Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20130331.htm

EASTER SUNDAY INTERLUDE
God's Verified Prophecy Of Christ's And The Believer's Resurrections
(Leviticus 23:9-14 et al.)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    This Easter Sunday, when we who trust in Christ rejoice in His resurrection, issues on death and dying in our society loom large:

    (1) Aaron Klein, Senior Staff Reporter for World Net Daily, on January 5, 2013 reported: "The foundations for health-care rationing and even so-called death panels may have already been quietly laid in . . . President Obama's health-care legislation . . . [it] contains largely unreported text that allows the health secretary to limit any alternative treatments' of the elderly, disabled or terminally ill if such treatments are not recommended by the [federal government's] new research institute." (wnd.com, Aaron Klein, "More Evidence of Death Panels' in Obamacare," 1/5/2013; brackets ours)

    (2) Also, the Connecticut state legislature is considering House Bill 6645, "An Act Concerning Compassionate Aid In Dying For Terminally Ill Patients," that would let doctors "prescribe lethal drugs to patients, without administering the drugs themselves, in order for them to end their lives." (Stephen Lyon, "Connecticut Residents Stand Strong Against Bill For Assisted Suicide," lifenews.com, 3/21/2013)

    Stephen Mikochik, a former disability law expert for the U. S. Justice Department, told legislators on March 20th: "All we're doing in 6645 is singling out 1 group of disabled people [terminals] and saying their life is less worthy . . . What stops us from extending this to another group whose lives we think are also less worthy?'" (Ibid.)

    (3) Brad Davis on The Talk of Connecticut radio show reported last Wednesday that Enfield, Connecticut is considering putting armed guards in their schools in the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy, what school districts in four other states have already done. (Mary Lou Byrd, "Protecting Our Kids," 1/14/2013, freebeacon.com) The concern is evidently to protect lives of children in schools from death by gunmen.

    (4) Even the death of Christ is current news in the world this Easter: a newly released study claims the Shroud of Turin is authentic, that it may well have been the burial cloth used for Jesus in His death.

    This claim counters our Biblical faith: if Jesus wore such a full body shroud in death, the John 20:6-7 report that He had a head piece separate from His body clothing errs, meaning our Bible errs, and that we can not be sure its message of salvation from sin and death is true!

    So, this Easter Sunday, we ask, "With today's intense issues on death and dying, how can I be sure to gain victory over death?"

    Need: "In view of the issues on death and dying this Easter Sunday, how may I myself have ASSURANCE of final victory over death?!"

  1. In vast superiority to all other religious entities, Bible Christianity alone has the ASSURANCE of "the accuracy of fulfilled prophecy." (Josh McDowell, A Ready Defense , 1991, p. 56)
  2. Well, the 3,400-year-old Leviticus 23:9-14 Feast of Firstfruits directive predicted Christ's resurrection with stunning historical accuracy, and this prophecy also provides CHRISTIANS great ASSURANCE of their OWN FUTURE victory OVER DEATH:
    1. Though Liberal Theology scholars date the book of Leviticus between 592 and 444 B. C. (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, p. 5, 701, 1138), in every major part of the book there are legal provisions that parallel provisions in Ancient Near Eastern literature that date from the Late Bronze Age or earlier, Zon. Pict. Ency. of the Bible, v. Three, p. 916.
    2. The Bronze Age in the Ancient Near East ended about 1,000 B. C. (Ibid., v. One, p. 656), so it is valid to assert Moses wrote the book of Leviticus between 1450-1410 B. C. in line with the date of the Exodus held by conservative Christian scholars, Ibid., Ryrie, p. 90, 158.
    3. Remarkably, since the Leviticus 23:9-14 Feast of Firstfruits in its context is placed between and connected via a TIMELINE to the Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread in Leviticus 23:4-8, and to the Feast of Pentecost in Leviticus 23:15-22, the Feast of Firstfruits precisely predicts Christ's resurrection would occur on Easter Sunday:
      1. The Feast of Firstfruits was observed Nisan 16, the day after "the Sabbath" (Leviticus 23:9-11), that "Sabbath" being the first day during the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23:6-7) observed Nisan 15, the day after the Nisan 14 Passover Feast, Leviticus 23: 4-6; Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Leviticus 23:10-14.
      2. Though Jesus celebrated Passover the night before He died because He was a Jew from Galilee who reckoned Passover from sunrise to sunrise, He died at the Judean reckoning of Passover, marked by sunset to sunset when the Passover Lamb was slain in Judea (Harold Hoehner, Chron. Aspects of the Life of Christ, 1979, p. 89)
      3. Thus, Paul wrote that Christ is our Passover [Lamb], 1 Cor. 5:7b.
      4. The Feast of Firstfruits thus occurs the third day after Passover, so Jesus' resurrection that third day fulfills the Feast of Firstfruits!
      5. This fact is supported in the Mark 16:1-6 KJV report that women visited the tomb the day Christ arose as "the Sabbath was past"!
      6. Also, starting at the day of the Feast of Firstfruits, the Hebrews were to count 50 days to Pentecost, Lev. 23:15-16, "Pentecost" in Greek meaning "fifty days," Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Lev. 23:15-23.
      7. That Feast of Pentecost involved offering two leavened loaves, picturing still unglorified Hebrew and Gentile believers united in one body, the Church (Leviticus 23:17 with Ephesians 2:11-15), and the Church began on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-47!
      8. Jesus appeared to His disciples after His resurrection and before His ascension for a period of 40 days, and the day He ascended to heaven, He told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit "not many days hence," Acts 1:1-5 KJV.
      9. If we add just 10 days to the 40 days between Christ's resurrection and His ascension, we arrive at the Acts 2 Day of Pentecost!
      10. Thus, Easter Sunday occurred on the Feast of Firstfruits as seen in that feast's timeline connection both to Passover and to Pentecost!
    4. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:20 and 23 accordingly declared that Jesus Christ is the "firstfruits" from the dead!
    5. However, the Leviticus 23:9-14 Feast of Firstfruits ALSO implies and hence predicts the 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 resurrection of Christians:
      1. The term "firstfruits" by definition implies the hope of the full harvest of the crop yet to occur, Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to 1 Cor. 15:20.
      2. For this reason, Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:14 KJV: "For if [since] we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep [a euphemism for death] in Jesus will God bring with him" to produce the rapture of the Church when all Christians, living and dead, are glorified with eternal bodies, 1 Thess. 4:13-18!
    6. This is a SOLID assurance for Christians: if Jesus arose in precise fulfillment of Moses' 3,400-year-old prophecy of the Feast of Firstfruits, and if Christ's resurrection is an earnest or prototype of the Christian's resurrection, then Christians have a 3,400-year-old prophecy that has been fully verified in Jesus' resurrection, so their own translation must yet surely occur to give them victory over death!
Application: (1) May we trust in Christ for salvation from sin and hell to receive eternal life, John 3:16. (2) Then, may we rejoice that Christ fulfilled Moses' ancient prophecy of the Feast of Firstfruits as an earnest and a prototype of our own glorification yet to come!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 Though this sermon focuses on the fulfillment of prophecy made by Moses to show the reality of Christ's resurrection and thus of the believer's coming glorification, the evidence at Christ's tomb further validates our faith and answers the problem raised by an alleged "shroud" in which many in Christendom hold that Jesus was buried.

The Apostle John held to belief in Christ's resurrection though it cost him persecution for such faith, Revelation 1:9, and likely his later martyrdom. Well, John wrote he believed Christ had risen before he knew the prophecies on the subject simply because of how he saw Jesus' grave clothes lie in the tomb, John 20:4-9. We view his report from the authoritative Greek New Testament for insight (as follows):

(a) Jesus was buried in grave clothes just like Lazarus was buried in John 11:38-44, for Lazarus was a Jew (John 11:33, 36), and John 19:39-40 NIV, ESV states Jesus was buried in linen with a mix of about 75 lbs. of myrrh and aloes after the custom of the Jews.

(b) Well, John 11:44 in the Greek text reports that Lazarus was bound (deo, Arndt & Ginrich, A Greek-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 176-177) hand and foot with keiria, "swathings" (U. B. S. Greek N. T., 1966, p. 373; Abbott-Smith, Man. Greek Lex. of the N. T., 1968, p. 244), with his face in John 11:44 said to be "tied around, bound round" (perideo, Ibid., Abbott-Smith, p. 355) with a soudarion, the same word used of Jesus' burial head cloth in John 20:7, Ibid., p. 411.

(c) Thus, Jesus' body was NOT buried in a full-body shroud as some hold, but it was wound up with about 75 lbs. of sticky myrrh and fragrant aloes sawdust (John 19:39), and His head was wrapped around in linen with the myrrh and aloes mixture separate from His body.

(d) What John then saw at Jesus' tomb was His grave clothes lying exactly where they were when they had clothed His body, the head and body wraps still separate from each other and in cocoon-like shapes due to the myrrh and aloes mixture. Yet, there was no body! Christ's body had somehow exited through the sticky, cocoon-like clothes without disturbing them, so John believed Jesus had risen!

Christ arose from the dead as the firstfruits of them which slept, and we who trust in Him have the TRUE Bible's SURE hope of being translated into the likeness of His body at the rapture.

May we trust in Christ as Savior if we have not yet done so, and may we live for Christ in hope of our own resurrection!