First we see when the Festival of Weeks takes place. "Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain." (Deuteronomy 16:9) This is the harvest celebration also known as Pentecost. When Christians think of Pentecost we think of an event that took place in Acts 2 when, following the ascension of Christ, the Lord sent the Holy Spirit to indwell believers in a way like never before. We can see the symbolism here: just as Pentecost (a harvest festival) took place a specific number of days after Passover, the first harvest of souls for Christ took place on Pentecost---a specific number of days after He was crucified on Passover week. It was on that first Pentecost after the ascension of Christ that the Apostle Peter preached his first sermon on the gospel message and three thousand people were saved and baptized.
The Festival of Weeks is a time of joy and thanks. "Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you. And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place He will choose as a dwelling for His name---you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you." (Deuteronomy 16:10-11)
The rejoicing taking place here is rejoicing in the Lord. Harvest itself is a joyful time because hard work has paid off and there will be food for the winter, but the congregation is always to keep in mind that there would be no harvest without the Lord. It's the Lord who gives people the strength to plow and plant and reap. It's the Lord who places the nutrients in the soil that makes things grow. It's the Lord who sends rain to water the fields. Without Him there would be no harvest. Therefore the congregation is to assemble at His house and rejoice in His presence in an attitude of gratitude. They are also to give to the Lord, even though nothing anyone gives the Lord could begin to compare with all He has given to mankind. They are to give willingly and cheerfully in proportion to how much they have been blessed materially.
Not only will the people be giving thanks for the harvest but in addition they are to give thanks for freedom from slavery. "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and follow carefully these decrees." (Deuteronomy 16:12) No matter how many generations pass, the congregation is always to look back to the time the Lord rescued their forefathers from Egypt and be thankful for His deliverance. In this same way, no matter how many years have passed, we should be thankful that the Lord rescued us from slavery to sin. It will be twenty-nine years in August since the Lord rescued me from slavery to sin on the day I accepted Christ as Lord and became a child of God. I am still thankful. That was a greater miracle than anything else He's ever done for me and I'm still rejoicing over it.
If we have been rescued from slavery to sin we should want to give back to God. Good works don't save us but if we are saved we should naturally want to do the things our Lord would do. If we belong to Him we should look like Him, so we will close today's study with what the Apostle Paul had to say on the subject of having been rescued from slavery to sin and on the subject of giving back to God by doing the things He would have us do.
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." (Deuteronomy 16:1-2) He says, "You used to follow the ways of the world and do the things the devil tempted you to do." He says we all, before our conversion, followed the sinful desires of our own flesh. "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath." (Deuteronomy 16:3) But God, to whom all thanks belong, had mercy on us. The harvest (our freedom from sin and our new life in the Lord) came from Him. "But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions---it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2:4-7) We are saved by faith, not by works, but if we have been saved then we should want to do the good works Christ would do. And, in so doing, we honor the God who had mercy on us. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith---and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God---not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
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