This Saturday the whole nation of Israel is preparing to celebrate one of the Lord’s festivals: Shavuot, known as the Day of Pentecost, Festival of Harvest (First-fruits) or The Festival of Weeks.
It is a festival God has commanded in His word (Lev. 23:9-22) to celebrate from generation to generation. The feast is said to be commemorated 7 weeks or 50 days exactly from Passover, which is why it is called Pentecost (“Fiftieth day” in Greek), and it is to celebrate the first-fruits of the harvest.
The Old Testament speaks extensively about this important feast, in which we are commanded to rejoice as we bring before the Lord the offerings of our first-fruits.
“From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord.” (Lev. 23:15-16)
We also see how this festival is tied with the New Covenant, and it is connected in the Book of Acts with what the Lord has done for the believers on the Day of Pentecost. We know there is nothing random with God, there’s a purpose and a deep meaning behind everything He does.
After Yeshua rose from the dead, He told His disciples to wait for what God was about to do. So it was no coincidence that He waited until the 50th day and poured out His Holy Spirit on the believers in Jerusalem on the Day of the Harvest (“Shavuot” – Pentecost).
Many times Yeshua spoke and emphasized the subject of the Harvest, saying the fields are white and ready for Harvest. He told us to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into the fields.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem was the beginning of the spiritual Harvest God was starting to collect among his first-fruits (first Jewish disciples)
Beit Hallel is a Messianic Jewish congregation in Ashdod, led by pastor Israel Pochtar, serving holocaust survivors and the poor and needy locally and throughout the nation of Israel, while building up the body of Messiah in the promised land of Israel.