Pentecost 7-8/3/26/120
Dear Friends,
We have now reached the end of the Omer Count and have arrived at the Feast
of Weeks or Pentecost, meaning the counting of fifty days.
Most of you will be meeting together this period of the feast to renew acquaintances with those in your area. Remember that at this time, at the services at 9 AM, on Pentecost the Holy Spirit was given to the brethren and we all became consubstantial with the Father. This was the same gift given to Christ as the first fruits of the elect.
The world teaches that Christ was consubstantial with the Father as part of a Triune God and of which we have no real part. That is quite untrue and shows the basis of the Satanic deception underlying the attacks on our faith made through the system calling itself Christian but which in fact has no part in the faith. Please study the paper Consubstantial with the Father (No. 81), and also The Holy Spirit (No. 117).
These papers will show you the function of the Holy Spirit and how that power acts on you. It also shows the way in which the Church was set apart to receive the Spirit.
We might take particular notice of the way that Israel was taken out of Egypt and set apart. The sequence has meaning in the way God interacted with them each day of the Omer Count.
On the fifteenth day of the Second Month, which is the Second Passover, God intervened. The children of Israel had left Elim and had entered the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai on the Fifteenth day of the Second Month. On this day the whole congregation of Israel had murmured against Moses and Aaron (Ex. 16:1-3). As a result God gave them manna to eat and the manna lasted for forty years from that time. The Lord sent them quail in the evening, of such quantity that many died of their gluttony. The next morning on the sixteenth day they began eating manna and had bread to eat and they knew that their Lord Yahovah, He was God (Exodus 16:13-16).
The 22nd day of the Second Month, called Zif or Iyar, in the year of the Exodus, was a Sabbath. On the 21st day of the month of the Second Passover there was twice as much Manna gathered so that the Sabbath was kept holy and the Manna did not go bad. The quails had fallen on the evening after the Sabbath and the Manna began on Sunday Morning. Thus the Second Passover was also a period of preparation and setting aside to the Lord.
From this point, on the First day of the week which is the 23rd day of the Second Month, they moved to Rephidim and they had no water and again they murmured against Moses. Moses was told to stand there before the Rock in Horeb and they were fed with water from the Rock. They all ate of the spiritual food and drank of the Rock which was Christ.
At Rephidim from the 23rd day after they had been given water they were attacked by Amalek. They won after a fierce battle and Moses erected the altar of Yahovah-Nissi, for Yaho had sworn that the war between He and Amalek would continue from generation to generation (Ex. 17:15-16).
At Horeb before the Mountain of God, the Judgment was established in Israel and the elders were set aside to be judges in Israel. Jethro, priest of Midian and father-in-law to Moses, sacrificed for them and set them aside to eat bread with Moses before God (Ex. 18:11-12).
In the last week of the Second Month the captains of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands of the host were set aside and the leadership in Israel was established. Moses heard the cases too hard for them all. And Jethro departed into Midian (Ex. 18:24-27).
Then on the Third Month on the same day they left Egypt, they arrived in the Wilderness of Sinai (Ex. 19:1-2). They had departed from Rephidim and had entered the desert of Sinai and there Israel pitched before the Mountain of God. In all this period they were being taken out of Egypt, and over fifty days they were taken from Rameses to the Mountain of God to receive the Law.
Moses had been preparing himself over this period of the Omer count. The Manna was given during this period in the measure of one Omer per man each day. This was the measure of Heavenly food that was given to Israel in preparation for the occupation of the Promised Land.
During the year of the Exodus, the Day of Pentecost fell on Sunday 6 Sivan. The period between 1 and 6 Sivan was spent in preparing Israel to receive the Law of God. Moses ascended the Mountain of God six times.
The ascents and descents were from the Book of Exodus:
Ascent Number Descent
19:3-6 First 19:7-8
19:8-13 Second 19:14-19
19:20-24 Third 19:25
24:9-32:14 Fourth 32:15-30
32:31-33 Fifth 32:34-34:3
34:4-28 Sixth 34:29-35
The two sets of three ascents are marked off by two great events, which are the giving of the Law and the setting up of the Tabernacle. Bullinger has notes on these aspects listed in his notes to Exodus 19:3 (Companion Bible). The sequence of the giving of the Law and the establishment of the Tabernacle was to herald the giving of the Holy Spirit through the activities of Christ and the final building of the Temple of God from Pentecost 30 CE, which Temple we are.
In this sequence God set Israel aside as a possession reserved for Himself. This was the sense of the wording of a peculiar treasure used in the text in Exodus 19:3. The nation of Israel was to become the first of the nations to be brought into the Plan of Salvation. Ultimately the entire world would be given salvation as the prophecies foretell, and since Pentecost 30 CE this has been happening on a progressive basis.
Over the first six days of the Third Month Moses spent his time ascending and descending the mountain three times. The fourth and the sixth ascents are marked by the giving of the first, and second, sets of tablets of the Law. Moses spent over forty days and nights in fasting on the Mountain of God, but not for the period before the giving of the first set of tablets, and Moses was not on the mountain exclusively for the Third month called Sivan or Ramadan. Moreover, the Third Month was not entirely spent before the Law was actually given. Furthermore, the second set of the Law was not given in the Month of Sivan or Ramadan. Thus, the end of the Third Month signifies nothing other than the arrival of the New Moon of the Fourth Month.
The Fourth ascent saw the elders of Israel set aside before God. The law in its structure had been given on the earlier occasions but the set of Tablets had not been made. Moses ascended with the elders of Israel and the elohim who was the Angel of the Presence of God appeared to the elders and Moses. Moses was with the elders and then left them in charge of Aaron and Hur and He and Joshua went to the mountain. For six days the cloud covered the Mountain of God and then God called Moses from out of the cloud and he then went forward and was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. Thus we might deduce that the period of forty-six days occurred well after Pentecost. Bullinger dates the six days and the seventh as the 20th to the 25th and the 26th of Sivan being the Fourth Sabbath of Sivan (cf. fn. to Ex. 24:16-18). Thus the forty days on the Mountain began at the end of Sivan and not at the beginning. It certainly could not have begun any earlier than the 13th day of the Third Month. The forty days ended, in the case of the twentieth of Sivan, on the New Moon of the fifth month Ab after the Fourth Month, which was named for the god Tammuz associated with the idolatry of Israel.
Thus the testing of Israel continued on, after the first disclosure of the Law, while Moses was waiting to receive the tablets of stone and the capacity to erect the Tabernacle. He broke the first set of tablets on the descent well after Pentecost, probably at the beginning of the New Moon of Ab. Thus we are tested continually. Moses ascended again and received another set of tablets and another set of instructions. Each time Israel was tested in waiting and obedience. So too are we tested as the Church of God.
All these things were done to serve as examples for us. The Tabernacle was constructed as an example for that which lies in heaven and which will come to us and which we will join as the City of God.
All of the nations of the world are now able to partake of the Salvation of God conveyed by and through the Holy Spirit.
Only by the grace of God and the Power of the Holy Spirit, which is the power of God are we able to be saved and to become elohim.
We can only do that by obedience and love of one another.
Remember that Moses was tested also and he did not agree to the killing of Israel but he did, with his own hands and the assistance of the Priesthood, kill the idolaters in Levi. So too are we to purge our own midst of idolatry and murmurers.
Love one another and love God through obedience.
Be rejuvenated in the Spirit at Pentecost and be prepared for the work that lies ahead.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General.
© Copyright 2003 Christian Churches of God, All Rights Reserved
