passage. The disciples had been asking about restoration: "Lord, wilt Thou at this time

restore again the kingdom to Israel?" and in the prophecy of Joel their ancestors come

under judgment in chapter 1:; then there is the wonderful reversal for them in chapter 2:

God says in verse 25: "I will RESTORE to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the

cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm", descriptive of a plague of locusts,

"My great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and

praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and My

people", that is the people of Israel, of course, "shall never be ashamed". They at last

come into their own. Note the "never"; they are not going to respond now and then fall

away again at some later date. "They shall never be ashamed"; they shall be completely

restored. "And you shall know" (verse 27), "that I am in the midst of Israel". God is

there in their midst, He is with them; "I am Jehovah your God and none else". The Lord

repeats once again "My people shall never be ashamed". Obviously, if we look at the

Jewish race, this has not yet taken place. Israel has not been in a position where they

never will be ashamed. This will not be experienced until there is a direct relationship

with them and God and when God says "I am in the midst of her". This nation will then

be once more in the centre of His purpose for the earth. But it is in this setting of

restoration we get this reference to Pentecost (which Peter quotes under the guidance of

the Spirit) "And it shall come to pass afterwards" (verse 28), "that I will pour out My

Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men

shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also upon the servants and

upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit".

And not only that, there are going to be physical signs in the earth and heaven

(verse 30), "And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and

pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before

the great terrible day of the Lord". The whole passage is quoted by Peter. So unless we

get the conception that Pentecost has to do with the restoration of Israel, we have lost the

key! And this is a fact we must constantly keep in mind.

Not only that, but Pentecost itself is one of the feasts of Jehovah, not merely a feast of

the Jews.  In Lev. 23:, God Himself institutes this feast, among others; and in the

feasts of Jehovah that are recorded in that chapter there is a wonderful sketch, drawn by

God, of His purpose for the earth. It starts off with the Sabbath, because that is where

God starts, in His purpose, with perfection and rest. That is also where He is going to

finish, with the Sabbath age, when everything is brought back to perfection--rest again.

"There is a Sabbath-keeping for the people of God" (Heb. 4: 9)--the reality. Man

cannot start here in experience; you and I have to commence in experience with the next

feast, which is Passover. "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us"; so wrote Apostle

Paul centuries later (I Cor. 5: 7). We know that has been fulfilled at Calvary, where the

Lord Jesus Christ died in the stead of His sinful people--"Christ our Passover".

Unleavened bread follows, directly connected with Passover and not to be separated from

it, and this pictures the Christ-like life which should follow. The Apostle Paul describes

it as `purging out the old leaven', that is discarding the old sinful life and its ways. After

Unleavened bread, comes Firstfruits, and the N.T. tells us that this typifies the