The 5 W's of the F.O.T.

Thank you very much, Laura. As a treat for me, I get to hear Don sing this morning and Laura this afternoon. It really does add a lot to services. Well, can you believe it? The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting cooler, and fall festivals are nearly here. In addition to all that, of course, football is back on television. I'm excited about football, but I'm getting even more excited about the feast season coming. Many of us have probably already started planning for the Feast of Tabernacles. At least I certainly hope so.

Nowadays, it's something you can't just do in the last moment. And one of the things that happens as you're getting ready for the feast most years is you hear a pre-feast sermon. I've heard a lot of those, and it's one of my favorite things of the year, because it makes you think about that and you start getting excited. It might be a month away, but it's coming. I always thought, boy, I'd like to give one of those.

Because when you might be an elder or a deacon, you leave some of those things for the pastor. So as I was getting ready for this, I said, hey, I get to do that this time. I'm excited. I get to get ready for the feast sermon. And then I started working on it.

I said, well, I had to puzzle then, well, how do I put it together? There's a lot of disparate elements. There's different ways you can focus. So I was struggling, not a terrible struggle, but thinking, how should I do this? And then it dawned on me to go back to school, so to speak, or look back. You remember an English composition class? They told you there's a simple way to know what to put into an essay.

It's called the five W's. You're nodding. What are the five W's? Who, what, why, where, when. And then sometimes we add how. I think of them as companions to the five vowels. And I'm not sure why, but maybe just because there's five. You know, A-E-I-O-U, and sometimes why. Well, there's who, what, why, where, when, and sometimes how.

Well, how is important. So I do want to talk about how today. And I want to talk about the what, or the five W's of the Feast of Tabernacles. If you like titles, and I was warned years ago in Columbus, one of the older ladies, I told them, you know, I haven't been doing this that long, so feel free to give me feedback. And she came up right after services and said, I like titles. Because I rarely gave titles because I'm not good at them. But I call this one the five W's of the FOT.

It's easy to write. Feast of Tabernacles, that's short for. So let's start with the most basic question. What? What are we talking about? The Feast. Well, of course, now I should clarify, because all of the annual Holy Days are feasts, but the Feast of Tabernacles warrants a little bit more talking about, because it's a bigger event, and it has some special requirements. And some of those special requirements, especially, boy, I'm having trouble getting the words out here, special requirements.

Some of those are a lot more fun and enjoyable. Let's start off going to the essential feast chapter in Leviticus chapter 23. That almost slipped out again this morning. I said Leviticus 11, and I got some funny looks. If we want to talk about clean and unclean meats, we'll go to 11. Leviticus 23, and we're going to start in verse 24. Now, we're going to pick up all the fall festivals here, but you'll see a certain theme that comes through here.

Leviticus 23, beginning in verse 24, and here is God's words. As He told Moses, He was giving instruction to Moses so He could go give them to Israel. So He says, speak to the children of Israel, saying, in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath rest, a memorial, a blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation, and you'll do no customary work on it. You shall offer an offering to the Lord made by fire.

Skipping to verse 27, also on the tenth day of the seventh month shall be a day of atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you, and you'll afflict your souls and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. Let's skip to verse 34. Speak to the children of Israel, saying, in the fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days to the eternal, and on the first day there shall be, you guessed it, a holy convocation.

Do no customary work on it.

For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the eternal. And now here it says also, on the eighth day. Now, it's interesting because he doesn't come out and say something he said, the feast of tabernacles, seven days, now the eighth day is what? A holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering. So you could say, as far as the what, these are holy days. They're set aside, holy convocations. We honor them because God makes them into holy time. Only God has the power to make something holy. When he sanctifies something, that means set apart for a holy purpose.

Now, there's some additional instructions about tabernacles. If we'll skip down to verse 39 in this chapter. He's spoken a lot about offerings and such, and here he says, on the fifteenth day of the seventh 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 eighth day, a Sabbath rest. And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. You shall keep it as a feast to the eternal for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations, and you shall celebrate in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths. Now, we don't use the term booth a whole lot. If you're going to a fair or a flea market, you might talk about booths. And we use it... it's funny, but I was going to say we use a shorthand in the church to say temporary dwellings. It just occurred to me, temporary dwellings has something like five syllables, and booth has one. So it's not really a shorthand, but if you're not sure what a booth means, you might question, do I have to make some type of shelter out of branches and such? You know, I've done that at summer camp before, and it's kind of interesting to see that you can actually do it. But you'll see when we discuss the symbolic meaning, why this structure was put up and what it means, and I'm not going to get into that a lot today, but it's important to realize that the reason for the temporary dwelling makes it clear that it doesn't have to be made out of branches. It can be a canvas tent or a hotel room or something like that, but it does have to be a temporary dwelling. Remember, we're still talking about what, though, and that theme that came out is these are holy days, special days, and the Feast of Tabernacles is one that's different than the others because it requires living in temporary dwellings. Let's move further ahead in the Bible to Deuteronomy 16. Deuteronomy 16 will begin in verse 13.

I'll see something else about this feast. I thought I heard Connor back there. I didn't see him.

Okay, in verse 13 it says, "...you shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days when you have gathered from your threshing floor and your winepress, and you shall rejoice in your feast. You and your son and your daughter and your male servant and your female servant and the Levite and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates. Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the eternal your God in the place which the eternal chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands so that you surely will rejoice." Now here's a command to keep the feast. It's a holy time and a command to rejoice. You and your family and anyone else who's around. We keep it in a particular place and we do it because God is going to bless us. Or at least we do the rejoicing largely because he's going to bless us.

Now you might notice I was focusing on what? You know, the fact that it's the holy days, but we've already started going into a little bit of where and why. The five W's do tend to get mingled a little bit. It's hard to separate just one W at a time. So let's move on. Let's talk about why. You know, why are we doing this? It makes me think Mr. Armstrong used to say, why are we here? Matter of fact, he did that a lot at the feast. And I could say at the feast itself, we're going to hear a lot of messages discussing the deep spiritual meaning of the feast. There is a lot of symbolism. There's a lot of explanation as to why we keep the feast days. So I'm not going to spend as much time on that today. You know, I'm going to leave that for some other times, and I want to look more on the physical elements of what we have to do largely to prepare for it. Because sometimes you're able to go do something without necessarily knowing why.

But I will address one thing because sometimes you say, well, if I don't understand why, I don't necessarily want to do it. One of the reasons we definitely do keep these feasts is the simple one is that God tells us to do it.

Now, I don't know if you were like me. When I was a kid, one of the things I hated more than anything was for Mom to tell me, go do this. And I'd say, why? And she'd say, because I said so. I hated that. You know, I'd say, well, why did you say so?

And then I'd usually get, well, I'd say, a slap upside the head. That's only if I was asking and being really belligerent about it. My mom wasn't a child abuser. But let's look here. We're in Deuteronomy 16. Let's look again at verse 13. If we have nothing else that says, you shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles. You shall observe it. And the next verse, it says, and you shall rejoice in your feast. You know, God says, do it. And I don't know, God doesn't have a German accent, but this made me think of some of the World War II movies where the Nazis, you know, they have a way of saying, you shall keep that feast, and you shall enjoy it.

I'm not good at that accent, but a lot of you get the point of what I'm trying to bring across. But I want to assure you, though, that God will provide a much more satisfying answer than because I said so. And I'll hint about that later, but as I said, we want to talk about some of the other things. But it needs to be good enough for us as a start.

That's one thing. Knowing that we're going to get the deeper answer is important, and it's good that we'll have that. But we should be able to consider the fact that even if we weren't going to get that, sometimes when God says, do it, you say, yes, sir, I'm going to go do it. Let's turn to Psalm 111. Psalm 111, and we're going to be coming back here if you want to put a marker in Deuteronomy or Leviticus.

I should have said that when we were in Leviticus, probably. But we're going to go to Psalm 111 for now, and we'll read verse 10. Just to bring out an important principle, on 1 11 verse 10 it says, the fear of the eternal is the beginning of wisdom. That's interesting. Fearing the eternal is the beginning, not the end or the sum total.

And it says, and a good understanding have all those who do his commandments, and his praise endures forever. A good understanding have those who do his commandments. It doesn't say if you already have a good understanding, then you'll figure out that you should go ahead and do his commandments. But in some cases, doing his commandments will then bring understanding. And in regard to the feast days, I think back, and I've heard this story many times, and probably many of you have, how Mr.

Herbert W. Armstrong started keeping the feast days that way. Now, when he first was converted, God called him, and he was challenged by his wife on when the Sabbath day was. Like everyone else, he believed you're supposed to go to church on Sunday, and she'd come to realize that the Bible says Saturday. And he said, well, all these churches can't be wrong, and he decided to prove that she was wrong. So he studied the Bible and studied the Bible, and the more he studied it, the more he saw that, well, the seventh day is the Sabbath.

And they both started attending a church that at that time kept the Sabbath. But he didn't stop studying his Bible there. He kept looking and learning. Of course, God was opening his mind to greater understanding. And in time, he saw that there are other days that are commanded for us to keep. There are these seven other holy days. And, you know, he brought that to the leaders of the church at that time and said, why aren't we doing this? They were convinced that it was part of the sacrificial system that, you know, it's done away with now.

But he studied it, and we could get into that. I'm not planning to go to that detail now, but he said, no, the sacrificial system all pointed to Jesus Christ's sacrifice. And we don't have to kill goats and bulls today because Jesus Christ's blood covers our sins. But the holy days are a separate thing. That's holy time set aside by God. There is no time where the Bible says not to do it. So at first, Mr. Armstrong and his wife, Loma, kept those days by themselves. And they kept them for years not knowing why.

Don't know what the meaning of these days is, but God says, do it, so we're going to do it. You know, and he taught other people. And over the years, as they kept those days and as he studied God's word, he began to realize that they reflect and explain God's entire plan for mankind, for why we were created. And we know that starting at Passover, representing Jesus Christ's sacrifice and our sins being covered.

And of course, with the days of Unleavened Bread, we know with the power of God's Spirit, we can begin to put sin out of our lives. In the Feast of Pentecost, pictures God creating a church and imbuing us with His Holy Spirit. And we move forward with the Fall Holy Days, picturing the return of Jesus Christ and the putting away of Satan.

And then, of course, the establishment of a 1,000-year reign of God on earth, leading up eventually to all mankind who have ever lived being raised again. The Holy Days cover all of those things, all the important things of why we exist. But it started out, that understanding started with Mr.

Armstrong saying, okay, it says to do it, I'm going to do it, even though I don't know what it means. And that understanding came later. Now, I know this isn't news for most of you, but I didn't want to cover the basics of those five W's. Now, let's move on to some other ones. As I said, they're so intertwined that I'm going to mix the other three together, the when, where, and who.

Now, starting with when, we've already read in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16 told us the dates. They're all in the seventh month, all of the fall Holy Days. The first day of the seventh month is Trumpets. Tenth day is Atonement. Fifteenth through the twenty-first is the Feast of Tabernacles. The twenty-second is that it calls it an eighth day. We've labeled it the last great day because of a quotation in the book of John. But have any of you looked at your calendar lately?

If you're wondering, well, September is the ninth month. You know, are we a couple months late?

Nobody's looking. You're all with me. Well, the dates that are given there are all in what we call the Hebrew calendar or the Jewish calendar. Our daily lives in our secular world are according to what's commonly known as the Gregorian calendar because Pope Gregory was in charge of the Roman Catholic Church back in... I'm trying to remember, it was 1755 or 56 when they changed. It had been the Roman Julian calendar for several thousand years and then they discovered they were 14 days off and they updated the calendar. We don't use that calendar to figure the Holy Days because God was not using that calendar when He gave Moses the days. But it's worth us being aware. And I wanted to bring this up in this section because there are people that object to using the Jewish calendar that say, why should we listen to them? You know, there are groups that say, we need to just look at the seasons and we can go from the equinox and look at the new moon and that will tell us when and how to figure the Holy Days. And I'll tell you honestly, I've studied into a lot of that. I'd never even heard of it before about 16 years ago when heresy started coming up in the Worldwide Church of God and when eventually the United Church of God was founded and we separated so that we could live by the truth, a lot of other things started coming to the surface. And one of them was people who said, you're not using the right calendar. I had several people come to me and say, did you know about this? Well, I didn't know about this. Let me read. And I studied and I learned about postponements and the MoLAD and all kinds of things like that that I don't want to talk about today. Let's go to Romans chapter 3. Because what I'll say in all my study, and I don't want you to take my word for it just because I say, but I want to let you know I'm not following just what I was told from Cincinnati. I've looked into this a lot myself and I'm convinced that those arguments, they don't have a reasonable or authoritative alternative. For those who say the Jews, the Jewish calendar isn't good, I've never seen anybody present something that I'm convinced is more right. And we can say, do the Jews have some reason, some authority for what they're doing? Romans 3 and chapter 1, Paul addresses that to some degree. He says, what advantage then has the Jew, or what is the prophet of circumcision? Well, much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. To the Jews were committed the oracles of God. That's the word or the writings of God. Those people preserved Holy Scripture for thousands of years, and they were very careful about it. They treated what we consider now the Old Testament as Holy Word, which it was. And even when they were copying it, there was a very precise detailed procedure. And I've read of some of that, and it involves someone wearing the right clothes and having a quill pen that they would sharpen and only use for so many letters. And you read the letter, and you chant it so many times as you walk over and then copy that letter, then the next letter, and you chant that to make sure that it was right. And study has shown that our Scripture is very accurate. Well, for thousands of years, the Jews also preserved a calendar. They kept that calendar, and they've maintained it for thousands of years. And I've got to say, I trust that calendar. I think that it's right. You know, some people say that we should have somebody in Jerusalem watching the night sky to see when the new moon is, and then we'll know it's the start of the seventh month, and we can keep the feast or trumpets. But then again, sometimes it might be cloudy.

And you don't see the new moon. That's an obvious thing, but it's important to realize the great Creator God who said everything in motion in Genesis we read, he says he made lights in the heavens for signs and for seasons, for days and years, and those lights in the heavens move with very precise movement. And we can look at them and calculate a calendar by which we can calculate into the future exactly when the new moon will be, you know, 100, 200, 300 years from now. We don't have to have someone perched, you know, out on the hill in Jerusalem to look for that new moon. You know, it's nice if someone wants to do that. It's okay. But we know when those dates will be.

Oh yeah, all that stuff I just said is here in my notes. That's good to know. Whoever prepared these was on the same calendar with me. So we can know, and I'll give you the dates here. I had them in the announcements, but if you're wondering, and now there is a work you have to, you know, calculate, transfer them from the Hebrew calendar, you know, what day in our calendar is equivalent to the first day of the seventh month. For trumpets, this year it's September 29th. You know, atonement will be October 8th. And by the way, September 29th we're going to have services here, morning and afternoon. So that'll be a Thursday. Atonement will coincide with the annual, not the annual, the weekly Sabbath. So we'll be keeping atonement here on October 8th. The first day of the Feast of Tabernacles will be October 13th. That'll go for seven days, and then the last great day, October 20th. And I think most of you knew, and I didn't plan this when I was doing the sermon, but I talked to Mr. Hargrove on the phone earlier this week, and he told me they're not having Sabbath services in Columbus on October 22nd. You know, the first Sabbath after the Feast, because not enough people will be back. So I just want to let you know we're having services here, and all of you on the speaking schedule, I think, know that. You've seen it. So please all, you know, if you're back in town, be here, and let your friends know if there's somebody from a congregation where they're not having services, bring them on in. I haven't prepared a sermon yet for that day, but we'll come up with something. Okay, moving on. That's the when. Now who? Who keeps these days? Let's go back to Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23 and verse 27.

We'll reread this, because I wasn't emphasizing this particular part before. Now, this is pertaining particularly to the Day of Atonement, but I think this applies to others, but it says, And it shall be, and you shall not do any work on that same day, for it's the Day of Atonement. To make an atonement for you before the Lord your God.

When he says, any person, that doesn't leave much of anybody out. He's saying, this day is for all of us. We're all to keep this day holy, and we're not to work on that day.

And there's something that comes up I've noticed, if you look on here, it says, no work whatsoever. Most of the Holy Days are Sabbath that says, no customary work. Or if you're reading the Old King James, it says, no servile work.

Yeah, because on the other days, there's some work that you can do. You know, on the Sabbath day, when you go home, you're probably going to fix something to eat. You might wash some dishes afterwards or whatever, but on the Day of Atonement, you don't even do that. You don't need to, because you're not going to be eating. So Atonement is a little different than the other Holy Days. It has no provision for some of those things that you don't need to be doing. And that's a little off the subject.

Now, it's important to realize, and I do want to mention this. I wrote it in red notes. We all are to afflict our souls on Atonement, but there are physical limitations. Some people who have certain sicknesses or perhaps are pregnant or nursing have to limit how they afflict their souls or how much. We understand that some people cannot fast a full 24 hours and live through it or not do themselves severe damage. So God understands that, but we are all to afflict ourselves. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 16.

We'll see another important thing about who keeps the feast.

Deuteronomy 16 will begin in verse 13.

This is where I was doing my bad German impression earlier.

But I want to, as I said, focus on a different aspect of this.

Verse 13, it says, "'You shall observe the feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered in from your threshing floor and your winepress, and you shall rejoice in your feast. You and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, that's pretty much everybody.' Who's going to keep the feast? All of you.

Although, one thing that struck me, it says, you and your son and your daughter and all these others, it never mentions your wife.

Which struck me, I'm not sure what to take. I don't think wives are supposed to be excluded, but maybe it's just a matter of, maybe you, because you become one flesh, gets to conclude both. Because I don't see how you leave anyone out. Everyone gets to keep it.

And I wanted to read this verse, because we often read a little further down in verse 16, and here's what I want to distinguish, because the question could come up. And Deuteronomy 16, 16, it says, three times a year, all your males shall appear before the eternal your God, in the place that he chooses, and make an offering.

Now, some people have read this and said, well, you know, the women and children don't have to keep the feast, but everything we've read so far seems to say that they do.

Well, I think what this means is that, if it's difficult, only the men are required to travel to the distant site, and to make an offering. Everyone has to keep the day holy. Everyone has to afflict their souls on atonement. But only the men are absolutely required to travel.

Now, you might ask the question then, well, is it ever wrong for the women and children to go? Maybe they have to keep the day holy, but God doesn't want them to travel up to the feast.

And if that's the case, we might have had some problem all these years, because a lot of you women I know have been to the feast.

Let's look at a couple of examples. The quick answer to that is, no, it's not wrong. Let's go to 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel in chapter 1.

I wanted to go here partly because it's one of my favorite stories, and I think it illustrates the fact that women and children being at the feast is not only okay, it's a very nice thing, but we can see where there are times when they're excluded, and it's not wrong for them to not go.

1 Samuel.

It's named after Samuel, and we're only going to barely meet him in this story.

Now, there was a certain man of Remethaem Zophim of the mountains of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah. And he was the son of these guys whose names are hard to pronounce, so I'm going to skip that. But we've got Elkanah, and he had two wives. Elkanah had some problems, and I don't recommend the two wives part. The name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other was Panina.

And Panina had children, but Hannah had no children. And this man went up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, and the priests were there and such. So we've got this story. Here's the man with two wives. One of them has children, the other doesn't. And annually, they go up to Shiloh to offer sacrifice. Now, it doesn't say that it's the feast, but it's almost certain that it is, because the feast is the one time when you're required to travel and to make an offering.

Now, I'm going to skip past, but if you read that story, you'll see that Panina, who has children, teases Hannah quite a bit. And Hannah's very dejected, because in that day, in that culture, to not have children was a terrible thing. And she really felt that she was, you know, falling short.

So she's going to come and ask God for help. So in verse 7, So it was year by year, when she went up to the house of the eternal, that she, that's Panina, provoked her, which is Hannah. Therefore, she, Hannah, wept and did not eat. And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart grieved? Am I not better than ten sons?

It's interesting she doesn't give an answer. But Hannah arose after they finished eating and drinking and Shiloh, and she goes to pray. Now Eli the priest was sitting by the seat of the doorpost, and she was in bitterness of soul and prayed to the eternal and wept in anguish. And she made a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant, and remember me and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the eternal all the days of his life, and no razor will come on his head.

So she goes and earnestly prays to God, saying, Please let me have a son, and if you do, I'll devote him to serving you. He'll become a Nazarite. That's why he wouldn't have a razor. You know, he would take this vow so that he could serve in the temple.

And one of the reasons I'm reading this is because, if you go on down in the story, we'll see that God heard and answered her prayer. Shortly afterward, she became pregnant and had a son.

Now my thought is, if God didn't want women and children to come to the feast, maybe he wouldn't have been listening to her prayer, or at least not have honored it. But apparently he did, and this is a good example that it's fine for our women and children to come.

I don't know if any of you were going to argue against me and try to not go, but it's good to know that. But it's also, if we go down further, we'll see that there are occasions when the women and children might not go, and that's okay. And verse 21 is after Samuel had been born. Samuel is the one that's going to be the Nazarites and go on to do great things.

Now the man, Alcanah, in all his house went up to offer to the eternal the yearly sacrifice in his vow. But Hannah did not go up, for she said to her husband, not until the child is weaned, and then I'll take him that he may appear before the eternal and remain there forever. So Alcanah, her husband, said to her, well, do what seems good to you. Wait until you've weaned him. Only let the eternal establish his word. And that's exactly what they did. Now we'll see. I mean, this is, I think, a good demonstration as an example. The minimum requirement is that everyone has to keep the feast. The men are required to travel to wherever it is that God has his name, and we'll discuss that momentarily, and to make the offering. If there's a health reason or other circumstances that women and children find it difficult to go, they don't have to actually travel. They do have to keep it holy.

Let's look at one more example that's a good one in the book of Luke.

Look, Luke chapter 2.

We'll look at Luke chapter 2.

I'm not sure if I've had too much coffee today or too little, because the words do not want to come out.

Clearly.

As you might say, well, I don't know about this who Elkanah and Hannah are, is there an example, a good one or a bad one? But this is, the next one is an example. You can't refute that it was the right thing.

Because we're going to look at the example of Jesus Christ himself when he was 12 years old.

And by the way, 12 years old in Jewish society was still considered to be a minor. Not until 13 were the requirements of men come on you after what they call the bar mitzvah now. So in verse 40 it says, And the child, that's Jesus, grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him. His parents went up to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. And when they finished the days they returned, and the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother did not know.

Now, and of course we know the story. They went a few couple days and discovered, well Jesus isn't here, we've got to go find him. And they went back.

But this illustrates to us that, once again, the men have to go. It's perfectly fine for the women and children to go. But there are occasions when maybe they shouldn't go.

And that brings me to a personal example. I've been reading, telling stories from the Bible. Let me give my own personal story because since my first feast in 1975, I've always traveled and gone to the feast.

Last year, and it's funny, I was saying this in Pressensburg, there's a couple who have a baby almost the exact same age as Connor. And as soon as I started saying this, they started nodding because they knew exactly what I was speaking of. Sue was large with child as feast time was approaching, and she was due right around feast time. And her doctor said, there's no way you're going to West Virginia up on top of a mountain, you know, two hours from any hospital. Said, you're not going to the feast. And I had no reason to disagree.

But I started questioning, well, what do I do?

You know, from what I everything I just said, I should be going. So I was pondering and it was a real struggle for me. I said, should I go, you know, for just the holy days and come back? I was considering and I was close to booking a flight to go to the Wisconsin Dells because I reasoned that there I could go from the Dells to Milwaukee in less than an hour and catch a flight that was only two hours, so that if I was at the feast and Sue went into labor, you know, I could get home.

Which still didn't seem like an ideal situation for me.

And she wasn't too thrilled about it either.

And then something came up. An elder who we know and we're very close to in Columbus came to me and said, Frank, I understand you're puzzling over this, but look around you. He said, there are quite a number of brethren in Columbus who are not able to go.

Most of them are elderly and have health problems. Some of them, there are some people who have been out of work and they don't have money. They didn't have an income to tithe on and they can't go. He said, if you stay in Columbus, you can serve them and help them to keep the feast in a way that they wouldn't otherwise. And that sort of parted the clouds for me. And I didn't make the decision all on my own. I went and talked to our pastor and we got some input from the church administration. And we set up sort of a mini-feast site there in Grove City. I was able to hook up my computer to our large TV and we logged on to the festival services that were in snowshoe every day. So it wasn't, I was keeping the feast and I'm going to lead songs and give the sermon every day and all that. We logged on and we rearranged the furniture and we actually bought some chairs. And on the first Holy Day, we had 22 people there in our living room lined up.

And we all went out to dinner afterwards. And we made it the feast.

And I'm going to come back to that because there are some other questions. But it does bring up the question of where.

We've talked about, you know, what, why, who...

I feel like I'm leaving out a W. But let's go on to where. Where do we keep the feast?

We've been reading in Luke chapter 2, we see that Jesus and his parents went to Jerusalem. That was the place they went for the feast. When we were in Samuel, they went to a place called Shiloh to keep the feast.

When we read in Deuteronomy 16, verse 6... Yeah, Deuteronomy 16, 16. It says, Go to the place where the Lord will put his name. So there wasn't even a designated place then. So you might wonder, you know, I'm not sure if I've been to any of those places.

Now, at some times in history, it's been easy to know where God put his name.

In ancient Israel, when they were wandering the wilderness, they saw this pillar of cloud. And at night, it turned into a pillar of fire. And wherever that was, that was God's name. And when that pillar went up and started moving, they all followed it. So they were wherever God put his name all the time. And then they came into the Promised Land. And in the meantime, they built this tabernacle according to the instructions. And they built the Ark of the Covenant and then Altar. So they set up the tabernacle in what they thought was a permanent place called Shiloh. And Shiloh was the place for hundreds of years.

But then later, the Ark was moved.

And we don't know what happened to the tabernacle. I've always wondered if that got destroyed or the mosques got it or what exactly. But Solomon built this fabulous temple. And that became the place.

So you might wonder, should we be going to Jerusalem now? That's the last place we had word of.

To get an answer, let's go to Jeremiah 7.

And one of the reasons I'm addressing this, by the way, there are some groups that believe a lot of what we believe, but they say you do have to go to Jerusalem. And you're not really keeping the feast if you don't go to Jerusalem. I don't think there are very many of them, but if you happen to speak to one of them, it'd be good to be able to give an answer of why we don't go to Jerusalem.

And the most basic one is what we find here in Jeremiah 7.

Now, to give some of the background, remember, this is when the Babylonian army is encamping and about to conquer Judah and Jerusalem. There were some people who were saying, well, Jerusalem will never fall because the temple is here. God has put His name here. We don't have to worry about those Babylonians. And God sent Jeremiah to tell them that they better think differently. So it says, The word that came to Jeremiah from the eternal, saying, Stand in the gate of the eternal's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter into these gates, and worship the eternal. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amends your ways in your doing, and I'll cause you to dwell in this place. But do not trust in these lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. Some people thought, as long as we got the temple, we're okay.

He says, No, don't do that. But, in verse 5, If you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, If you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, If you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, And do not shed innocent blood in this place, Or walk after other gods to your hurt, Then I will cause you to dwell in this place, And the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.

So don't talk about the temple, but straighten up your act. Do what's right.

He says, Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. And here he describes what they were actually doing. He says, Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, Swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, Walk after other gods whom you don't know, And then come and stand before me in this house, Which is called by my name, and say, Whoa, we're delivered to do all these things.

Are you doing all that? And then coming here and saying, It's okay, because we got the temple.

Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, even I, I have seen it. God says, I've seen it with my own eyes.

And he says something interesting. He says, Now go to my place that was in Shiloh, The place where the tabernacle had been set up, Where God's name was. He says, Go there and see what I did to it, Because of the wickedness of my people Israel.

You know, God's name wasn't there anymore.

He said, Now because you've done all these works as the Eternal, And I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking to you, But you didn't hear, and I called you, but you didn't answer. Therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, In which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you And your fathers, as I have done at Shiloh, And I'll cast you out of my sight, As I cast out all your brethren, the whole posterity of Ephraim. That was a long, long way of saying, God didn't keep his name exclusively in Jerusalem. You know, it was there, and that was the place to go, But he said, just like it's not Shiloh anymore, It's not Jerusalem anymore. We don't have the Ark of the Covenant. Now, as far as we know, it's in a warehouse in Washington, D.C.

There's some, you know, Raiders of the Lost Ark. I know it's an old movie, but it's a classic. I don't know if it's, maybe it's hidden, I don't know if it's, maybe it's hidden somewhere, Or maybe it's been destroyed, but we don't have that. We don't have the temple. What we do have now is a spiritual temple, And there are several places in the New Testament, I jotted down 1 Peter 2 verse 5, and I'm not going to turn there, But there are several places that say the Church is the temple, And also, we as individuals are the temple, Because we have God's Holy Spirit in us.

But I want to dwell on the fact that the Church has certain authority, Because we now trust the organization of the Church to designate certain places where we ask God to put His name for the sake of the feast. And let's go to Matthew 16, Matthew 16 and verse 18 to see some evidence of that.

There's a scripture we turn to a lot, But that's because Christ had it said a lot when He said this.

I guess it's not good for me to have a glass in front of my mouth when I speak.

Here, once again, the disciples had been talking to Jesus, And he'd been discussing who people thought he was, And here Jesus says something interesting. Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, But my Father who is in heaven. And I say also to you that you're Peter, you're a little stone, And on this rock I will build my church, And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

And I will give you, that is you the church that I'm going to build, I'll give you the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

I think that's a legitimate authority. If the church has the authority to bind something, Now that doesn't give the church the authority to overturn God's law. The church can't say, we can golf on the Sabbath now. Church can't do that. But the church can say, well, God's name isn't in Jerusalem anymore, So how about we can keep the feast in Jekyll Island?

I think the church has the authority to do that. If we skip ahead a couple pages to Matthew 18, we can see part of why we know that there are other places we can keep the feast. Matthew 18 and verse 20, Jesus said, For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.

And that's one of the important things about the Feast of Tabernacles, and actually Sabbath services every week, is we want God's presence to be there. Where we gather together says, I'm there. Through God's Spirit, He's here with us.

Now, I've loved reading about the old days in the church, and I love talking to some of the old-timers, and some of you probably remember this.

There were times for many years when it was believed that we would always all keep the feast in the same place.

And at first it was Belknap Springs, Washington. And I've seen the photos, and they all went there, and they just presumed, well, we'll keep doing this. Well, God started calling more and more people.

So they said, we've got to find a better place. And was it that Buck Hammer had donated the land in East Texas, and they said, we can build a site there. For many years, everybody in all of North America came to big, sandy Texas. I think back then they called it Glade Water, which was down the road. And it went from hundreds to then thousands, and the piney woods would get filled up.

All these people coming in, and there's the big redwood building that they started. And I've heard the descriptions of this. It seems odd, because the redwood building to me is a library, or it was when I was a student. But they built it as an auditorium, where they could keep moving the walls back further and further. As the church grew.

And there was talk of building a stadium.

They fancifully called it Bucks Bowl, named after Buck Hammer, that they were going to build a 100,000-seat stadium out there in East Texas. And I've seen the site. There's a golf course, and there was a natural dip in the land, where they said, we could excavate a bit further and put this in, and 100,000 of us, or maybe 144,000, can come there, and we'll all keep the feast.

And then I think they started realizing, it's kind of tough with, you know, I've been at the feast in Big Sandy when there were about 3,000 people there. As a matter of fact, the one time I was there, I had to drive the garbage truck.

Which, I drove the garbage truck as part of my job as a student. And this is a side story, but I think I have time.

Because we, you know, there's always volunteers needed at the feast. I'll touch on this later, you know, and so all those people saying the Piney Woods accumulate a lot of trash. So a crew of men volunteered to get up and load the trash truck. So every morning at 7 a.m., I'd pull in with the truck and we'd go down and they'd ride on the back and load it up with trash. And I'd never seen men so happy to throw trash in a truck. They were thrilled to be serving. And I got to say, I was a little less mature then. I was thinking, I could get up at 7 in the morning and, you know, and so that wasn't my idea of a great feast. But now, what was my point on that?

My point was, when you get thousands and thousands of people, there's a lot of logistics. We're not spirit beings yet. We all have to have, you know, laboratory facilities. We create trash. We have to have places to eat. So they said, all of us in one place won't work. Let's start having multiple feast sites. You know, the early days it was Big Sandy and Lake of the Ozarks and the Poconos and the Wisconsin Dells that all had the same metal buildings.

And then we expanded from there. And it's been a good experience.

And one thing, you know, Christ said, by their fruits you'll know them. We've all been to—I shouldn't say we all, we might have some newer people, but most of us have been to feast sites. And I'd say, by the fruit of it, we know God has placed his name there. We've gone to the feast sites and we've been spiritually fed and we've enjoyed that fellowship. And we've learned a lot about God's way of life.

So we can trust that God was there.

Now, you might be wondering, what about my mini-feast site in Grove City?

Well, I did get clearance from the church that it was okay to do that. And I personally prayed and I said, God, please place your name here for the sake of those of us that are here for the feast. You know, the church has said it's okay, but God, we want you to be here.

And I think it worked that way.

Now, that is relating back to some of the who, more than the who as well as the where, because now we've got cyberconnections that can bring us, our eyes and ears, to different places. And that's a good thing in a lot of ways. You know, if you're physically unable to travel to a feast site, now with modern technology, you can see and hear much of what goes on there.

So that's a good thing if you have difficulty traveling.

I will still say, though, fellowshiping and rejoicing together with other people is an important part of the feast. You know, that's a very vital part. So I still say if you're able to travel to where brethren are, you want to do that.

And if you're not, though, if you're one of those people, and remember, I'm going to say this again, so I got chewed out for not... well, not chewed out. I got reminded that I didn't announce it last week. If you're not able to go, we would like you to give us your name and address in the back.

But if you're not able to go and you sign up on the list, you know, try to get together with other people. Make that fellowship something special. You know, that's what we did in Grove City. As I said, we came there for services, but we also went out to meals. You know, we had one special meal on the first Holy Day, but we got together several other times. And, of course, whether you travel to a feast site or not, remember it is still holy time.

That's how we keep it.

Observe the Holy Day. There's no work, no regular activities.

Now, if you have to keep it at home, I'll try to gather with other people. Now, if you can't go...

and these are some practical things that you won't find in the Bible, but I thought there's some things just by the wealth of my experience, being this old guy that's not quite 50 yet. But I'm going to share them with you anyways. Have you thought, can I still stay in a temporary dwelling? That's one of the ways we want to keep the feast. Leviticus 23, remember, it talked about how they went and gathered leafy branches.

Let's turn to Nehemiah chapter 8. Let's look at something interesting. Nehemiah chapter 8. Here's another example.

Nehemiah. Let's see. That's right after 2 Chronicles and Ezra.

Nehemiah 8. I want to begin in verse 13.

Now, I'll give you somewhat of the story. This is after Judah was conquered and people were hauled off to Babylon, and 70 years later, the king let some of them come back to Jerusalem. So people were coming back, and they rebuilt the temple, a smaller version, and they started later on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. But many of them still didn't really know much about how to obey God and how they were supposed to live. And then the priest came out and started reading them the law, and they learned as they went.

And that's where we'll pick up in verse 13 of chapter 8. Now, on the second day, the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people with the priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe in order to understand the words of the law. And they found written in the law, which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the Feast of the Seventh Month. They were reading Leviticus 11, verses 39 to 41. So they read that, and it says going on in verse 15, that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities in Jerusalem, saying, Go out to the mountain and bring all of branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle trees, palm branches, and branches of leafy trees, to make booths as it is written. And the people went out and they brought them, and they made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house or in their courtyards or the court of the house of God in the open square at the Watergate. And the whole assembly, those who had returned from the captivity, made booths and sat under the booths. And it had not been done that way since the days of Joshua the son of Nun. You know, Joshua was the one that brought him over the River Jordan. So they hadn't done it the way God said to do it in all those years.

What's interesting to me is they were already in Jerusalem.

You know, as far as going to a feast site, they were at the feast site, but there's something important about that booth. And it's not the leafy branches. It's the fact that it's a temporary dwelling.

And as I said, I'm not going to go into a lot of the spiritual meaning, but it's worth reminding us that the temporary dwelling is symbolic of the fact that we live in the flesh and blood now and our bodies are temporary. We're only going to live in this flesh just so long. We need a spirit body. We need God to give us eternal life or that's all there is.

So we don't stay in booths made out of branches. We often stay in hotel rooms or sometimes camp in tents or RVs.

You know, and it's interesting, though, at our feast site in Grove City, you know, we weren't poor. We had second tithes. We just had Sue about to have a baby. So we got a hotel room just down the road. You know, and we stayed in the hotel. Sue's parents came up because who's, you know, what mother is going to let her child have a baby and not be nearby? So they came to keep the feast with us and they stayed in our house. We were in a temporary dwelling. They were in a temporary dwelling. You know, not a booth made out of branches, but some place that was not where we normally lived.

You know, at Ambassador College, you know, like when I had to stay in Big Sandy, you know, they would ask us to stay there, some of us to stay there for the feast so we could serve. You know, somebody had to drive that garbage truck.

And I should say, I don't know if I could do it very well today, but I was good back then at driving the truck.

No, anyways, I didn't tell stories. It was fun.

But a lot of us who would stay, we would switch dorm rooms, you know, and say, hey, I'll stay in your dorm during the feast, and you stay in mine. I've heard of brethren who can't travel to the feast doing that, sort of swap houses, you know, house it for someone else, so they're in a temporary dwelling. And these people in Jerusalem, they didn't do that, but they set up a temporary structure, and they ate their meals there. That's the Orthodox Jews who live in Jerusalem today. That's largely what they'll do. They interpret this as meaning, well, I don't have to go get a hotel room, but I'm going to go, I'm going to build, and they build them out of leaves. And they go out there, and that's where they'll eat their dinner.

At least they are having that experience of the temporary dwelling. So, you know, I'm not laying out a groundwork of making a list of do's and don'ts for those who aren't able to travel, but consider, is there some way that you can get that experience to remind yourself of the symbolism of that temporary dwelling, you know, that our life in the flesh is only temporary?

Now, we're going into, I think I've covered all five W's, but I do want to address the how. Now, we've talked already quite a bit about the how, as in how to keep the feast. There are two aspects of how. One is, what do you do, or in what way do you keep the feast?

It's funny, I keep getting those W's, but how? Well, we've seen some things. How do you keep the feast? Well, it's a holy convocation. You keep the high days of Sabbath, so you don't work.

At the Feast of Tabernacles, you get a temporary dwelling.

We saw in Deuteronomy 1616, I didn't emphasize it then, but part of how we keep the feast is to make an offering. You know, every man shall give as he is able, because God will bless us.

And of course, one of the most important things is, we're commanded to rejoice, especially at the Feast of Tabernacles. And I love that one. God says, you go and you have fun. I'm ordering it.

I will mention, I added this later, because I want to move on to another important subject, but keep this in mind also. And one way that helps make your feast better that you don't always think of is serving at the feast.

And maybe I shouldn't say that, because I think we've been told this so many times, a lot of us do think that. Your serving might be men usher, help in parking, being as part of the choir, but also serving in informal ways. Just going out of your way to go to talk to someone, you know, there's usually an area where they have set aside for people with wheelchairs. Keep in mind, they can't get up and go mingle and find their friends. It's nice if someone comes to them. Or helping... Now I've seen what it's like when you have a small child. Sometimes just to help carrying the diaper bag, or holding the child for a moment. There's lots of ways you can serve at the feast to help.

And we encourage each other to do this. But there's another aspect of how.

How are we able to do all this? Maybe we know what we need to do, but how do you do all this, especially if you're not rich?

You've got to travel somewhere? You've got to live in a temporary dwelling?

How can you manage that?

And the answer is that God has a Holy Day savings plan.

We call it routinely second tithe, right? And for most of you, that's a common phrase, but I think it's worth revisiting.

To make sure we look at the description and say, what is this? Let's talk a little bit about tithing and review. If you will, let's go to number... Not numbers, Leviticus first. Leviticus 27.

Leviticus 27 and starting in verse 30.

I want to lead us through tithing up to how it applies to the Holy Days.

So we'll start off here in Leviticus 27 and verse 30. We're going to see that a tithe... And by the way, you'll see the word tithe. I think it's a given... Most of us know that that means one tenth. It's an old English word, but tithe is easier than saying one tenth. It's half as many syllables.

So starting in verse 30. All the tithes of the land, whether of the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, it is the eternals. It's holy to the eternal.

That tithe, it belongs to him. It's his. It's not yours. If a man wants at all to redeem any of his tithes, he shall add one fifth to it. That's a way of saying...

When you're growing produce or whatever, say this batch of the tenth is really good. I want that. He says, okay, you can replace it with another tenth plus 20 percent. So it costs you if you want to trade out what the tithe is. We don't think of that much because money is money, and most of us, that's what we make.

And concerning the tithe of the herd of the flock, whatever passes under the rod, the tenth one is holy to the eternal. Don't ask if it's good or bad. You can't exchange it. It's God's.

Now, you might say, okay, tenth belongs to God?

Because I was childish enough to think this when I was a kid.

Okay, God, here it is. Come and get it. I'll leave it out here all night. If in the morning it's still there, I'll figure you didn't want it, and I can keep it.

But of course, it doesn't work that way. If we look in Numbers 18, you might say, God, give me a P.O. box, and I'll have UPS send this tithe to you.

The P.O. box isn't anywhere in the Bible. But in Numbers 18 and verse 21, we'll see that God designated some other way to get him the tithe. Here in 18 verse 21, God says, Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance, in return for the work which they perform, the work of the tabernacle of meeting. Hereafter, the children of Israel won't come near the tabernacle of meeting, lest they bear sin and die, but the Levites shall perform the work of the tabernacle. They'll bear their iniquity, it'll be a statute forever. And in verse 24, For the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer up as a heave offering to the eternal, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance. Now what happened, remember, when they came into the Promised Land, they divided the land by lots, and each tribe got a whole bunch of real estate that they could live on, but the Levites didn't get any. They got some villages where they could at least build houses, but the Levites' inheritance was the tithe. So the Levites got the tithe, and if you look further down in verse 26 to 28, the Levites also would tithe. I'll skip reading that, but they tithed to the priests. So God had a way for everybody to give a tithe, except Aaron, and he just ate his, or burned it up, or...

We all tithed, but it's important to realize that's God's. He said, it's holy to me. Now I'm designating, and you give it to them. It's not yours, you can't have it. And to see how serious he is... Now we're going to be coming back to Deuteronomy if you want to stick around here, but let's go to Malachi chapter 3.

Malachi 3 verse 8.

Remember, Malachi is the last book before Matthew.

How serious has God about who the tithe belongs to?

This is one you're probably familiar with. He says, Will a man rob God?

But you've robbed me? When you say, Well, what way have we robbed you? In tithes and in offerings? You're cursed with a curse, for you've robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring the tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in my house, and try me in this. If I won't open the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing so much that there's not room to receive it.

So God says, If you're not tithing, you're not giving it, and we would say to the Levites, you're robbing me. It's not yours.

Okay, now let's go back to Deuteronomy chapter 14.

I'm about to bring this circle around and make my point, so I hope you're bearing with me. Deuteronomy 14, we're going to see something about tithes that doesn't seem to fit with everything we've just read. Deuteronomy 14, beginning with verse 22.

Now the first part sounds familiar. You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces. It says, And you shall eat before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses his name, the tithe of your grain, and your new wine, and your oil, and of the firstborn, all of your produce. So he's saying, take a tenth, and come and eat it.

Well, earlier he said, you can't have it. He said, you've got to give it to Levites, and it's robbing me if you don't.

So is there a contradiction?

Well, the only way that we've been able to reason that this could work is that there is a different 10%.

10% does have to go to the priests. You give it to God for him to choose for his work, and then you save another 10%, and you take it to the place. That's why we call it a second tithe. It's a whole other 10% that still is God's but he's telling you, I want you to take it and eat it yourself, and I want you to really enjoy it.

Now, without going there, especially because I'm going to run out of time, in Hebrews 7, there's a detailed and a thorough talk. And I said, I'm not going to go there, but if you want to read it later. In Hebrews, it talks about how the Levites weren't serving the priesthood anymore. The priesthood of Aaron has been replaced by the priesthood of Melchizedek, which is another way of saying Jesus Christ. So we don't have to give our tithes to the Levites. It belongs to Jesus Christ. And we believe, you know, Christ said, I'm going to build my church. So we see that the tithe has been transferred. Instead of going to Levites, the tithe goes to the church, and they use it to print good news magazines and send them out, and to rent church buildings, and to pay guys like me to tell you these things. And so it goes. So that's still that 10%.

Now, there in Hebrews, it says nothing about the second 10%. Has that been transferred to someone else?

No, there's no indication of it. So I would only presume that that second 10% is still for the original purpose. There's no change ever mentioned anywhere in the Bible. So if we look back to Deuteronomy 14, Deuteronomy 14 verse 24, we'll read a little bit about what we do with this tithe. What is its purpose?

It's one I think you're going to like.

It says, if the journey is too long for you that you're not able to carry the tithe. This was for farmers who might actually have had 10% of their produce. He says, if you can't do that to go to the place where the Lord your God chooses, which might be Gatlinburg or Virginia Beach or Maui, you know, then change it into money and bind that money up in your hand. And you might put it in your wallet instead. And go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. And you'll spend that money for whatever your heart desires. For oxen or sheep or wine or similar drink. For whatever your heart desires. You shall eat there before the Lord your God and you shall rejoice.

Now, doesn't that sound like fun?

Now, that's a command that's not so hard to live with. God commands us to save 10% and then go someplace and spend it on things that'll make you happy. You know, lots of good things.

Let's review a couple of important points, though. As far as that second tithe, I try to make the point that it's still not your money. It's God's money, so you have to save it.

Which, in some ways, that's nice. If you're like me, and Sue can attest to this, once I get money in the bank account or in my hand, I hate to let it back out again. I think it's just, you know, it's been ingrained in me. I want to save it. I'm very, I look very carefully about spending money.

But I feel differently when it comes to second tithes. That is not my money. It's God's money, and he told me to spend it. So I'm going to do what he says. It's a lot easier to go to the feast and let that money go.

Now, let's make some points. You can use it for other annual holy days. You know, it's a 10% for the festivals. We tend to use most of it for the Feast of Tabernacles, because the Feast of Tabernacles needs the most resources.

Let's address a little bit about, you know, what are appropriate uses for the second tithe.

Now, we just read, of course, food and drink.

And not just any food and drink. You know, the good stuff.

Get the stuff you can't normally afford. You're going to have, you know, 10% of your income to spend in a week. That's way more than usual. So you can afford the filet mignon. You can afford wine out of a bottle instead of a box.

I'm only saying that because I have a box of wine in my kitchen. No shame in that.

But it's also worth noting, if what your heart earnestly desires is a whopper, and you like whoppers, you know, and I like whoppers. So every now and then, I'll do that. So now there are other things. You need temporary dwellings. You know, you might, if you want to live in a leafy booth, you can, but most of us will stay in a hotel room or a rented house. And, you know, temporary dwellings can be expensive. Your second tithe will go to that. It'll also go to traveling to the feast and back again. Now, of course, added into this, I could say, it's important to budget. Make sure you have enough that once you've gone there and you've done your rejoicing, you can get back home.

But there's travel to the feast. Sometimes gifts for others.

Now, when you have young children, it's important sometimes to caution and say, well, we don't pretend this is Christmas and just buy a tree full of gifts and everything, but it's not wrong, you know, to show your appreciation and do something special for someone, certainly. And the same would go for clothing. You know, clothing, especially if it helps you to keep the feast. It's become a tradition for Sue and I. She'll usually get a new dress around feast time and every two or three years all and buy a new suit. They seem to last a long time.

But, you know, that's not a bad thing. Now, I would say, if you're using your second tithe to replace your wardrobe, you know, that's not really, you know, it's for the feast.

Another important thing, and if you will, let's turn back to Nehemiah chapter 8 because we're going to see an example of this. And I think this is one of the best things that's not commanded. But if you want to see a good use for second tithe, especially if you have more than you need, let's keep this one in mind. And that's helping others to have a good feast.

I said Nehemiah chapter 8, but actually I want to start with the last verse of chapter 7, because here, as I said, people were starting to read and learning God's law.

So in 7 verse 73 says, the priests and the Levites and the gatekeepers, the singers and some of the people, the Neph and Emma, all there, they dwelt in their cities. And when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their city. So it's the seventh month. Now let's go to chapter 8 and verse 8.

Because they gathered together and Ezra starts reading from the law. So they read distinctly from the book in the law of God, and they gave them the sense, helped them to understand the reading. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest, and the scribe and the Levites, they taught the people, and they said to the people, this day is holy to the Lord your God. Don't mourn, don't weep. For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the law, they realized, we haven't been living this way. And then they realized, today's a holy day. We're here reading the law, and this is a holy day. And they said, well, don't weep. It's a time we have to rejoice. Now, how do you do that?

In verse, I've got lines on it. Verse 10, he said, go your way and eat the fat. Drink the sweet. And that means eat the good stuff, not literally fat. But eat the succulent, the good stuff.

And send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared. For this day is holy.

So some people don't have what you have, send them portions. That's an important thing.

And verse 12, it says, so all the people went their way to eat and drink, and to send portions, and to rejoice greatly, because they understood the words that were declared to them.

That's a wonderful thing. We can and we should use some of our second tithe if we're able to to help others.

You know, there were times when the church administratively said ways that they wanted you to do it.

We used to use the term excess second tithe, which I remember when I was a kid, I'd never, you know, when I had a paper route, I never had any such thing as excess second tithe. I always had a deficiency of second tithe.

But, you know, we used to say, hey, if you want to turn in extra, you've got more than you need, turn it in, and we'll help it to get to other people.

And we don't emphasize that so much, but it's still an option. It's there. And also, we asked people in advance, you probably got to mention last spring, that we like to ask people to send in a donation from their second tithe so that the church can use that to rent convention centers and to provide assistance for people who don't have it. And, you know, I'm organizing the teen activity in Gatlinburg, and Mr. McCready told me, hey, you've got $500. And I said, okay, you know, that's money that's people's second tithe coming together so we can set up an activity there.

And there are other ways. I've heard wonderful stories of people just spontaneously giving to others or inviting people to come to dinner with them.

Now, I was in Columbus, this was a few years ago, I was leaving services, and one of the men I know came up to me and handed me $200.

And it wasn't for me. He said, I don't want them to know what's for me. He said, go over to that person. I know they need some money for the feast. Go give it to him and tell him it's from an anonymous donor.

That was pretty cool. You know, he had extra. He wanted that person to have a little more to help them keep the feast.

And the $200 sparked a memory on me because my family's first feast was in 1975. And my grandmother had been in the church for a long time. My sister and I had attended with her. And that's the point where my mother decided to attend church. And we'd come up to the fall and said, let's go to the feast.

You know, we all packed into our car and we had $200.

And we drove to the lake of the Ozarks on $200. And the four of us kept the feast.

You know, and somehow it worked. And now, when I got older, I learned part of the way it worked is a lot of people helped us out. You know, paid for our meals or made donations. You know, I was a little kid. I didn't know what was going on. But I think that was pretty cool. So just encourage all of us to try to keep that in mind. There are ways we can keep the feast.

And I'm leaning towards my conclusion here. All this talk about the feast has got me excited to go.

Which is what I was hoping. That's the effect in all of you. You want feast fever. I'm getting it bad.

Autumn is here and the days are going to be upon us soon. So we've reviewed some of the what, when, why, where, and the how.

But I want to make a note again. We've only talked a little bit about the why. There's so much more to the feast. I've talked about how we prepare and we get there and the physical things we're going to do.

In the weeks ahead, we're going to delve into the meaning. What is God's plan for us? Why are we doing these things?

It's going to be a lot of fun. And because of that, I want to urge all of us. Let's prepare and then let's go keep the feast.