Information Related to "Festivals of Hope"
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When God freed the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, He revealed to them, in addition to the weekly Sabbath, His seven annual festivals. The apostle Paul tells us these observances are "a shadow of things to come" (Colossians 2:16-17)—that is, they foreshadow and reveal the basics of His plan of salvation.
God originally gave them as harvest festivals—and for an appropriate reason. The writers of the Bible often compare the spiritual harvest of human lives to the agricultural harvests that physically sustain life. Therefore we find harvest analogies and parables to represent aspects of God's plan to bring humanity to repentance. God's goal is to harvest human beings—you and me—into His Kingdom. One of Christ's best-known parables that illustrates this is the famous illustration of the sower and the seed (Matthew 13:3).
Jesus compared the work God began through Him to a harvest. Christ told His disciples: "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together" (John 4:34-36).
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