Fifty days after the Feast of First Fruits was the Feast of Pentecost, or Shavuot – Feast of Weeks (seven weeks of seven days), officially marking the beginning of the main harvest season (the end of barley harvest and the beginning of wheat harvest.)
Likewise, fifty days after Jesus rose from the grave was the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Apostles and the Church was born. The harvest of souls began.
Three thousand were saved the first day, and eight thousand by the end of the week. Then the new believers in Christ spread the harvest around the world.
If one zooms out and looks at all of recorded human history, it becomes clear that the world was divinely set up for this moment, the rapid spread of the Gospel.
c.1400 BC — Moses and the Children of Israel celebrated the first Passover, came out of Egypt and entered the Promised Land. The tradition of observing the Seven Feasts was instituted.
722 BC — The Ten Northern Tribes of Israel were taken captive by Assyria and scattered far and wide, resulting in pockets of Israelite communities established around the known world.
509 BC – The Roman Republic was founded. In the 4th century BC, Rome began to expand its road system, beginning with the Appian Way, connecting entire the known world. “All roads lead to Rome.”
335 BC — Alexander the Great conquered and spread the Greek language, which became the world-wide trade language.
285 BC – The Old Testament was translated into Greek, called the Septuagint.
27 BC — The Pax Romana began – a century of world peace.
33 AD — Jesus was crucified and resurrected.
At the first Pentecost, Jewish believers were filled with the Holy Spirit.
At the end of that week, they traveled from Jerusalem during the Pax Romana peace,
on Roman roads,
to Jewish communities scattered around the world, proclaiming that the Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah, which could be read in the Greek Septuagint, were fulfilled in the risen Christ!
Romans 10:15-18
“How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace … But I say, have they not heard?Yes indeed: ‘Their sound has gone out to all the earth.”
The last three Feast of Israel were the Feast of Trumpet, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. These feast are yet to be fulfilled in the future.
In the Jewish year, the long months of harvesting continued as the Israelites worked in the fields, threshing, winnowing, sifting of the grain, as well as harvesting grapes, figs, almonds, and pomegranates, before the latter rain started.
At the end of the summer harvest, the Feast of Trumpets called the people to gather in from the fields to the Temple.
The harvest was now complete.
The long summer of harvesting souls comes to an end with the angles blowing trumpets.
1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.”
I Corinthians 15:52 “At the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:40 “Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.”
The next two feasts are the Day of Atonement – Yom Kippur, the most solemn of all feasts, which students of prophecy speculate may be fulfilled in the Great Tribulation or the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Finally, there is the Feast of Tabernacles, where the Israelites dwelt in booths or tents to remind them of their pilgrimage 40 years following the presence of the Lord in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness.
This could foreshadow the saints dwelling with the Lord forever.
John 14:2-3 (Amplified Bible) “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and I will take you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also.”
