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Celebrate the Feast of Harvest

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“Celebrate the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field. Celebrate the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.”
[NIV] Exodus 23:16

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Today is the Feast of Harvest.

Do you know when or what that day is for?

We will check what that day means to us?

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God gave the Israelites three times a year they are to celebrate

a festival to him.

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Do you know three festivals the Israelites had to celebrate?

They are the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Harvest,

and the Feast of Ingathering.

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The first feast was the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

When the Israelites were in Egypt as slaves, God led them from Egypt

with the great leader Moses.

That is a feast to celebrate the memorial of their deliverance from Egypt.

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The king of Egypt, Pharaoh, was an evil king. After undergoing ten plagues from God, he finally sent them away.

The tenth plague God saved the Israelites out of terrible.

That was the plague that the first son of the house if there was no

the blood of a lamb on their doorposts then that child was killed by the angel of Death.

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But the Israelites listened to God's words and they applied the blood of lamb to the doorposts and the lintels. God let the oldest sons of the Israelites be saved so they gave thanks to God.

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The second is the Feast of Harvest.

After the Israelites came out of Egypt, they had built their tents and lived there for 7 days for celebrating desert life for 40 years.

When they had finished the "Exodus," they thanked God for His guidance and the easy life of now and so they represented that time by having this feast seem like desert life in order to remember that their deliverance was from God.

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The third is the Feast of Ingathering.

The Israelites had spent the desert for 40 years

because of their disobedience.

Finally, they could arrive at Canaan where they were promised.

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God helped the Israelites win every war.

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Finally, they experienced the amazing grace of ingathering crops from the land. The Israelites ingathered the first crops and they celebrated The Feast of Ingathering at God's command.

They knew God had let them have a good harvest and bear much fruit so they served God and gave a party out of gratitude.

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This feast of Ingathering is a thankful feast giving thanks to God who let them have a bountiful amount of harvest crops. Keeping this feast, the Israelites thanked God for their harvest crops in their own land to God.

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When they kept this feast in Israel, the men would bring gifts to God to Jerusalem.

Because if God did not help on each occasion, they could not gain crops, so they gave gifts to God out of a grateful heart.

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We have harvest time twice in Korea.

In Spring, we harvest barley and in Fall we harvest rice.

So we give thanks to God for the harvest barley. That is the feast of Ingathering.

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The other meaning, we thank God for keeping us healthy and for not having many accidents during the last half of a year.

So we like to give special gifts.

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Let's thank God for our school life for the last six months and keeping our family's health. God gives more to the people who are truly thankful for what they have!!