This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.
Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's men and Bible study. We are in Leviticus, chapter 23. We'll be finishing the chapter today. We're finishing the feast that spelled out in chapter 23. The last feast which we'll be dealing with today is the feast of tabernacles, or the feast of booths. Now, interestingly, it's one of the feasts that really doesn't get talked about hardly at all. In fact, not. Not really at all. But it is. Well, I mean, I best. I guess the best way to say it is. It is a celebration. It is. It is an absolute party that they have once a year called the feast of booths or the feast of tabernacles. Now, will you go? I don't even know what that means. Well, Tabernacle, remember, Tabernacle was a place where God made for him to dwell with his people in the desert, okay? And the tabernacle was a house, a tent, a worship place for God to dwell right in the middle of the people. And then they moved around as they moved from place to place. Then, obviously, when they got to Israel, when they got to the promised land, they built a temple, which I wish you could move, but it would take a lot to move it. So the. The whole idea is that they lived in what we'd call a booth, a tent, and the tabernacle was a huge tent, and their tents and the tabernacle tent would move around in the wilderness. Now, remember, the wilderness experience is where you've been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. It's been placed over the doorpost of your heart. You've been saved out of Egypt, out of the slavery of the world and the slavery of sin. You've been delivered through the Witz, which is a picture of baptism, or God delivering you from death and into newness of life. And then you go into wilderness, where you get the law and where you meet with God. And so those are, that's. That's really what. That's what happened in the wilderness. Now, in the wilderness, they find out about God and his character and nature through his law. And then, and then they get a chance to choose to either believe God and trust God and go into the promised land or not. They choose not to. They rebel. Those who chose not to died in the wilderness, and then the rest went into the promised land. And that is the, that's kind of the really, really quick version of what happened in the book of Exodus. And so as you're, as you're studying this, these, there is a feast dedicated to remembering God delivering them out of Egypt, but remembering him living with them, him living among them, him tabernacle with them in the wilderness, and him promising to take them into the promised land. And believe it or not, this feast, as far as the number of verses that are dedicated to it in this chapter, is the largest. It's the largest one, and it's the most celebrated celebratory. It's the most exciting one. It's the one where everybody's fired up. It says, the Lord spoke to Moses. This is verse 33 saying, speak to the children of Israel, saying, the 15th day of the 7th month shall be a feast of tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. On the first day, there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. On the 8th day, you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a sacred assembly. You shall do no customary work on it. Now what is he saying? Well, there's a, there's steps on a day and it ends on a day. And those are holy convocations. They're Sabbath rest. Okay? So we know it's a week long. It's actually eight days long. He says, these are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be. HoLy convocation stood for an offering made by fire to the Lord. So there's belonging, obviously, for sin. There's grain offerings, that's fellowship offerings. Then there's a sacrifice of a drink offering. And those are Peace offerings. Remember, we're going through all the offerings here, everything on its day besides the Sabbath to the Lord, besides your gifts, beside all your vows, and beside all your freewill offerings, which you give to the Lord. So there's all kinds of offerings being made. This is in many ways, a giant.
Eight day party, a giant eight day.
Worship celebration with God and God's people. It is. It, it, for the jewish people was. Was a. Well, I mean, it was kind of like the 4 July for eight days. It was. It was just a celebration of God making them into a nation, God delivering them out of Egypt, God being with them, being in relationship with them. And it says also in the 15th day of the 7th month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord for seven days. On the first day, there shall be a Sabbath rest, and on the 8th.
Day, a Sabbath rest.
And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of the beautiful trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees. This is done right at the end of the summer, it says, and willows of the brook, maybe even kind of into the fall, but not really. And boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. Notice. What are they supposed to be doing? He says, you're supposed to rejoice before the Lord for seven days. It is a giant party. It is a. It is a giant fellowship. It's a great time of fellowship with God. He says. He says, you shall celebrate in the 7th month. You shall dwell in the booths for seven days. It's a camp out. It really is. It's just going out. You know, they have places to live in Israel now. And he's telling them, you go and meet in Jerusalem and live in tents and have this giant celebration. And you shall dwell in booths for seven days. And all of your native Israelites shall dwell in the booths that your generation may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. And so Moses declared to the children of Israel the feast of the land. And so what you have here is a giant celebration, and you go, what does that matter? Well, for me, it matters a whole lot. And I think for you it would too. Oftentimes we hear that Jesus never really.
Said that he was God, that he was the messiah, that he was the deliverer.
He never claimed to be those things.
And that that is just a myth that was created by the disciples after Jesus. Well, after he.
After he died and was resurrected. Or even for most of the people who, who say that it's.
It's that he. He wasn't really resurrected. Now this feast is a celebration. Feast okay. This feast is a.
Is a powerful feast of relationship and rejoicing before God. And it happened once a year. Now, the feast of tabernacles, that took.
Place prior to the Passover, which would.
Have happened all past winter into.
Into the springtime of the new year.
The original feast that we talked about.
At the very start, the Passover feast.
At the feast of tabernacles.
Before that, Jesus made a proclamation, and.
He made it at a very important time. So what happened at this feast is.
Each day they would have a celebration.
That happened later in the afternoon. Really. It was a celebration that started in the morning and went all day and culminated late in the afternoon. And it happened around the temple area. And. And it was a celebration right in the heart Jerusalem, right in the heart of where God's people were. And during that time period, lots of trumpet sounding, lots of music, lots of dancing, lots of worship songs being sung, the book of psalms being sung. Actually, soon the people would sing. I mean, you think about it today, if you go to a wedding, and they played all the eighties music that everybody, even including the kids of our day, love that music. And then they sing and they dance. Well, just think about that. Except for they would be singing the book of psalms and they would be singing about God, and they would be dancing and celebrating and eating and feasting and meeting new people. And it is just a great time right inside of the temple and right at the end of the day. And this was happened. This happened every day. They would have also. They would have sacrifices that were being made. People would offer offerings there in the temple. I mean, people are coming there to the temple to offer all the sacrifices that we talked about. The grain offerings, the drink offerings, the burn offerings, the free will offerings, offerings that we have with God. They're all there. And so later in the afternoon, before dark, there would be a ceremony. And in that ceremony, they would take a giant pitcher of water and they would celebrate the announcement with the trumpets. And the priest would carry it in, and they would have these boughs, these tree limbs with the leaves. And it's in late summer, so there's tree limbs everywhere for them to use. And they would come in dancing and celebrating with waving the true limbs. And behind this priest that would come in with this picture. And they make his way down. And as he made his way down, he would get to the center of the willow, the celebration right outside the temple there. And when he got there, he would pull the water out, which was symbolic of God providing them water in the wilderness. The very essence of God's sustenance for them in the wilderness. When they were in the wilderness and they were, and they were, they had no food and no water. The water was the main thing that they had to have. And he provided that water through the.
Rock, and the rock, the rock spewed.
The water out and they had water, enough water for the whole assembly to drink every day, all the time when they were in the wilderness. And it was a picture of God sustaining them. And so they would get there and be singing and dancing and celebrating and they would pour the water out and then it would just break out into just a.
A giant, huge movement of the.
Really a movement of the spirit of God. A genuine celebration for me harkens me back to promise keepers or some of.
The youth events, the youth ministry mission.
Trips or things like that that I've been on where. Where God's people were really focused on God for a long period of time and the spirit was moving and the spirit was urging them on. And so I've been. I've been to a lot of things where God was focused on for a while and God's people really, really focused and celebrated him. And then, and then you get a giant movement of the Holy Spirit.
Well, this happened every afternoon except for the last afternoon.
The last afternoon the priest would come down with the same picture and it'd be the same celebration. And this is the 8th day, and this is the day they actually would begin to take down their booze and go home. He would come down with that pitcher, and when he'd get to the bottom and right there with all the people on the walls and all the people surrounding, he would.
He would pour out the picture, but the picture would be empty. And that event was a picture of. Sure, God has sustained us in the wilderness, but he has not given us our final.
Well, our final drink of water. He's not given us water.
The fullness of the spirit's water. He's not given us. Well, he's not given us our redeemer. He's not giving us our, our messiah. It's just not happened yet.
And it was really kind of a.
Buzzkill at the end, you know, it was the kind of thing that was.
Well, it ended. It ended with the party. It just killed the party.
That was the end of it. And everybody would leave there quiet, remembering that, sure, God had delivered us out of Egypt and God had sustained us.
In the wilderness, and God had taken.
Us into the promised land, but there's a promise that God would dwell with us forever. And he would dwell with us in his actual being there with us and that we wouldn't be separated from him. And that had not happened yet. And so for a thousand years they do this. With over a thousand years they do this, except for, indeed, when they were taken into captivity.
That's the only time it wasn't going on. But this went on after they built.
The temple in Jerusalem, and it went on for about 1000 years until Jesus time. And then we find this story in John, verse seven. I mean, John, chapter seven, verse 37. It is Jesus at the feast of tabernacles, the feast right before the feast of Passover, which would take place about six months later on the last day. In fact, it says that on the.
Last day, the great day of the.
Feast, the biggest day, the most important day, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, well, he stood and said this after.
The priest had poured the pitcher out, but there was no water, and everybody went dead silent.
And that's what happened every time people would go dead silent, remembering that God had not provided them a messiah.
And Jesus cries out on that day.
He says, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. What he did was on this feast, this celebratory feast, six months before he would come as the Passover lamb, he told the people that he was the Messiah. And if they wanted to have rivers of living water again, in fact, if.
They wanted to have rivers of living.
Water flowing from their own heart, they needed to come to him because he was the Messiah. And so there was great expectation of him coming in for the Passover, because at the last and greatest feast of the year, the last day of the great day of the feast, and everybody.
Knows what this is talking about if.
You'Re jewish, because the last day of the great day of the feast of tabernacles is the great day of celebration. Jesus stood up and said, if you're thirsty, come to me and drink. And if you believe in me, as the Old Testament is said, as this is foreshadowing, he said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Not just a sprinkle, not just a faucet worth, but a river of living water will flow out of you. That's the promise of the feast of tabernacles. And that's the declaration that Jesus makes even to us today. He says, if anyone thirsts, meaning if you don't have that living water, if.
You'Re like the woman at the well.
Who has to go midday because no one will accept her. Jesus told her he had water she did not know about, living water that would well up to her eternal life. If you're thirsty, he says, come and drink. Come to me, believe in me, and I will give you rivers of living water. What a great promise. What a great story. What a great passage of scripture. I hope the feast of tabernacles or.
The feast of booth mean more to.
You now that you have learned that Jesus announced his messiahship at this feast on the last and greatest day of it. And everybody knew what he was saying. From then on, everybody knew who he was. It's not mistakeable. It's not unknowable. In fact, it's quite clear. So I pray that you will have these river, this river of living water flowing from you. All that's required is that you trust in him. You believe on his name. You believe in him. And he is the Lord, meaning he's God. He is the one in charge. Jesus, he who saves Christo, which is the Messiah. He is the Lord who saves and delivers his people from bondage and sin into life and into rivers of living water.
As you go today, I pray that.
The Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to.
Shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today, in Jesus name.
