Feast of Tabernacles, 2005
Pastor Joe Fuiten, October
16, 2005
These last two weeks we have been
celebrating days established by God for special celebration. In the
Bible, God established seven special days throughout the year. I call these seven days, “Special
Appointments with God.” In each of them,
God had a particular message that he wanted his people to get. There was always the immediate message.
Within each one of them, God also telegraphed his next moves. If you could understand the seven days, you
could understand what God was up to in the big picture. All the other seven special days have been
fulfilled in Jesus. Today’s observance,
the start of the eight-day Feast of Tabernacles, is to remind us to think about
the coming of the Lord. It is the only
one of the seven biblical days that remains unfulfilled.
Consider the fulfillment of the seven Biblical Feasts:
In "Passover", Jesus is the Passover Lamb whose blood
protects us from judgment.
In "Unleavened bread", he is the pure and sinless Bread of Heaven.
At "Firstfruits", he is the Resurrection, the Firstfruits of
those who have died. "Pentecost" was fulfilled
when Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit upon the believers. "Trumpets" announced the beginning
of the
"Day of Atonement" found its fulfillment when Jesus died upon
the cross to atone for all sin.
Only
the "Feast of Tabernacles"
remains unfulfilled. We have to wonder
if God will fulfill the other six and somehow overlook this one. That doesn’t seem likely. Indeed, when Christ returns to
The Feast of Tabernacles is both a look backward and a
look forward. Leviticus 23:39-43. (Page
89) "'So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you
have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the LORD for
seven days; the first day is a day of rest, and the eighth day also is a day of
rest. 40 On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm
fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice before the LORD your God for
seven days. 41 Celebrate this as a festival to the LORD for seven days each
year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate
it in the seventh month. 42 Live in booths for seven days: All
native-born Israelites are to live in booths 43 so your descendants will know
that I had the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of
It is good to remember where we came from. Last year I visited
For seven days they would live in booths and stare
up at the night sky looking through branches that covered their little
shelter. Seeing the stars would remind
them of God’s power to deliver. They
would think about the pillar of fire that led them at night and the cloud that
guided them by day.
The
eighth day was the great day of this holiday, because then they returned to
their own houses again, and remembered how, after they had long dwelt in tents
in the wilderness, at length they came to a happy settlement in the land of
promise, where they dwelt in goodly houses. And they would the more sensibly
value and be thankful for the comforts and conveniences of their houses when
they had been seven days dwelling in booths. It is good for those that have
ease and plenty sometimes to learn what it is to endure hardness.
Beyond
the look backward, the Feast is connected to Jesus in his first coming. In ancient
As a feature of the water ceremony, the
people would fall silent and pray the words of Isaiah 44:3. "For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and
my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow,
like poplar trees by flowing streams. etc."
At the moment of silence, "Jesus
stood up and said in a loud voice...." "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes
in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within
him." 39 By this he meant
the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that
time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
Jesus fulfilled the Holy Spirit feature
of Tabernacles. They had anticipated the Spirit’s coming. He fulfilled it on
the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the 120 in the
upper room. This outpouring had a “last days” dimension to it that Peter noted
in his sermon. (“In the last days I will pour out my Spirit….”)
Because of the Old Testament Scriptures,
they knew that the outpouring of the Spirit had a last days dimension to it.
Pentecost was the initial feature, but it is surely significant that we are
seeing an increased outpouring in our day. Today, half of Christianity has
received an experience, subsequent to salvation, that we would describe as an
outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Assemblies of God has been a big part of
that. Did you know that every day, the Assemblies of God are involved in
leading 10,000 people to the Lord? The vast majority of all new Christians are
Pentecostals. At the start of the 20th century, only a handful of
people in the world were Pentecostal. By the end of the century, half of
Christianity was involved.
At the first Feast of
Tabernacles celebration, in Exodus 13:20-21,
God appeared as a pillar of fire.
"After
leaving Succoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. By day the Lord went ahead of them in a
pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire
to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the
pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people."
"At the close of the first day
of the feast the worshippers descended to the Court of the Women, where great
preparations had been made. Four golden
candelabras were there, each with four golden bowls, and against them rested
four ladders; and four youths of priestly descent held, each a pitcher of oil,
capable of holding one hundred and twenty log, (about 12 gallons) from which
they filled each bowl. The old, worn
breeches and girdles of the priests served for wicks to these lamps. There was not a court in
"It seems clear that this
illumination of the
Just as
Jesus fulfilled the water ceremony, he also fulfilled the meaning of the light.
Revelation 21:23 describes the
"The city does
not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations
will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their
splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no
night there. The glory and honor of the
nations will be brought into it. Nothing
impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or
deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life."
The New Jerusalem reminds us
of the pillar of fire leading the Israelis as they went from