Leviticus 23

v1-3: God “is the Lord of time,” and He appointed festivals for the people of Israel to observe, to strengthen their faith and grow them in holiness. These different ceremonies were many and frequent, and were designed “to keep within them a deep sense of God and religion, and to prevent them from” listening to the temptations of the idolatrous nations which surrounded them.

v4-14: The Passover was celebrated every year to make sure that “acts of mercy” including the rescue from Egypt “and the special preservation of their firstborn” was never forgotten by the Israelites. The offering of firstfruits was to acknowledge “God’s mercy to them in giving grain to their fields, of their dependence on God, and of their desire for him to keep the land for their use.” This offering was a shadow of Christ, who is the firstfruits of those who will rise from the dead never to die again.

v15-22: “Fifty days after Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us,” came the Feast of Pentecost, where “the apostles, having themselves received the firstfruits of the Spirit, reaped 3,000 souls through the word of truth, and presented them as the firstfruits of the Christian church, to God and the Lamb.”

v23-32: The sound of the trumpets at the beginning of the year called the Israelites “to shake off their spiritual drowsiness and lethargy, to examine their ways, and to put them right.” It was to prepare them for the Day of Atonement, where sin was dealt with for another year. When Jesus returns to deal with sin once and for all, the trumpet will sound, but it will be too late then to put our ways right. Therefore, let us be ready for when the trumpet blast comes, by repenting of our sins and trusting in Christ.

v33-44: During the Feast of Tabernacles, the Israelites remembered the time in the desert when they lived in tents. As those who waiting to enter the Promised Land of heaven, we are to “live in tents” by being those “who live by faith and hope, with a holy contempt for present things.”