Calvary Chapel Cottage Grove
May 31, 2026

      • Isaiah 51:11NKJV

      • Psalm 30:title–12NKJV

      • Psalm 30NKJV

  • Forever Reign
  • In Christ Alone

  • Pentecost - Shavuot

    Turn to your favorite book in the bible - Leviticus 23 and later Acts 2
    This feast fell on May 22 but it was Memorial Day weekend last week so as promised I’d like to teach about it even though it is past.
    Now you might say “pastor, I’ve heard this before” but Peter said ..For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. Honestly, these feasts have so many insights it’s hard to cover them all in one single teaching every year so there is always something to learn about them. And since our recent passages in Luke have to do with God the Holy Spirit, this is quite timely!
    The Lord commanded Israel males to observe three main Feasts annually. They were never called the Jewish feasts but the Lord’s Feasts!
    Passover is in the Spring, [with three events interlinked] then Pentecost in late Spring a 24-hour event and Tabernacles in the Fall with three separate events. [Rosha Shana - Jewish new year, ten days later, Yom Kippur - one day and five days later Sukkot or Tabernacles].
    In Matthew 16 Jesus promised His disciples He would build His ecclesia or church.
    And If you are a seasoned believer you know Acts 2 where the word Pentecost is mentioned in the NTand the promised Holy Spirit was poured out upon 120 people in the upper room leading to Peter explain what happened and preached the gospel to all 16 nations represented. The result was 3000 getting saved and baptized! Acts 2:46-47 is the first mention of this new entity at work. Some translations use “church” but it means ecclesia or called out ones, numbered ones....
    Acts 2:46–47 LSB
    So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.
    So Pentecost is an important day not just for Israel but also the church.
    It was our 1,993rd Birthday!
    I believe it’s important for the church to remember that our roots in Israel.
    Romans 11:18 LSB
    ...do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast against them, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.
    Our love for Israel is not a political motivation but actually a prophetic inspiration spoken by the prophets. Through these prophets, YHWH promised “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob or Israel...
    Romans 11:27 LSB
    “And this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.”
    The prophetic inspiration is our motivation not the current government ~ I mean, we should be praying for Israel all the time, but some believers judge Israel today and have a hard time believing the Lord would want to save them so they hold to replacement theology; that the church has replaced Israel! And that’s just not true! The prophecies claim God will save them in that day! So too many Christians are unaware of the meaning the Feasts. While the church is not commanded to keep them, we are welcome to learn about them. Paul made it clear.
    Colossians 2:16 LSB
    Therefore, no one is to judge you in food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—
    Israel was commanded to observe religious regulations or ritual observances before the church existed. But they still offer us huge insights today.
    Paul wrote to the Corinthians about Israel’s moral ups and downs in the wilderness to instruct us.
    1 Corinthians 10:11 LSB
    Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have arrived.
    Israel fell into idolatry, immorality, and unbelief - Paul warns the church to avoid what they did.
    Leviticus 23:15–16 LSB
    ‘You shall also count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day when you brought in the sheaf of the wave offering; there shall be seven complete sabbaths. ‘You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath; then you shall bring a new grain offering near to Yahweh.
    So Pentecost happened seven weeks after Passover, hence why it’s called Feast of weeks on the 50th day.
    Incidentally, if you look in Leviticus 25.10 it mentions the year of Jubilee is which was the same pattern but in sabbatical years.
    Leviticus 25:10 LSB
    ‘You shall thus set apart as holy the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own possession of land, and each of you shall return to his family.
    Wow! The Land was returned to the original families, slaves were freed, all debts were canceled; the land would rest and rejuvenate, society would reset & be rebalanced. Yet, it was never observed!
    Our national debt closing in on $40 trillion! Growing at $85,000 per second! Imagine every 50 years erasing our national debt, our own debts and taking a year off work, giving our farmers land one year off to allow the soil to be restored.
    However - Jubilee foreshadows Christ’s redemption—He proclaims “liberty to the captives and forgave us our debts!
    Leviticus 23:17 LSB
    ‘You shall bring in from your places of habitation two loaves of bread for a wave offering, made of two-tenths of an ephah; they shall be of a fine flour, baked with leaven as first fruits to Yahweh.
    In Jewish tradition Exodus 19 places Israel at Sinai in the third month or 50 days after leaving Egypt. So the two loaves represented the giving of the law. Other traditions were gradually added over centuries: A day of reading Torah & or the Book of Ruth, the great-great grandmother of King David, the ancestor of Yeshua, son of David!
    So The day after the 7th Sabbath week they were to bring two wheat loaves as a wave offering and I’m not making this up....- “in the form of a cross!” Also, animal sacrifices and drink offerings. But notice these loaves were baked with leaven.
    But this is always the problem with traditions -leaven speaks of puffing up, corruption and sin.
    How could these loaves speak of the Law? I believe the mystery is in the waving of the loaves!
    The first mention of keeping a feast was to observe Passover.
    Exodus 12:14 LSB
    ‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to Yahweh; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a perpetual statute.
    “memorial to you” speaks of Israel not the church -
    Then the feast of Unleavened bread for a week - why? To remember they had to escape Egypt in haste. So no leavened bread for 7 days.
    Exodus 13:6 LSB
    “For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to Yahweh.
    But originally Pentecost and Tabernacles had other titles.
    Exodus 23:16 LSB
    “Also you shall keep the Feast of the Harvest [Pentecost] of the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in the field; also the Feast of the Ingathering [Tabernacles] at the end of the year when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field.
    These feasts applied to the Promised Land to plant their own food and harvest it!
    Here’s where we get the Hebrew word Shavuot
    Exodus 34:22 LSB
    “And you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks, that is, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.
    Shabua (שָׁבוּעַ) literally means “a week” — a period of seven days.
    Shavuot (שָׁבוּעוֹת) means “weeks”, the plural form.
    Fast forward to Acts 2 - turn there
    So Jesus sends the disciples to the upper room in Jerusalem to wait …they prayed, replaced Judas by lot & devoted themselves to prayer, meanwhile the city was packing out with Jewish visitors & Gentile converts from about sixteen regions of the known world. Little did they know this Pentecost was going to be special.
    Acts 2:1–5 LSB
    And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues like fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.
    Of course, we see the Holy Spirit begins His ministry as promised by Jesus.
    They were “all” filled with the HS in the upper room and began to speak with other tongues but not the kind of tongues this passage has become famous for. These tongues were understandable to all who were visiting from the surrounding regions.
    This Upper room had to be open enough for the visiting Jews and gentiles to hear the wonderful works of God!
    Of course, as this phenomenon was being mocked, Peter preached the gospel, and 3000 souls were saved by grace that day! In contrast, 3000 fell because of idolatry in Ex 32:28 under the Law.
    So getting back to these leavened loaves; how would offering two leavened loaves before the LORD commemorate the anniversary of the giving of the law?
    The scripture never stated they represented the law. It was a tradition Jews held.
    But I believe the Two leavened loaves means (Two categories of peoples: Jew & gentile sinners)
    Both sinful Jew & Gentile made one new man! You see, God so loved the word that He gave His only unique Son to deliver us from sin even though we still have “leaven” in us. And as we read in Acts, this was a huge problem in the early church for Jewish believers.
    It took Peter & Paul to convince them that Gentiles could be saved. Not only that, but Jesus likened true believers as “wheat” in sower sows the Word! The fruitful ones will be those hear the word and do it!
    And notice what Peter preached about the Holy Spirit - verse 14
    Acts 2:14–18 LSB
    But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. “For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, And your young men shall see visions, And your old men shall dream dreams; Even on My male slaves and female slaves, I will in those days pour out My spirit And they shall prophesy.
    As a charismatic myself I have always heard Acts 2 cited to affirm the power of the HS upon believers as speaking in tongues hence the term “pentecostal” church but…a simple reading of Peters comments shows this isn’t the context.
    Let’s be honest Saints, we all have the Holy Spirit and want to walk in the Spirit but most of us have been taught we must pray in tongues, desire visions, dream dreams and have spiritual experiences on a daily or least every Sunday service to prove it.
    But you can’t have the first half of Acts 2 without the last half.
    Why is rest of Joel 2 never included from Peter’s quotation?
    Acts 2:19–21 LSB
    ‘And I will put wonders in the sky above And signs on the earth below, Blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. ‘The sun will be turned into darkness And the moon into blood, Before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. ‘And it will be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
    This description sounds more like the literal last days mentioned in Daniel and Revelation. 1260 days, 42 months, 3.5 years or a time, times and half a time!
    When the people will need to repent and be saved and be under divine protection through wonders and signs on the earth!
    Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for God’s signs and wonders but this is describing the great tribulation and I don’t plan on being there!! You? I believe the real wonders and signs today are sitting in churches today!!
    We were once leavened with sin and corruption, but now we are saved, sanctified, redeemed and filled with the Spirit. I believe any believer can be empowered by the Holy Spirit, without speaking in tongues. It’s a gift like all of them!
    In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul talks about those who are given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to others ventures of faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the workings of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the distinguishing or discernment of spirits, to someone else various kinds of tongues, or translation of tongues. Which will always be a praise to God since anyone who speaks in an unknown tongue speaks unto God not and unto men
    we all know this isn’t how it’s been practiced in the church!
    Plus, we don’t get to choose when to use them, the Holy Spirit does!
    1 Corinthians 12:11 LSB
    But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.
    So the feast of Pentecost is an important landmark that turned a religious ritual into a rich relationship with God.
    So happy birthday church! Be filled with the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, and desire to be led by the Spirit and just when you need it, He will deliver
    Let us give thanks for the Holy Spirit’s work on earth and be available to follow His lead when the time comes!
    COMMUNION

      • Acts 2:46–47NKJV

      • Romans 11:18NKJV

      • Romans 11:27NKJV

      • Colossians 2:16NKJV

      • 1 Corinthians 10:11NKJV

      • Leviticus 23:15–16NKJV

      • Leviticus 25:10NKJV

      • Leviticus 23:17NKJV

      • Exodus 12:14NKJV

      • Exodus 13:6NKJV

      • Exodus 23:16NKJV

      • Exodus 34:22NKJV

      • Acts 2:1–5NKJV

      • Acts 2:14–18NKJV

      • Acts 2:19–21NKJV

      • 1 Corinthians 12:11NKJV

  • Hymn of Heaven
  • Good Good Father
Calvary Chapel Cottage Grove
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