The First Resurrection (10 of 12)

Mike Connell

In the New Testament, the Feast of Passover was the feast when Jesus died. Jesus gave up His life, and there was a darkness over the land for three hours, and that stopped people offering up the sacrifice until the very moment Jesus died. As Jesus died, or when He died, then everyone was able to offer the natural Passover sacrifice. The very event, a lamb is slain, and its blood shed for forgiveness of sins; the very timing of it, the exact day, the exact time, coincided with the natural Feast of Passover. The Passover of the old was fulfilled exactly to the very hour, by circumstances God engineered. That's when the veil of the temple tore down. When you see that, you realise that God pre-planned all of history - He's bigger than all of events.

Jesus was inspected four times, by four different people - just like the lamb was inspected, over four days. It tells us in 1 Corinthians 5 that Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. The personal experience for us is that we receive Christ as our saviour. His blood cleanses our sins. We become justified before God, and now we become escaped out of Egypt. We're now born again into the family of God.

Then Jesus told the disciples that they should wait, and they should wait until they receive power from on high. They had to wait, and they had no idea how long to wait - or maybe they did? They waited until the exact day of Pentecost, at the exact hour, that they would pour water out in the temple. The Holy Ghost fell on them, and the Pentecost Feast that had been celebrated for years now was literally fulfilled. Jesus is now pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh and it's very much like its counterpart in the Old Testament.

In Exodus 19, where they came to the foot of the mountain, and the fire of God fell, and they saw the fire of God, and God spoke to them, and the law of God was given. Now in the New Testament, the fire of God falls - they see the fire of God falling. God speaks and ministers to them. The spirit now is put into their heart, the law of God's written in the heart. The parallels are extraordinary.

Again, we have the Feast of Passover, which we can experience personally - we get saved. We have the Feast of Pentecost - we get filled with the Holy Ghost, and fire, and God begins the transforming work in our life, and empowers us for service. What I want you to see in this point is: 1) it's personal, and it leads us to an encounter with God; and 2) it's also prophetic - it has an accurate time when it gets fulfilled.

That brings us then to the feast of Tabernacles, which is in the seventh month. At the beginning of the seventh month, they have the Feast of Tabernacles, which started with a trumpet, the sound of the trumpet. The Feast of Trumpets was on one day; and then there was the Day of Atonement, which was fasting - Yom Kippur; and then there was the Feast of Tabernacles - the Jubilee announced.

Clearly there's two things… The first thing is: this must also be a personal experience with God; the second is: it must have a timing, which is exactly the right timing. So, it's almost certain that the Feast of Tabernacles will be literally fulfilled when they're celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.

Numbers 10:1 – “the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: make two silver trumpets for yourself. You will make them of hammered work; you shall use them for calling the congregation, directing the movements of the camps. When they blow both (two trumpets), all the congregation shall gather before you, at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. However, if they blow only one, then only the leaders, the heads of divisions of Israel shall gather to you”.

There are other things about it… “when they sound the advance, then the camps will all move”. So, whenever there was a movement, they sounded the trumpet. Whenever they wanted to have a gathering, sound both trumpets; and to gather only the leaders, the rulers - one trumpet.

If they had war, they would sound the trumpet to remind God to step in and help them in their wars. If they had a day of gladness or feasts, the feasts of Israel, they would also sound the trumpets at the feasts, so that's where we get the Feast of Trumpets.