the first day of Unleavened Bread and that's the day that the priests waved the Wave Sheaf. Then the people ate of the grain. It's because they waved the sheaf on this day that we know that it must have been on a Sunday, because it was the day after the Sabbath!
They didn't wave a sheaf when it wasn't on a Sunday because it had to be the day after the Sabbath, which is Sunday.
The day that wave the Wave Sheaf must have been the Sunday after the Sabbath, which had been the day that Passover coincided with.
I would hate to play baseball with Paul, because he would hit and run to first base and stamp on the base and say, 'See, everybody, I'm stepping on the base' and once everybody saw him, then he could run to second base, and the way that he did it, was so that you saw it, and you saw it, and you saw it—everybody.
He explains from so many points of view just so that everybody can understand. When he does that sometimes it creates a misunderstanding for somebody else. 'I got it when you say it this way, but I don't get it when you say it another way.'
I kind of feel like I'm being like Paul in that, but I want to make sure that we fully understand and grasp this if at all possible.
It just means that the very first Wave Sheaf Offering that was fulfilled in the instruction with Lev. 23 was the first one that they offered when they entered the land, and that first one that God has instructed them to do in Lev. 23 has this same exact setup as this year, 2021.
I think that God caused it to be that way for all future generations, for all of us Christians who would have this question:
That maybe it should be on the day after Sabbath after Unleavened Bread. But God says, 'No, I outlined it for you, showed it, and all you have to do is dig in the Scripture a little bit, and if you dig in the Scripture you can grasp it.
Thus, if you start the count from the Sabbath of the Sunday after the Sabbath, which would have been the first day of Unleavened Bread—March 28—then we will see seven weeks later, plus one day would be May 16, Pentecost this year. I hope that this might clear things up for you.
While we're on the count to Pentecost, and this is slightly off topic, I want to explain one other little thing that will help us. I didn't always know this, just learned this fairly recently.
Pentecost is a mini-jubilee. It represents the Jubilee Year in the same way. It's the freeing of the slaves. The Jubilee was a wonderful year, the 50th year. It was after seven Sabbaths of years, and then the next year—which in that sense a Sunday—was the 50th year. But just as the Sunday is the first day of the week, and the first day of that next week in the count to the next Sabbath, so is the 50th year in the count for the Jubilee.
Whenever God started the count for the Jubilee years, when we came to the first Jubilee—seven Sabbaths of years, 49 years—the next one would have been in that sense like a Sunday, first day of the week—the 50th year, do we start the new count the next day? The next year?
In other words, do we start the next count on a Monday for the next 49 years, then plus one? The subsequent year it would start, in that sense, on a Tuesday for the next count.
If we start that year on a Tuesday, count 49 years plus one, then it's going to be messed up, and it won't be a Sabbath of years.
God's smarter than all that! God says, 'No, you don't get it. I'm trying to explain something to you. Here's what I want you to get: Count 49 years—'My Sabbaths in years is just like the Sabbaths in the daily count for a week.' If we start the week on Sunday and end it on the 7th day—which is Saturday.
So, in that same way that Pentecost was the 50th year, the 50th day in the count, that same day like Pentecost on Sunday is the beginning year that we start the count to the next Jubilee.
What that means is that God wants His Sabbaths in years to fall on the Sabbath that He commands. So, there's weeks of Sabbaths. Seven Sabbaths—counting in years—to the Jubilee, plus one for the 50th year.
If we get that, then Sunday thru Saturday seven times—49 years—the 50th year would be on a Sunday, but that also begins the count for 49 years.
Isn't that interesting? I didn't realize that all these years having been in the Church, but it's really 'kool' to understand that God is laying things out in a manner that is pleasing to Him.
We simply have to fall in line with Him and get on God's page, rather than us being on our own pages.
Scriptural References:
- Leviticus 23:4-16, 10-11, 14
- Joshua 5:1-12
Also referenced: Book:
The Appointed Times of Jesus the Messiah by Fred R. Coulter
BN:bo
Transcribed: 5/23/21
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