A Fresh Revelation for Shavuot

About a week before Shavuot (Pentecost) a few years ago, I was driving by myself, coming home from my trip to Pennsylvania and New York. I was scheduled to do the teaching at our local congregation’s Shavuot gathering, so I was pondering and praying about what I should share on Shavuot.

I have known and taught the basics about Shavuot and the other Biblical feasts for decades. Shavuot (which means “weeks” in Hebrew) is the final feast of the four spring feasts. Passover is the first annual spring feast, immediately followed by Unleavened Bread and First Fruits. Even though Shavuot does not arrive until after a fifty-day count (seven sabbaths are counted “unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath,” Leviticus 23:16), Shavuot is connected to Passover and is therefore considered part of the spring feasts.

The connection between Passover and Shavuot can be seen in the respective themes of these two feasts. Passover, the anniversary of the Hebrews’ last night as slaves in Egypt, is about receiving redemption and freedom from slavery. Shavuot, the anniversary of the revelation of God to Israel at Mount Sinai, is about receiving the instructions of the Torah.

Shavuot is connected to Passover because a redeemed and freed people need instructions to tell them how their Redeemer wants them to live. God did not free the Hebrew slaves from Egypt by the blood of the passover lambs and then tell them, “Now go wherever you wish, and do whatever you’d like to do.” In the same way, God did not redeem us by the blood of Yeshua/Jesus, the Lamb of God, and then tell us to just go wherever we would like to go and do whatever we would like to do. As Paul said, “ye are not your own” because “ye are bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:19f). Peter tells us that our redemption price was “the precious blood of Messiah, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:19).

The first Passover prophetically points to our redemption through Yeshua, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The first time the Hebrews observed Unleavened Bread and First Fruits, they crossed the Red Sea and “were all baptized unto Moses” (1 Cor. 10:2). They emerged on the other side of the waters to start a brand-new life, free from slavery to Egypt and Pharaoh. Therefore, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits point to our baptism and to our new life on the other side of our baptismal waters, where we are free from slavery to sin and Satan.

“Therefore we are buried with Him [Yeshua/Jesus] by baptism into death: that like as Messiah was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

After the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, they started their trek toward Mount Sinai, where they would receive the Torah, written with the finger of God on tablets of stone on Shavuot. This points to our receiving of the Torah, written with the Holy Spirit on the fleshly tablets of our heart. (See 2 Corinthians 3:3.)

I was pondering all these parallels as I drove in my car. These are things that most Messianic disciples already know. Most GOE readers probably already know this stuff. These are things I have taught and written about ever since I first learned about the prophetic parallels that exist in the story of the Exodus and in the story of Yeshua in the Gospels. As I was wondering what to share with our congregation on Shavuot, I thought I would probably just have to take various things I had shared in the past, rearrange them, present the same old information in a new way, and spice it up a bit so the teaching would not sound old and stale to the old-timers who have been hearing this stuff for years -- kind of like putting a bunch of leftovers together to make a tasty casserole.

I was thinking about how I might put together this ‘casserole sermon’ from teachings I had done in the past. I did not think I would have anything new to share, because I thought I probably already knew all the prophetic parallels. After all, I had learned about the feasts in the early 1970s; I had lived through an entire feast cycle in Jerusalem from Passover to Tabernacles in 1976; I had been celebrating the feasts to some degree for over forty years; I had done scores of teachings and articles about the feasts.

When you have read the Bible stories so many times, celebrated the feasts so many years, and taught about them so many times, it’s easy to think there’s nothing new for you to discover, no more new prophetic parallels for you to see.

But then something occurred to me. I saw a prophetic parallel I had never seen or heard before. It was a revelation that made me say to myself, “Duh! How did I never see that before? All these years, and I never noticed that!”

I felt as if the Lord had said to me, “Here’s a new morsel for you, Mister Know-It-All. Chew on this and see what you get.”

It occurred to me that there was a miraculous event that happened immediately after Yeshua’s death and before His burial:

“And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent” (Matt. 27:50).

As the Book of Hebrews explains, this rending of the veil from top to bottom shows us we can have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Yeshua, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (Heb. 10:19f).

Of course, this significance of the rending of the veil was not new to me; I had understood that when I was a young disciple. However, the thing I had never before realized was that this splitting of the veil has a parallel event in the Exodus story. The splitting of the veil from top to bottom, which occurred between the death and burial of the Lamb of God, parallels the splitting of the Red Sea from top to bottom, which occurred between the death of the passover lambs and the Hebrews’ “burial” when they were baptized unto Moses.

We know the Red Sea, like the veil, was split from top to bottom because Exodus 14:21 says “the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind.” If God sent the wind to split the sea, then the water would have split from top to bottom, just like the veil in the Temple did.

But there’s more. Every word in the Scriptures is there for a reason, including that word east in the phrase “a strong east wind.” If the wind was blowing from the east (or even toward the east), that means the divided waters of the Red Sea moved toward the north and toward the south. And if you know the layout of the Temple, you know that the veil over the door to the holy of holies faced eastward. Therefore when the veil was torn in two, the two parts of the torn veil moved toward the north and toward the south, just like the waters of the Red Sea.

But there’s even more. As I was pondering this new revelation (new to me, anyway), it occurred to me that there is going to be another major miraculous event in the future, another event that involves something being split in two, with half going toward the north and half going toward the south:

“And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south” (Zech. 14:4).

The splitting of the Red Sea toward the north and toward the south made a path for God’s people to flee from the Egyptians and enter the holy land. The splitting of the veil toward the north and toward the south made a path for God’s people to flee from enslavement to sin and enter the holy of holies. The future splitting of the Mount of Olives toward the north and toward the south will likewise make a path for God’s people to flee, as the very next verse in Zechariah says:

“And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains... yea, ye shall flee.”

The splitting of the Red Sea was a miracle to prepare God’s people for another great miracle about seven weeks later, the receiving of God’s Torah at Mount Sinai on the Day of Pentecost. The splitting of the veil was a miracle to prepare God’s people for another great miracle about seven weeks later, the receiving of God’s Holy Spirit in Jerusalem “when the day of Pentecost was fully come” (Acts 2:1). The future splitting of the Mount of Olives will be a miracle to prepare God’s people for another great miracle, the establishing of the Messianic Kingdom on earth, which Zechariah describes after he describes the return of the Lord, when “every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and keep the feast of tabernacles” (Zech. 14:16).

The splitting of the Mount of Olives will make a path for God’s people in the future. The splitting of the Red Sea made a path for God’s people in the past. The splitting of the veil has made a path for God’s people in the present. We live in the present. Therefore we need to focus on the path that God has made for us through the splitting of the veil, the path that gives us access to the Divine Presence that dwelt in the holy of holies in the Temple.

“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Yeshua, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:19-22).

Prior to the splitting of the veil, only the High Priest could enter the holy of holies and be in the Divine Presence, the Shekinah. And he could go into the holy of holies only one day of the year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The splitting of the veil was God’s way of showing that through the death of Yeshua, a path was made for all God’s children to enter into God’s Presence and experience the blazing glory of the Shekinah.

Furthermore, you do not even need to be in Jerusalem to experience the Divine Presence. Yeshua gave notice of that truth even before the veil was torn, when He said to the woman at the well in Samaria, “Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father” (John 4:21).

The time was soon coming when the Divine Presence would no longer be shut up inside an inaccessible room in Jerusalem. When the veil was torn, the Divine Presence was released from that innermost room in the Temple. The Divine Presence is now no longer confined to that room in Jerusalem; the Divine Presence has been released to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Therefore the Divine Presence can be experienced and enjoyed in any place on earth, even in a jail cell or dungeon, because the veil has been torn.

“Daniel, I know my sins are forgiven, I know I have eternal life, and I know I will experience God’s Presence after I die. But I don’t experience and enjoy God’s Divine Presence in my life in the here and now. Is there something I need to do to experience and enjoy God’s Presence in this life?”

If you do not experience and enjoy the Divine Presence, it might help to remember that the Divine Presence was inside the Temple, and to then remember what Paul wrote about you being the temple of God: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16).

Just as the Temple had an outer court, and an inner room called the holy place, and an innermost room called the holy of holies, so you have an outer court called your body, an inner room called your soul, and an innermost room called your spirit. God’s Divine Presence, the Holy Spirit, dwells in your spirit, because “he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17).

If you have repented and received Yeshua as your Lord and Savior, your spirit is one with God’s Spirit. You already have the Divine Presence of the Holy Spirit inside you. If you have never experienced and enjoyed the Divine Presence, perhaps it is because you have been keeping the Holy Spirit confined and shut up inside you, the same way the Divine Presence was confined and shut up behind the veil in the Temple. Perhaps you are keeping the Holy Spirit confined and shut up inside you behind a veil of some sort. Perhaps it is a veil of ignorance about the Holy Spirit, or a veil of fear, or a veil of shyness and self-consciousness, or a veil of pride that prevents you from letting the Holy Spirit be released. Whatever the veil is, let the Lord tear it apart from top to bottom. Let the indwelling Divine Presence inside you overflow and be released in praise, in prayer, in prophesying, and in speaking in unknown tongues.

If you are too shy, or too self-conscious, or too afraid, or too proud to be vocal in the presence of other people, then go someplace where you can be alone with the Lord, someplace where no one but the Lord can hear you. Ask the Lord to rend the veil that keeps the Holy Spirit locked up inside you. Begin to audibly praise Him. Continue praising and audibly praying until your utterances begin to spontaneously and effortlessly flow as you experience a release of the Spirit. And don’t be surprised or scared if you soon find yourself prophesying or speaking words in a language that you do not understand. That is the Biblical norm for people who get filled with the Holy Spirit. And the Biblical norm is something we should aim for and pursue, not something we should fear or avoid.

| DB

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Image: Psalm 68 an original painting by Daniel Botkin from his Psurrealistic Psalms Pseries Gallery on his art website: DanielBotkin.com.