Feast of Tabernacles

Intro - Growing up I moved around a lot. There was rarely a sense of stability in regard to location. The only stability that I could rely on is that provided by my mother and as great as she was she had her own instabilities that she had to deal with. So I spent a lot of time feeling alone and to some degree getting use to it. The world is a big place when you’re alone. Loneliness is coming today…to never have been more connected in history mankind feels a greater sense of being along than ever before. Even for the believer this rings true…so what are we to do, to believe?

TR: We will examine that today as we look at the Feast of Tabernacles and what it teaches us...

Deliverance

There were three required feasts for the people of God in the Old Testament. One of which was the Feast of Tabernacles, which should be of particular interest to us during this season.

Let’s recap what happened:

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The Hebrews were delivered from slavery to a wilderness

Sounds like the title of my life.

The Hebrews were crying out for generations to be freed from the slavery in Egypt.

sounds like the title of my life

Exodus 2:23 ESV

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.

Imagine the agony of being beaten down every single day with no end in sight. Simply by nature of your race you weren’t allowed to be anything other than a slave

It had nothing to do with anything you chose. It simply was a reality of life. You didn’t become a slave. You were born a slave.

This is exactly how all of us started out. We, through no initial choice of our own were born into sin.

Through our connection with Adam, we are slaves to sin and destined to die as slaves.

1 Corinthians 15:22 ESV

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Yet, like with Israel God sent an earthly messengers for many of us. In our lives it may have been a mother, father, friend, coworker, etc.

These individuals truly are God sent in that they are the ones that God chose to work through and show you the path to freedom.

Mine was my old Pastor. He showed me the path through the Gospel to real freedom.

One that couldn’t be granted with riches or a better lineage. Instead, one that set me free In a way that could never be taken away.

However, like with the Israelites, I was delivered from the slavery of sin, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but into a wilderness of this world.

See before the Israelites could enter into the promised land they were forced to live in booths/tents/make-shift tabernacles.

Now imagine what that promised land meant to them? Peace, rest, abundance. They had no issue understanding that this moment in the wilderness…this moment in this tent was temporary and they YEARNED for the promised land.

Listen family, God wanted them to remember that temporary stay.

Leviticus 23:39–43 ESV

“On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

Lev. 23:39-

Why did God want to them to remember that? Because as with the pattern of God in Scripture there will ALWAYS be a time of suffering before a time of rest…

You WILL ALWAYS be made to go through the wild. And as believers that have been freed from sin, if this world isn’t the wild, I don’t know what is.

TR: Yet that’s not all the Lord wanted them to remember...

Dwelling

Yet that’s not where the story ends.

See to be delivered through the hands of a normal man like Moses is great but anyone that’s ever experienced freedom knows that it could be another form of slavery.

What do we do? How Do we behave? If I wasn’t strong enough to deliver myself, and I know this deliverer is going to leave one day, what do I do?

This is where the story gets really amazing. Rather than leaving them in the hands of a deliverer, God came and dwelt among them Himself.

While they wandered in the wilderness in tents, in their new found freedom, God dwelt with them.

RAISE INTENSITY

This is the purpose of the wilderness. To strip away every sort of comfort, every false security, every lie that you tell yourself to cope in this wilderness just to not go crazy.

The point of the wilderness is to let you know that you are utterly vulnverable and the greatest lie you can tell yourself is that you’re not. AND YET…GOD....HIMSELF…WILL COME AND DWELL AMONG YOU.

See while you’re in the wilderness it’s not a man that you’re following. It’s God HIMSELF!!! No one else did this for you!!!

Exodus 13:21–22 ESV

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

Exodus

Have you ever been like REALLY lost before. I remember I was doing a night transport trip to some small town up north. I ended up losing reception on my gps and it was almost midnight. There were no lights, no highway could be seen…just corn fields. All of a sudden I got one little bar of signal and I called my wife who had to look on a map and give me directions.

See, the purpose of the Feast of Tabernacles wasn’t just to remind them that they dwelt in tents but was to REMEMBER how God dwelt with them and HIS PROVISION FOR THEM!!!

And during this season we also can remember that in this wilderness, God hasn’t left us alone either!!!

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Ephesians 3:14–20 ESV

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

Ephesians 3:14-

It’s interesting that the Greek term there is the word for Tabernacle...

See what happened folks is just as with Israel who was wandering in the desert in temporary dwellings, we too wander this wild place in temporary dwellings called BODIES.

However, we aren’t alone in the wilderness!!! PRAISE GOD!!!!

God Himself came, and dwelt in a temporary tabernacle in order to provide us direction and provision in this wilderness

This is through the God man Jesus Christ…see we don’t celebrate necessarily his “birth” but that God came and DWELT AMONGST MAN TO GIVE US DIRECTION AND PROVISION IN THIS WILDERNESS

But then you’ll say “yeah but that person is gone” speaking of Jesus no longer being physically present with us....but you’re wrong.

and then...

John 14:23 ESV

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

INCREASE INTENSITY

This Christmas season it isn’t about necessarily a birth but just as with the Feast of Tabernacles, which Jesus fulfilled, God has come and dwelt with man!!!

So while you wander aimlessly in this wilderness....stop and FOLLOW GOD!!! No I don’t know where He’s going but I know there is provision in His hand!!!

No I don’t know why He’s leading us this way but I know there’s security in His presence

No I don’t know how He’s going to get us there but I know there’s POWER in His Word!!!

I just want Him to dwell with me and me with him!!!

See what the Israelites missed was that the resting place for them wasn’t in the Promised Land…it was WITH GOD!!!

Read and you’ll see how we too have access to that rest.

TR: However, there is a future dwelling of God with man...

Dominion

The beauty of the Old Testament feast were that they all had a mind toward celebrating in the present, what happened in the past, BUT with a look toward the future.

The Israelites knew that God was still working…do you???

Revelation 21:3 ESV

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

Rev.

Revelation 21:1

Revelation 21:1–8 ESV

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

CLOSE WITH INTENSITY

GOD WILL COME AGAIN AND HAVE A PHYSICALLY DWELLING WITH MANKIND…WILL YOU DWELL WITH HIM???

See this wilderness will pass away…Jesus Christ promised as much.

But the dwelling of God that began as a pillar of fire…then took up the body of a man in the person we know as Jesus Christ…will once again come.

Not as a child in a manger…but in power!!

The Israelites knew this and longed for the time when God would permanently reside with them. Jesus is our promise of this being fulfilled and I LONG for that day.

The day when I will truly feast, at the table of God, as He takes up His eternal tabernacle with mankind.

Let’s pray.