At least eight times in Leviticus 23 these special days are called “feasts of the Lord.” Or singularly, a “feast unto the Lord!”

One of the Hebrew nouns for “feast” is spelled “chag” and implies both a time of gathering together and a time of festivity, joyfulness! The other noun so used is “moed,” also indicating a time or season for man to meet and worship his God! For communion, fellowship, harmony! (The first noun emphasizing the activity itself, the second emphasizing the time of year itself.)

God is literally in Leviticus 23 instituting/ordaining the annual “calendar” for Israel. “Worship cycles” one might call these Events!

These annual Meetings are: “Passover,” then “Unleavened Bread,” then “Firstfruits” (all in the Spring of the year). Followed (after an interval of fifty days) by the “Feast of Weeks” also called “Pentecost”… then later (in the Fall of the year) come the Feasts of “Trumpets,” the revered “Day of Atonement” and the final feast of “Tabernacles!”

Each is heavily loaded with spiritual meaning, with much beautiful typology!

But back to the first Paragraph above … “the Feasts of the Lord.” Not man’s idea, any of these. The Lord’s “doings” totally!

Way back in the Garden of Eden this tendency of the Lord’s was apparent … going down in the “cool of the day” to fellowship with His creation, with Adam and Eve.

Now officially, God instructs Israel to seven times a year (that number being used purposely, very meaningfully) come together and spend time in His Presence! (At three of those Feasts attendance was mandatory, required of all Jewish men … Passover and Pentecost and Tabernacles. Involving for many of them a long trip to Jerusalem!)

Yes, these are the Lord’s Feasts!

Much as we now called Sunday, the first day of the week, “the Lord’s Day!”

But look at this please.

When Jesus came to earth (via the Virgin Birth) the leadership of Israel, priests and judges) had so polluted those feasts that the Gospels no longer call them the “Feasts of the Lord” … but rather “the Feasts of the Jews!” See John 5:1 and John 6:4, for examples.

Talk about digression, apostasy!

Wow!

Let’s (this week and next) study each of these seven Feasts of the Lord … in chronological order … and see what the Holy Spirit might teach us.

Sounds interesting.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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This is one of the truly great chapters of Leviticus, of the Pentateuch! In fact, of the Old Testament! And I wouldn’t doubt, the entire Bible!

It gives an overview of “God’s Plan for the Ages!”

Seven Holy Days, seven “Feasts,” each of which deserves (and will receive) a full day’s Lesson, a complete Lesson.

And, the Lord willing, beginning Monday Morning, we will begin with “Passover,” that annual worship Celebration for Israel.

(I no longer write a Lesson on Sundays, as I did for years. Preaching two or three times every Lord’s Day keeps me plenty busy!)

There’s much to learn here.

Study with us each day next week … what a dispensational View we are about to see.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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In Leviticus 22 the priests of Israel are again instructed as to “clean living.” But notice this important distinction, one which applies to us in the Age of Grace as well.

These men were already priests unto the Lord, and these stipulations did NOT qualify them for the priesthood. Rather these stipulations were to be followed … to insure fellowship with the Lord, much closer fellowship I might say.

They were priests by birth!

As we Christians are priests unto our Lord by new birth!

Hallelujah!

But they had to be careful not to mar their sweet, close communion with the Lord, their being able to draw near to Him again and again!

Thus … any leprous looking skin (a picture of unconfessed sin) or any touching of a filthy creeping insect or dead body (a picture of failing to abstain from the world) or a host of other prohibitions in the chapter … would bar/prohibit that priest from approaching God … until that sin had been atoned!

What a Lesson for us Believers today!

Sin dampens our sensitivity to the things of God!

Isaiah 59:1-2 at least illustrates this principle: “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but YOUR INIQUITIES have separated between you and your God, and YOUR SINS have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”

And in the New Testament so does 1 John 1:7-9, I believe. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all SIN. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our SINS, he is faithful and just to forgive us our SINS, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

And Paul helps the Thessalonians to see this truth. “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”

Wow!

Words to live by, indeed!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Yes, you can quench your fellowship with God, according to 1 Thessalonians 5:19 anyway.

God can be “hurt” by our careless (tainted) living, Ephesians 4:30. “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”

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What an interesting chapter!

It’s about the priests, again.

All of which is, I think, in “type” or “symbol” picturesque of our “Great High Priest, Jesus Christ.”

In verse 7 for example … “They (the priests) shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane.” Now think about Jesus, His Bride, His Wife! Which would be the Church! A Church that, according to Paul, will be “without spot or wrinkle” and “holy and without blemish!” Ephesians 5:27, a “chaste virgin” in fact!

Another example, spoken unto Aaron … “Whosoever he be of thy seed (of the priests) in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.” Verse 17

Wow!

And Jesus our High Priest … indeed “without blemish!”

These Leviticus 21 laws are this exact, this specific, too. “For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken. No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.” Verses 18-21!

Still Jesus is ultimately in view, surely!

He was perfect, both in His Life and in His Death! Both in His Body and in His Spirit!

Our High Priest is not blind, He can see perfectly!

He is not lame, He can “walk” with us day by day!

He is not broken-handed, He has already touched me this morning!

His eyes are not imperfect, but Pure and Loving!

In fact, our dear Lord is, to use the language of the Song of Solomon … “altogether lovely!” Song of Solomon 5:16 specifically.

I’m not through with this “priest” idea yet. More will be written tomorrow, the Lord willing. (Leviticus chapter 22 is somewhat similar to chapter 21 here.)

Aaron, a picture of Jesus, in many ways.

Although Jesus has an even Higher Priesthood than that of Aaron!

What a Saviour!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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Leviticus 20 is a chapter that continues various rules/laws of purity in ancient Israel. It is part of a Block of Scripture doing so, from chapter 17 all the way through to chapter 22.

But the “key verse” in chapter 20 is this: “Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.” Verse 22

It sounds here like sin not only degrades its participants, the sinners themselves … but also defiles the land! The city or county or nation! In that day the village or the tribe or (again) the nation. God talking: “That the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.” Where “spue out” means “to vomit.”

Wow!

The chapter begins with a rather long Paragraph regarding the major sin of the former inhabitants of Canaan. But please read it anyway …

“Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not: 5 Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people. 6 And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. 7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God.” Leviticus 22:1-7, with the verse numbers left intact.

Molech being a false god to whom the Canaanites offered their children (frankly, burning them aliveon an altar) in order to appease this filthy monster, this so-called called deity.

Look at the detail of this warning, this prohibition! If a Jew himself sacrifices a child to this “Molech” thing … he is to be put to death!

And even if a Jew knows that his neighbor is doing such … cruel child sacrifice and defiled worship … and does not “report” (presumably to the elders or to the priests) that lewdness, that apostasy … he too is under the Wrath of God! God will “kill” him! “Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off.” God Almighty in such a case, Word for Word!

Wow!

And the stern Paragraph ends with a summary Statement … “Be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God.” Verse 7, idol worship apparently being the very opposite of true holiness unto the Lord God.

Then too, later in the chapter we read: “A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.” Verse 27, chapter’s end.

So … God not only condemns the participant in idol worship, or the person who fails to report idol worship … but also sentences the “wizard” or “medium” to death!

God hates idolatry!

God hates communion with the prince of darkness and his allies!

(Note that this chapter both begins and ends with a discussion of the sin of “idolatry,” sandwiching all its other contents within that overarching thought, theme!)

Yes … the Nation of Israel (back to the Lesson’s title) was to be radically DIFFERENT from her predecessors, the earlier inhabitants of the land now called “Holy!” The Land “promised” to Abraham centuries ago!

“God and geography,” what a thought!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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