The Culture of the Kingdom

Well, good morning to everyone. Happy last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. It's certainly gone fast and it's certainly been a very fine feast as far as my wife and I are concerned, hopefully for all of you as well. Well, brother, I like weddings. I think everybody likes weddings. I looked down and I saw a couple of smiles. I think everybody likes weddings, whether you're younger or older. They're happy occasions. Usually it's a younger couple, but not always. You have the beautiful bride just beaming in her special white dress.

The groom is all handsome and all decked out in his best. It's well-dressed for the occasion. It's a celebration. It's an enjoyable and a happy occasion. I have lots of thoughts when I go to weddings. One of the thoughts is I think back to my own wedding. You know, happy thoughts. You know, thoughts of love and of good times. Brings back good thoughts. Just as a question, anybody here perhaps at this feast on their honeymoon? No, I don't see any hands waving, but certainly this would be a wonderful place to come for a honeymoon.

It's very, very nice here. It's a very nice place to come. But I also have some other thoughts when I go to a wedding, and that's I see a young couple, as I say usually a young couple, doing things right. Doing things right is not always that way. As we can look around and just see the example in the world, it's not always that way. But this young couple is doing as they have been taught.

They are following through. They are putting in a practice the instructions they receive from years and years, perhaps from being an infant. There is a song that is sometimes sung by children's chorale, you know, the little children. Maybe you've heard it, maybe you've sung it somewhere along the line. The song is, I Am a Promise. And if anyone is interested in actually hearing the song, you can get it on the Internet. I think it's sung by Veggie Tales, as well as a few others.

Anyway, I will give you the words. I won't sing it for you. Give us all a break here. But I will read the words. It starts out, and you can picture, you know, little guys and gals all dressed up in their finest singing their hearts out. I am a promise. I am a possibility. I am a promise with a capital P.

I am a great big bundle of potentiality. And I am learning to hear God's voice. And I am trying to make the right choice. I am a promise to be anything God wants me to be. What I'm going to focus on in this little song is I'm learning to hear God's voice. They have been taught, and they're trying to make the right choice.

A young couple that is getting married obviously have made the right choices. They're off to a good start in life, and they're going to be blessed by doing so. Actually, a young couple, or actually they've grown up single, but a boy and a girl who grew up in the church, they've been given a lot more than a religion. Now, they've been given instructions. They have been given a religion. But also, they have been given a culture. A culture.

It's a way of life, a way of living. And I want to encourage all of us to embrace this culture. I'll call it God's culture, or the culture of the kingdom. As was already mentioned, today is Youth Day. And this message is specifically for young people. And as I look out, I assume there are some young people out there, although I don't see a lot.

So this is also for everybody else as well. I'll be talking to those who are young at heart. So for young people and for those who are young at heart, I'm going to be talking about the culture of the kingdom, because after all, it is for all of us. We've been given the opportunity to learn and to live the culture of the kingdom today at this time, and to enjoy it, to enjoy the benefits of this culture.

Many have gone on before us. Many more will follow us. We need to keep the culture. We need to pass it on to the next generation. So I want to encourage all of us to live and enjoy the culture of the kingdom today. I'm going to start out by looking at culture. We'll start out with a definition. This is from dictionary.com, and there are a few definitions. The one I'm going to focus on, where it says, the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group, such as the youth culture, and again from the dictionary, the drug culture.

I'll say the church culture or the kingdom culture. This would be a definition from dictionary.com. To illustrate, it's very wordy and you may wonder, well, what did I really say? To illustrate, I'm going to have a couple of examples. The first example is, this is not the first time in this area for my wife and for me. We actually were here many years ago, back in 1977, at the Feast of Tabernacles in Calgary.

Are there any others here who were at the Feast in Calgary in 1977? Ah, look at all these veterans. Well, thank you all very much for your faithfulness. Thank you. It is well appreciated. There were actually over 2,000 people at the Feast in Calgary that year, and as was mentioned earlier in the Feast, were really a shadow of what we used to be. But God was with us then, and God is still with us now. But we're only a shadow of what we were at that time.

One of my memories from that Feast, for those who were there, one of my memories is hockey. A subject near and near to at least half the audience here, and maybe to two-thirds the audience. And I say that for a couple reasons. We lived in the area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the time, and the Philadelphia Flyers had recently won the Stanley Cup. Twice. We were living in that area, as I mentioned, and because we have a championship team, you know, just very close to us, I started to learn a little about hockey. I never really was exposed to it, didn't know that much about it, but I began learning about it because, you know, we have a championship team in the area.

Well, at that time also, Ambassador College, not University, but Ambassador College, oh, I see someone shaking his head. Ambassador College had a hockey team, and it turns out they were pretty good. They actually played and beat one of the major universities in Southern California, and this hockey team was traveling around to very... Oh, I did it. Hit me with the chocolate. I would have tried putting it back, so I... Stand back here. No, I can't do that.

Then I'll really drive this down person insane. Anyway, Ambassador College had this hockey team, and it was touring around to various feast sites, and I don't know if there was an announcement made before the feast that the hockey team would be coming through, but there was an announcement made at the feast saying, if anybody brought your hockey gear, you know, your skates, your sticks, and whatever else you need, you know, we'll have a pickup match. Well, that was all it took. The men went out to the car and opened up their trunks, and they were well prepared, and there was a hockey match. There was plenty of men in order to provide good competition for the Ambassador College team.

As I said, I don't know if it was announced in advance. It probably was, but the men were well prepared. But I tell this story for a reason. The reason I tell it is, hockey is part of the culture in Canada. It's part of the culture. It's not the total culture by any means, but it's a part of the culture, and it's a big part. You know, in the United States, did they play hockey down there? But really, it's football or baseball. But even there, we don't travel around with footballs and pads and helmets in our car. It's also part of the language. I was talking to a Canadian friend of mine, and he's talking about something, you know, look at that guy's smart sticking. You know, it's an expression new to me. But as far as expressions, I could have mentioned other things, like, tuque. Or I could have mentioned poutine. You know, these are words you really don't hear anywhere else, eh? Well, I feel like I'm talking in tongues up here. For those of us who are from south of the border, tuque is some type of a hat. Maybe it's not.

That's what I was told by somebody here at church.

Maybe I'm not pronouncing it correctly. Let's go to poutine.

That's French fries with gravy, you know, a real, a real helpful meal. Anyway, these are all part of the culture of what goes into making a Canadian. Let's see how the Bible refers to culture. Turn to Acts 18. Acts 18. And I'll start reading in verse 24. Acts 18 and starting in verse 24.

It says, Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus.

This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord, being fervent in the Spirit. And I'm going to stop right here. He's instructed in the way of the Lord. This is God's way. And I'm going to say it's talking about God's culture, His way of living, His way of doing things. It's referred, this God's way or God's culture, if you will, is referred to several times in the book of Acts as the way. According to the King James Version, New Testament Greek lexicon, the word transliterated would be hodos. That's h-o-d-o-s. And I pronounce it hodos. It's Strong's 3598. And it can mean a way being a road, you know, such as Bow Valley Trail or Railway Avenue. It can be a road, but it can also be a way, a manner of thinking, feeling, or deciding. Or I'll say, a manner of living. And it's referred to several times in the book of Acts. We'll continue reading here. This, this man had been instructed in the way of the Lord, being fervent in spirit. He spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. Let's turn over a page or two in Acts 19. Acts 19, and we'll read in verse 9. Acts 19, 9, it says, but when some were hardened, did not believe, but spoke evil of the way. And here, W is capitalized. The way of God, the way people were conducting themselves, talking about, I'll say, the culture of God. And then dropping down into verse 23, again, it says, in about that time there rose a great commotion about the way. And again, way is capitalized.

This is the same word, that hodos. This is God's way and is God's culture. It's the culture that will be in the millennium. You know, when Christ is on the earth, ruling for a thousand years, that's going to be the culture, the culture of the kingdom. It's going to be extent. All will know God, and all will be living his ways. We have the opportunity of learning, and more importantly, living God's way and God's culture today. As was mentioned yesterday, there's no double standards, no hypocrisy. You know, what we are is what we are, you know, as transparent as it were.

I talked a little bit about Canadian culture, and I hope I don't insult anybody, but God's culture is not a Canadian culture. It's not a United States culture. It's not a culture of any nation that's on the earth today. It is God's culture. It's the culture of the kingdom. And that's really a good thing, talking a little bit about church culture. Think about that. We've come to the feast here in Canmore. You could go to the feast on the east side of Canada, you know, out to Grosmore, Newfoundland, or you could go halfway around the world. And when you go to another feast site, you know what to expect. It's not going to be something unusual or different. We can walk in, even though we are, let's say, strangers to the area, we feel right at home. That's the church culture. Well, that culture, I would say the church culture, but God's culture, will be the one that is extant in the millennium for a thousand years. And as I mentioned, we get the opportunity of living that culture today. Young people growing up that are being taught have the opportunity to live that culture. I have another example. I have a few examples. I have another example here.

My son met a girl in the eighth grade. We moved across town, and we changed schools. And this girl and my son were just friends. And I know there's some in the room that think, ah, just friends. You know, that's a code word meaning something else. No, they were really just friends. They weren't exclusive. You know, they were part of a social group, but they were, you know, friends.

They went to the same high school, and you know, kept in contact, same group. And then even though they were in different states for college, they communicated one with another in the old days, you know, back in the year 2000. They communicated via email and instant messaging. Texting wasn't known back then, or it wasn't widely practiced back then in the year 2000. Well, they kept contact through college, as I was mentioning. And then as they came near graduation, she either said to him, called him, or wrote him a message saying, I think I'm dating a fellow in your church.

And she says, I have questions. I have a lot of questions. Well, you can imagine.

She was of a different culture. She was not part of the Church of God at all. She had a different day of worship. She had a different diet. They had different holidays, and she had a different way of thinking. So she had questions, and she talked to my son about, you know, the religion of her potential future husband. Well, it turns out they did get engaged, and this girl and the fellow in church did get married after they graduated from college. Well, my son was invited to a pre-wedding party and then actually to the wedding itself. But at the pre-wedding party, my son met the groom for the first time—the groom to be, I should say—for the first time. They hit it off instantly. You know, they start talking about feast. Do you go here? You know, did you go—what about, you know, the beach is down here or the mountain's over there? You know, and they just start talking about feasts. They start talking about Y.O.U. And in case there's any here that aren't familiar with Y.O.U., perhaps there are some young people. Usually they're at the back and a little harder to see anyway.

But Y.O.U., Youth Opportunities United, it was a program for the church teens, involving mainly sports, but it didn't involve other things as well. They talked about SEP, which is similar to our United Camp program. They had all sorts of things in common. They were going back and forth. Did you go to Orr? You know, did you go to Pasadena? You know, and just various places for SEP. And they went on, and obviously I wasn't there. But from what I understand, the conversation was pretty animated, and they went on for about an hour.

And others in the book said, you guys never met before.

You don't know each other. And they said, no, we don't. They had a common culture. They had similar experiences, even though the two of them have never gotten together before. They had a culture, they had a background, and this common bond was very, very strong, even though they were quote-unquote strangers. There's actually more to this at the wedding reception. Again, my son was invited to the wedding. At the wedding reception, they seated some young people together, and my son was seated near a couple of his church friends. Well, my son, and I really don't know why he did this, but he leans over to those fellow at the groom's church friends and says, where do you go to church? Now, you may think, decent question, but put yourself in a situation, you're at a wedding reception, and let's say you are at a wedding reception. And someone leans over to you and said, where do you go to church? Now, it's not a real conversation starter.

And certainly enough, sure enough, they didn't want to talk church, so they gave him some sort of a non-answer. Well, you can't really do that to someone who knows, and my son knew too much.

So, he comes again with another question, and they gave him another non-answer. They tried to, you know, just brush him off, and so my son said, look, I grew up in worldwide. I was part of the worldwide church of God, and from then on, the ice was broken. Again, they have a common bond and a common culture. We have been taught a way of life. Our youth are being taught a way of life, whether they're younger or whether they're older. Now, I mentioned this example about this couple getting married where one is in the church and one is not. I want to strongly say that I'm not recommending at all that anyone date or marry outside of the church. As far as recommendations, I strongly recommend against it. It's a bad deal. It can seem good, you know, our hearts can flutter and our emotions get all excited, but our cultures will collide, and they collide frequently and often. In day to day, there will be many conflicts. There will be many, I'll say, clashes of culture. There will be many problems. They think differently than we do. They were brought up differently than we do. As I say, different diet, different holidays, different way of thinking. You know, how do you deal with the spouse and with the in-laws, and especially when you start having their grandchildren? What happens on December 25? What happens at Easter? What happens at Passover, in the days of Unleavened Bread? There are a lot of conflicts that come up in a situation like that that really, I'll say, it's a constant struggle. Now, I also will say, you know, can a marriage, you know, to someone outside of the church work? Yes, it can. And I hope I don't shock anybody when they say it, because I know people when it has worked. They've had a rough time, they've had a rough go, but it has worked. But I'll also say, of all of the people that I know, and again, you've got my limited experience, but there's a few of them, maybe even several of them, most have failed.

Most of the marriages have failed. It can work, but it likely won't. The odds are against you.

It does not work. Most of them have failed, because just because it can work doesn't mean that it will. Either the marriage fails, and I'm talking about a divorce, or what's, I'll say, worse, the church member starts to compromise. You know, give a little here, give a little there, and pretty soon you don't see them at church anymore. And that's really the greater failure, where a person, you know, leaves the church of God, you know, because of a marriage situation.

Well, why does God give us His rules? Why does God give us His culture? And His culture does have rules. Turn back to Deuteronomy the sixth chapter.

Deuteronomy the sixth chapter. Now I'll start reading in verse 17.

Deuteronomy the sixth chapter.

And in verse 17 it says, You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God. Again, God gives us rules. He definitely does.

You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies and His statutes, which He has commanded you. And you shall do what is right and good in sight of the Lord.

Why? That it may be well with you. God's way is a way of blessings. You do what is right, you will be blessed. God doesn't tell us to do things in order to deny us, or to hurt us, or to keep us from having something that's really good for us.

He doesn't do that. He gives us things that are good for us. Again, that it may be well with you, that you may go in and possess the good land in which the Lord swore to your fathers to cast out all your enemies from before you as the Lord has spoken.

Dropping down to verse 24, it says, And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always. God tells us to do things for our good, of what is best for us. Now, we may think it's not what we really want at the time. In fact, quite often, it's really, you know, we want something else. God tells us things for our good, to help us to not make mistakes. God, as a loving father and a loving parent, wants to do what's best for his children. Just like those of you here are parents, you don't do things to your children in order to accept them or bother them or deny them.

You do things to them or for them for their good. And again, sometimes that involves punishment.

Sometimes that involves blessings. Sometimes it involves instructions. But parents act for the good of their children, for their good always. Let's turn over a few pages to Deuteronomy the 10th chapter. Deuteronomy the 10th chapter. And I'll read verses 12 and 13. Basically, it's a repetition of what we just read, but it's always good to read and to reread. When God repeats himself, he does so for a reason. Deuteronomy 10, starting in verse 12, and says, And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD, and the statutes which I command you today, for your good. For your good. Well, just like God tells us, he commands us, to come to the Feast of Tabernacles. One of the reasons we're here is to learn to fear the LORD our God always.

I'm not going to turn there, but a few pages further, Deuteronomy 14, Deuteronomy 14 and 22, it says, One of the purposes of the Feast of Tabernacles is to come and to learn the fear of the LORD our God, to fellowship with each other, to fellowship with God and with Jesus Christ, to get to know God. In the millennium, as it says, the knowledge of the LORD is going to flood over the earth as the water covers the bottom of the sea. People are going to know God, and when they know him, they will know facts and figures, you know, statistics, data, but more importantly, they're going to have a relationship with God, a real relationship of knowing God as a Father, knowing him, you know, the way that he is. Again, a quote which I've probably referred to already, blessings are the natural consequences of going God's way. And I heard a minister say that a long time ago, and it was true then and still true now. Blessings are the natural consequences of going God's way, of not only knowing God's culture, but of living and experiencing God's culture. Turn to Psalm 18th chapter, Psalm 18th chapter, and we'll see one of the things that God's law and God's ways and God's culture do for us. Psalm 18, I'll read the first two verses. I just went turning past it. Psalm 18, starting in verse 1, it says, I will love the Lord, excuse me, I will love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength, and whom will I trust? My shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. By staying within God's culture, it's like being in a fort or in a fortress. You're protected in a stronghold. Let's say right here, you know, this is a stronghold, and as long as you're inside, you're protected, you're safe. When you go outside of this, you're vulnerable. You know, you decide to do things your way, my way, instead of God's way. We are vulnerable, so if we stay inside the fort as it is, if we keep God's culture, not only learning it, but living it, we will be safe. And I say that, and again, specifically to young people, that God's culture, God's rules, God's laws, are not always followed. And I say that specifically to young people, but really, all of us, I'll talk to those who are young at heart. It happens to older people as well. For whatever reason, we choose to neglect or reject the kingdom culture to do something else. Well, I want to do this. I'm sure there are those in the room that are experiencing results of having gone outside of God's culture, you know, gone outside of the fortress, and then reaped a penalty. God tells all of us to choose whether we're younger or older.

Turn back to Deuteronomy 30, and we'll start reading in verse 15.

Deuteronomy 30, starting in verse 15, where God says to everybody, regardless of our age, whether we're younger or whether we're older. Deuteronomy 30, starting in verse 15, where it says, See, I have set before you today life and good, again, blessings, and death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His commandments, His statutes, His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, in other words, you're going to reject God's culture, and drawn away and worship other gods, and serve them, I announce to you today that you will surely die, you will surely perish. You shall not prolong your days on the land which you cross over to Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as a witness today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. So it's a choice everybody needs to make. God even tells us what the right answer is. He says, choose life, but we have to do that, each of us, individually, by what we think, by what we say, and by what we do. I mentioned that not everybody who grows up in the church lives according to what I'll say is the kingdom culture.

There's a young man in Cincinnati right now. We saw him grow up in the church. I was going to interrupt myself. You know, I come a long way like this, and I think that I can use examples, and yet there are people here in this room who know who these examples are. So it's kind of funny. You never get away. We're a small community. But anyway, this young man grew up in the church. We saw him grow. And, you know, he seemed like a nice young man. He was a nice young man. It's not that he wasn't, but somewhere along the line he decided church wasn't for him. And when he got old enough, sure enough, he bolted. You know, he left, probably graduated high school, and then went out on his own and, you know, left the church behind him. Well, it didn't leave him behind it permanently, because now that young man is in his early to mid-30s, and he wants to come back. And the reason why I say he wants to come back is it's not easy. If you stay within the fort, you're protected. You go outside the fort, bad things happen. It's not easy. The world had him in his grip, and the world does not want to let go. It's a lot easier to never get into trouble or problems or difficulties than to get out once you're in them. So again, young people, I encourage all of you to think long and hard about the choices that you're making, and I hope you make the right choice. Again, as a parent, I mentioned, you know, God is a parent, and he wants what's best for us. He has rules for us. With my wife and I, we had rules for our children. Specifically, I'll talk about our daughter, and we wanted what was best for her. We had rules regarding school dances or concern. And again, we had the rules. And speaking quite frankly, she thought we were trying to kill her social life. We had these rules that, you know, you could...

some church dances we had exceptions to, and she could go, but as long as she took a church boy with her, you know, we weren't going to have her, you know, go to a dance with any of these others. We didn't want her going to, you know, a dance with any of her church friends.

Well, as you find out afterwards, there are certain mistakes we made, and that was one of them.

It turns out the boys at school were actually better, had more character, than a lot of the boys that were in church. And that's really a shame. That's really a shame. Here, we have the opportunity of setting the example of being in the lights, and instead, you know, as I said, her church friends in many cases... excuse me, her school friends in many cases were better than her church friends. That's a sad thing. Some of them that were at church, you know, and they, you know, they would dress up every week, and they'd come, and they were very polite, and, you know, they knew answers for, you know, WYU Bible Studies and such. But their heart was not there.

Their heart was elsewhere. The kids know that. I say kids, teens, young adults, young people, they know that. They know who is with the culture and who is not with the culture. And I'll say to those of you who are young parents, it's our time as pastics that made with grandchildren, I'd like to encourage you to trust your children some more. They know. They know. And to say, we may not know. In most cases, we don't know. But the children absolutely know the teens, pre-teens. They know who is with the program and who is not. And before any child, any teen goes to their parents and says, see, he said you should trust me. And I repeat that, they should. However, trust is not automatically granted. Trust is earned. It's not just given. As Christ said, you know, he was faithful and little is faithful and much. Be faithful and little, and then you'll have much more to work with. Turn to John 10, verse 10.

As I mentioned, God is a loving parent. He wants what's best for us. This is a statement about Jesus Christ. And of course, we know the Father and the Son work very closely, one with another. John 10 and in verse 10. I'm just going to break into the context here, where it says, the thief does not come except to steal and to kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, blessings, good things, an abundant life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

This is what God the Father and what Jesus Christ want for each of us. I mean, think about it. Sometimes, you know, well, this is obviously our sin, read letters in my Bible, a saying of Jesus Christ. And sometimes people think, well, you know, God the Father, he's the mean, harsh God with all the rules in the Old Testament. And but Jesus Christ, you know, he's forgiveness, you know, love and mercy. And Christ does have love and mercy. But when you think about it, think about John 3 16.

For God so loved the world. Which God is that? That's God the Father. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. God has tremendous love for us. That's why he gave us these rules. To keep us from stumbling, to keep us from, you know, falling into a pit.

God gives us rules, again, for our good. Turn to Ecclesiastes the 12th chapter. Ecclesiastes the 12th chapter. And we'll see something that a wise man, Solomon, wrote for all of us. That really, the book of Ecclesiastes is excellent for young people. It's excellent for people who are not quite as young.

But I'll start reading Ecclesiastes 12 and in verse 1, where it says, and it's talking to young people at this point. Much of the book talks to young people. It says, Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come and the years draw near. These are symbols talking about the effect of age, and specifically old age on a person. The next few verses I'm not going to read you may want to at your convenience. When I was younger, I would read these and think, you know, get a lot of humor out of them. You know, they were funny about, you know, the effects of age on a person. As you get older, it's not quite as funny as it used to be.

Things happen. There's a saying that, you know, time heals all wounds. Groucho Marx referred, turned that around and said, time wounds all heals. Time has a way of catching up with everybody. And again, it's somewhat of a humorous passage here, especially if you're younger. It is more humorous. Dropping down to verse 6, it says, Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loose or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain. In other words, not a pretty picture, or the wheel is broken at the well. Remember that. Remember before you die, especially, but it's best to remember in your youth. Dropping down to verse 13, it says, Let us hear the conclusion to the whole matter. Now, this is the summation of the book.

It says, Fear God and keep his commandments. And again, I mentioned one of the purposes of the feast is to learn to fear God. And again, a quotation I heard from another minister, actually another Canadian minister, fearing God. A good definition of that is, Take God seriously.

God says what he means. He means what he says. Take God seriously. Fear God and keep his commandments. For this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgment.

Again, as I mentioned, there are some that decide, you know, none of us is perfect. I don't mean to imply that by any means. But if those who have decided to leave the Kingdom culture and go out and stake out on their own, God remembers. God knows and God sees. And hopefully one day, you know, you will be brought back. But since we're God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil. So, brethren, let's remember the Kingdom culture. Take God seriously. Learn to fear God. The Feast of Tabernacles is part of the Kingdom culture, part of why we are here. Let's all choose wisely. As the preacher said, the summation, the conclusion of the matter, choose wisely. Live the culture of the Kingdom of God today. And then we will live the culture of Kingdom forever.