INTRODUCTION
ILL: There’s a story about an old missionary couple who had been working in Africa for years and were returning to New York City to retire. They had no pension; their health was broken; they were defeated, discouraged, and afraid.
They discovered they were booked on the same ship as President Teddy Roosevelt, who was returning from one of his big-game hunting expeditions.
No one paid much attention to them. They watched the fanfare that accompanied the President’s entourage, with passengers trying to catch a glimpse of the great man.
As the ship moved across the ocean, the old missionary said to his wife, “Something is wrong. Why should we have given our lives in faithful service for God in Africa all these many years and have no one care a thing about us? Here this man comes back from a hunting trip and everybody makes much over him, but nobody gives two hoots about us.”
“Dear, you shouldn’t feel that way,” his wife said.
“I can’t help it; it doesn’t seem right.”
When the ship docked in New York, a band was waiting to greet the President. The mayor and other dignitaries were there. The papers were full of the President’s arrival, but no one noticed this missionary couple. They slipped off the ship and found a cheap flat on the East side, hoping the next day to see what they could do to make a living in the city.
That night, the man’s spirit broke. He said to his wife, “I can’t take this; God is not treating us fairly.”
His wife replied, “Why don’t you go into the bedroom and tell that to the Lord?”
A short time later he came out from the bedroom, but now his face was completely different. His wife asked, “Dear, what happened?”
“The Lord settled it with me,” he said. “I told him how bitter I was that the President should receive this tremendous homecoming, when no one met us as we returned home. And when I finished, it seemed as though the Lord put his hand on my shoulder and simply said, ‘But you’re not home yet!’”
*** From Talking To My Father, by Ray Stedman. Barbour & Co. 1997. https://tonycooke.org/stories-and-illustrations/not-home-yet/
This is not our home! But there WILL be a homecoming for those of us who are in Christ Jesus… and there will be a HUGE and EXCITING celebration on that day when it comes! It will be A Celebration Like No Other!
The past few weeks, we’ve been examining the 3 Fall Festivals from Leviticus 23… We’ve been looking at and anticipating how each of the Fall Festivals are to be fulfilled in the 2nd coming of Christ… just as each of the Spring Festivals were fulfilled by His 1st coming.
The first 2 Fall Festivals… Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur… the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement… were both pretty solemn and serious observances…
This final festival … the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths)… is the complete opposite of the prior 2 festivals…
This final festival is an exciting time of CELEBRATION!
Please turn in your Bibles to Leviticus 23… and let’s read about the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles…
Leviticus 23:33–44 CSB
33 The Lord spoke to Moses:
34 “Tell the Israelites: The Festival of Shelters to the Lord begins on the fifteenth day of this seventh month and continues for seven days.
35 There is to be a sacred assembly on the first day; you are not to do any daily work.
36 You are to present a food offering to the Lord for seven days. On the eighth day you are to hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly; you are not to do any daily work.
37 “These are the Lord’s appointed times that you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies for presenting food offerings to the Lord, burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its designated day.
38 These are in addition to the offerings for the Lord’s Sabbaths, your gifts, all your vow offerings, and all your freewill offerings that you give to the Lord.
39 “You are to celebrate the Lord’s festival on the fifteenth day of the seventh month for seven days after you have gathered the produce of the land. There will be complete rest on the first day and complete rest on the eighth day.
40 On the first day you are to take the product of majestic trees—palm fronds, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook—and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.
41 You are to celebrate it as a festival to the Lord seven days each year. This is a permanent statute for you throughout your generations; celebrate it in the seventh month.
42 You are to live in shelters for seven days. All the native-born of Israel must live in shelters, 43 so that your generations may know that I made the Israelites live in shelters when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.”
44 So Moses declared the Lord’s appointed times to the Israelites.
[PRAY]
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OBSERVATIONS
Let’s first make some observations about the festival itself…
(a) TEMPORARY SHELTERS
The Feast of Tabernacles is also called “Sukkot” by those of Jewish heritage… with “Sukkot” literally translating into English as booth / tent / shelter / tabernacle in many of the various English translations of the Bible… but the word basically is referring to a kind of temporary shelter or dwelling…
We’ll unpack this a little bit more later, but the temporary nature of this shelter or dwelling is an important distinction that I want you to keep in mind.
(b) CELEBRATION
This festival was to be a joyous celebration… v40 says they are to “rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days”… and then the next verse says to “celebrate it as a festival to the Lord”
… and that may not adequately describe how grand this celebration really was
… Sukkot was A Celebration Like No Other!
At Jerusalem, it was a grand spectacle! As people started arriving in Jerusalem in the 4 days leading up to the festival, they would see rooftops, courtyards, streets, public squares, roads, gardens… all covered with green branches of palm, myrtle, willows, citron, olive… with the people all out of their houses building and putting the final touches on their sukkot… and then, starting on the first day of the festival, the people would live in these temporary shelters for the remainder of the week… celebrating together…
Just image the noise, the crowds, the aromas of the freshly cut branches, the excitement… it was a city-wide and nation-wide tailgate party like you’ve never seen before… full of music… singing hymns of praise to God… dancing before the Lord with great rejoicing!
in v40, we see that each day of the festival, they would take up a handful of palm fronds, branches from leafy trees (like myrtles) and willow branches… and wave them before the Lord in celebration and rejoicing before Him.
The week of the Feast of Tabernacles is an exciting… and an extravagant celebration… Extravagant in that the burnt offerings during this festive week were by far more numerous than those of any other festival… Every day would involve sacrifices and grain offerings… Over the course of 7 days, they would sacrifice 70 young bulls, 14 rams, 98 male year-old lambs, 7 goats, and 672 quarts of fine flour mixed with oil (Numbers 29:12-40).
But that was nothing compared to how the Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated when Solomon completed the temple and dedicated it to the Lord during the Feast of Tabernacles… I recommend you read all of 1 Kings 8… but here is what we find at the end of that chapter…
1 Kings 8:63 CSB
63 Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the Lord: twenty-two thousand cattle and one hundred twenty thousand sheep and goats. In this manner the king and all the Israelites dedicated the Lord’s temple.
Now THAT was a celebration!
(c) HARVEST
This is a feast that coincides with the end of the harvest… v39 says to celebrate this festival “after you have gathered the produce of the land.”
There is actually another name for this festival that we find in Exodus 23:16…
Exodus 23:16 CSB
16 Also observe the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of your produce from what you sow in the field, and observe the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather your produce from the field.
The Festival of Harvest is another name for the Spring-time Feast of Firstfruits… and the harvest festival at the end of the year is called the Festival of Ingathering… What an interesting name! Ingathering… The Feast of Tabernacles is when the people celebrate the completion or the gathering of the final harvest in the fall…
With those observations in place, let’s look at the significance of this important festival…
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1 – REMEMBER AND CELEBRATE GOD’S DELIVERANCE
First, with the Feast of Tabernacles, we are to remember and to celebrate God’s deliverance.
We see in Leviticus 23:42-43…
42 You are to live in shelters for seven days. All the native-born of Israel must live in shelters,
43 so that your generations may know that I made the Israelites live in shelters when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.”
The people are reminded that they were delivered from slavery… from the oppression of the Egyptians… and it was God and God alone who brought them out of that land…
During the Feast of Tabernacles, the people celebrate their deliverance… their salvation… They wave their palm fronds and sing the psalms of Hallel (or praise)… Hallelujah… (Hallel + Yah = Hallelujah)… Praise the Lord!
They would also cry out, Yoshanna! Yoshanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!… which is also from the Hallel psalms which means “Save Lord, we pray!”
This word is used during a cycle of prayers sung each day of the Feast of Tabernacles… when the priest would reach a certain point in ceremony, a trumpet sounded and all the people waved their branches of palm, myrtles, willows… shouting Yoshanna! Yoshanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!
Psalm 118:25 CSB
25 Lord, save us! Lord, please grant us success!
Because Hosanna was used during a time of celebration, it became associated with rejoicing… as we see in the Gospels when Jesus enters Jerusalem on the back of a donkey… Except this time, they were thinking that Jesus had come as their conquering King… that their day of deliverance from the Romans had arrived!
Matthew 21:8–9 CSB
8 A very large crowd spread their clothes on the road; others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road.
9 Then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!
They celebrated the coming of their Messiah with shouts of Yoshanna! Yoshanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! and they waved their palm branches in joyous celebration just like they would during the Feast of Tabernacles!
Yes, their Messiah had come… He was Emmanuel… God with us… God tabernacled among us in the person of Jesus Christ!
John 1:14 CSB
14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
BUT He must first fulfill the Passover… the Feast of Unleavened Bread… the Feast of Firstfruits… and the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost)… These 4 Spring Feasts were fulfilled with Jesus’ 1st coming… He fulfilled these with His perfect, sinless life… His sacrificial death as our perfect Passover lamb… His burial and resurrection from the grave… and with the sending of the Holy Spirit…
Those who believe in Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God, that He died for our sins and rose again from the grave, defeating both sin and the grave… those who believe and who by faith trust in Jesus to forgive and deliver us from the evil one… those are saved and become Children of God!
Because of Jesus… we remember and we celebrate God’s deliverance… that it was God and God alone who was able to rescue us from slavery to sin… from the hands of our oppressor… Satan.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Our salvation has come!
And one day soon, Jesus is coming again… and we will celebrate our ultimate deliverance… where there will be no more pain… no more suffering… where Jesus will reign forever as King of Kings…
The Feast of Tabernacles points us to Jesus… to remember and to celebrate God’s deliverance!
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2 – REMEMBER AND CELEBRATE GOD’S PROVISION & PROTECTION
But there is more than just deliverance… keep in mind that sukkot / booths / tents are just temporary shelters…
This festival commemorates God’s provision and God’s protection and how God led His people during all the hardships of Israel’s 40-year wilderness wandering.
We remember and we celebrate God’s provision and protection!
Why is the concept of a sukkot… a temporary shelter… such a central theme of the Feast of Tabernacles?
A booth of green tree branches isn’t permanent… it will soon wilt and wither and die…
The tents in the wilderness were’t permanent… they were just passing thru… the wilderness wasn’t their home!
The same is true of us… This world is not our home!
Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 5:1-4…
1 For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands.
2 Indeed, we groan in this tent, desiring to put on our heavenly dwelling,
3 since, when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.
4 Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life.
The word Paul uses here that has been translated as “tent” in English is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “sukkot”… a temporary shelter or dwelling!
Something within us desires to put off this earthly tent (booth) and put on the permanent dwelling that has been made for each of us in heaven… so that this “mortality” may be swallowed up by “life”!
As Christians, we are always mindful that this is not our home… that our current physical bodies are only temporary dwelling places… Like the booths or the sukkot, this flesh is just a temporary tent that we’re living in…
This is not our place of rest and comfort… this is a place of hardship… a time of struggle… a time of wandering as we long for home… as we long for the land promised to us…
With the Feast of Tabernacles, we remember that this is not our home… but we also remember that it’s also a harvest festival… celebrating God’s provision.
Even in our wanderings… Even in our hardships… Even in our struggles… Even in our frailties of this earthly tent… we remember and we celebrate God’s provision and God’s protection!
God protected and provided for the people of Israel as they were in the wilderness…
He provided manna and quail… He provided water from the rock… He provided His presence in the middle of their camp… He led them by day and by night… Every step they took did not wear out their sandals for those 40 years… and God taught them… Instructed them… Corrected and disciplined them… like a loving Father… and then He took them out of their temporary shelters when their time of wandering was complete and He took them home.
God does the same with us… with His Children… because He is my God! and I am His child!
We remember and we celebrate God’s provision and protection toward us, His children!
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3 – REMEMBER AND CELEBRATE GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY
Which takes us to our last point this morning… where we remember and celebrate God’s sovereignty…
Jesus said the the “fields are white unto harvest”…
But the Feast of Ingathering… (as the Feast of Tabernacles was called in Exodus 23)… prophetically points to the time when the final harvest of souls has been completed and the true celebration can now begin in the Messianic Kingdom.
Matthew 13:36–43 CSB
36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
37 He replied, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man;
38 the field is the world; and the good seed—these are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one,
39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
40 Therefore, just as the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age.
41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom all who cause sin and those guilty of lawlessness.
42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. Let anyone who has ears listen.
For 7 days… a full period… the people were to dwell in their booths during the Feast of Tabernacles… and when the time is done, they move out of their booths and tear them down… just as when our time is done, we will move out of our earthly tents… and these tents will be torn down.
BUT GOD CALLS FOR AN 8th DAY
It’s interesting that this feast makes mention of an “8th day”… Leviticus 23:39 says…
39 “You are to celebrate the Lord’s festival on the fifteenth day of the seventh month for seven days after you have gathered the produce of the land. There will be complete rest on the first day and complete rest on the eighth day.
So why is there an EIGHTH day in a SEVEN day feast?
Because on the 8th Day - All things are made new! On the 8th day is a day of COMPLETE rest from our labors…
Revelation 21:1–5 CSB
1 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.
2 I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
5 Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.”
Revelation 21:22–25 CSB
22 I did not see a temple in it, because the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.
25 Its gates will never close by day because it will never be night there.
This is the 8th day… the day that will never end… where the darkness of night will no longer fall upon the land…
We remember and celebrate God’s sovereignty! God’s plan is perfect and is unfolding exactly as He has ordained it… Celebrate the fact that GOD is in control! With everything you see happening in the world… GOD is the One who reigns upon the throne!
And the 8th day is coming soon! A day when all things are made new!
It just so happens that tonight at sunset begins the 8th day of Sukkot this year!
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CONCLUSION / INVITATION TO RESPOND
Remember and celebrate God’s deliverance… Has He set you free from your sin? If so, remember back to that day… and celebrate!
Remember and celebrate God’s protection and provision… As you look back thru your life, can you see the hand of God leading, guiding, protecting, providing? If so, celebrate!
Remember and celebrate God’s sovereignty…
"The wages of sin is death”… These earthly tents will be dismantled and put away at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles… and we will move into our permanent homes where we belong! Will your final, permanent home be a place filled with the light and the presence of God… where you will join in the celebration that’s like no other… or will your final, permanent home be a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth?
[Gospel presentation]
[PRAY]
