The Hebrew feasts are God's ordinance for all generations, forever.
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever (Exodus 12:14).
"Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come (Exodus 12:17).
Passover is one of the yearly feasts of the Lord which make up the Jewish calendar. It is a cycle of life. God established this cycle in order to draw us closer to Himself. It is Divine Appointments - divinely appointed times of meeting with God. Everything that happens in life goes on a cycle. There is a circle of sowing, tending, harvesting; a circle of poverty and destruction. There are people that keep going round and round the same cycle of trouble continuously. When the Hebrew people entered the Promised Land, they started a circle of destruction upon themselves. They would break their covenant with God, begin to serve Baal and Ashtoreth. God would sell them into the hands of oppressors who would oppress them for many years. They would repent, cry to God for mercy. He would save them a deliverer. When they were delivered and the land rested, they would return to their sins again and repeat the same circle of being oppressed, delivered, the land rested and the same circle continued to repeat itself until the Lord God said: Enough! He scattered them into the wind to go and serve the gods of the heathens in nations they never knew for their destruction. So in their circles of destruction we heard such names as Gideon, Deborah, Samson and so forth. These were some of the deliverers the Lord sent to deliver them from their oppressors each time they repented from their evil ways and cried out to God for deliverance.
In that same way, the Lord God appointed unto us, the Body of Christ (not just the Jewish people) a cycle of blessings that make up the Jewish calendar so that as we follow these cycles of life, we continue to experience divine favor and increase in our lives. It draws us closer to the heart of God and also aligns us to His prophetic timetable. These circle of feasts are prophetic.
When God commanded these feasts, He gave them specific number of days to celebrate each feast and the dates they were to hold. These dates and days have been fulfilled in Christ, except one …the feast of the last Trumpet which will correspond with the second coming of Christ. Since the believers do not know when Christ is coming back to Earth, some have argued that it will be on the feast of trumpets. I am yet to study about that, but we need to understand the prophetic nature of these feasts.
God's festivals tell stories about God's kingdom. They bring to life all of the symbols, prophecies, and spiritual meanings of God's kingdom. Yeshua died on Passover as the Passover lamb. His friends buried Him on Feast of Unleavened Bread to show that His body was unleavened and free of sin. He resurrected on the Feast of Firstfruits as the firstfruits from the dead. Then, the Holy Spirit touched His disciples on the Feast of Weeks, also called Pentecost….(http://vmoody.com/feasts/).
The Holy Spirit was given on the feast of Weeks, the feast of Pentecost….corresponding to the same day the Lord gave Moses the Torah on Mount Sinai. So the celebration of Pentecost (the gift of the Holy Spirit) is also the celebration of the gift of God's word, the Torah.
THE FEAST OF PASSOVER
This Feast and event was given to increase our faith and prepare us to enter into the fullness of His blessing! Passover was commanded by God for the Jews in the Old Testament to teach them the importance of redemption by the blood. But it was also observed by Christians in the New Testament to remember and understand God's redeeming work. The Bible tells us it is to be a permanent ordinance…a celebration for all time. (Chuck Pierce)
In I Corinthians 5:7-8, Paul exhorts the mostly-Gentile Church in Corinth: "Christ, OUR Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore LET US celebrate the Festival..."
The redemptive message of Passover is summed up with this promise of God upon His people:
Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the LORD (Exodus 6: 6-8),
We know the story of the powerful redemption of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage where they were slaves for 400 years. After plaguing Egypt with nine terrible plagues, Pharaoh's heart remained hard. He still would not let the people of God go: the Lord said to Moses:
… Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence: when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether. Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man request of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold. And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people. 4 And Moses said, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more. But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel (Exodus 11: 1-7)
This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it (Exodus 12: 2-8)
The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you when I strike the land of Egypt. This day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord. Throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance (Exodus 12: 13-14)
That night, the Lord sent an angel of death into Egypt which slaughtered every firstborn of Egyptian families, but spared all the firstborn of the Hebrew families. Their lives were spared because, there was a substitute for their lives: the blood of the lambs on the entrance of their doors and windows. That was the power of the blood of the Lamb, which was pointing to the Blood of Jesus Christ that was to be shed for the redemption of man from Satan, sin and the world; to liberate man from all curses and bring us to our wealthy place in Christ.
After that, they ate their breads unleavened, signifying the sinless body of the lambs that were sacrificed for their lives, which also was pointing to the sinless body of the Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified for us.
The story of Passover is the story of redemption of man from sin, Satan and the world. Paul wrote:
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Galatians 3: 13-14).
In celebrating the last Passover with His disciples, the Lord Jesus established the cup of wine and bread as representing His Blood that would be shed for the life of man and His Body that would be broken for man on the cross. This happened on the night of Passover celebration. Thus as we partake on the communion table of the Lord, we partake of His Body and Blood for our healing, deliverance and total redemption from the hands of the enemy. Besides, the Lord God instituted the feast of Passover as an ordinance forever, which will be unto eternity. This means that the feast of Passover will continue unto eternity.
The most powerful faith declaration for deliverance we can always make according to Derek Prince is: "I am redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb out of the hand of the enemy!" He said that when we make this declaration in faith, and keep on making it, something will happen. We will surely be delivered. The real Passover message is centered on our redemption through the Blood of the Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus Christ who was given for our redemption and for our sonship with God. Through His Blood, we are made sons of God. The Gentile nations thus receive the grace of God to be adopted into the family of God as sons of God, thus becoming branch of the Vine (John 15: 5). The Feast of Passover is a faith declaration that we are redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb.
When we come together to celebrate the Passover in obedience to divine commands, the Lord Jesus is always with us on these feasts. The celebration does something in us as we come together to remember God's great works of redemption, and declare the power of redemption in our lives.
The feast of Passover, which lasts for twenty-four hours is immediately followed by the seven days of the feast of unleavened bread. During this feast, the people of God are instructed to remove anything leavened in their houses and territories for seven days. No bread shall be eaten with yeast. Anything that contain yeast are removed from our houses and territories for seven years. Yeast represents sin. The people of God are to search their lives against sin. It is written that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump (Galatians 5: 9). Jesus said to His disciples:… Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees (Mathew 16: 6).
Paul said to the Corinthians,
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5: 6-8).
The seven days celebration of the feast of unleavened bread, which is searching our lives with the candle of the Lord (His word) from any yeast, sin will release the first fruits, the resurrection power of God into our lives (the feast of the first fuits). By this resurrection power of God, we will overcome the enemies that have been holding us from entering into our spiritual inheritance with God, our Promised Land. Thus, the celebration of the feast of unleavened bread is followed by the celebration of the feast of first fruits, which represents the feasts of resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For more information on the celebration of this feast and other feasts, look forward to my book on THE MESSAINIC CHURCH: EMBRACING THE JEWISH ROOTS OF CHRISTIANITY. There we will explore the prophetic nature of these feasts and how Satan waged relentless wars against them, which made them unpopular today. But glory be to God, the lost truths are being restored back to the Body of Christ in this apostolic dispensation for the fullness of all things. We are contending for the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Blessed be His name!
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