How God Will Transform This World

As all of us know, as I've mentioned in announcements, the fall Holy Day season is rapidly approaching. In many ways, we prepare for this. We plan for the time of the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. We start preparing for that. As soon as it's done one year, we're almost beginning to prepare for that the next year, not only because we're saving for it, but also we're looking forward to what God offers us with this glorious plan that He has outlined in keeping these annual Holy Days. Of course, it's an exciting time.

It's exciting to prepare, not only to go to the Feast, to go on some trip, or to have some relationship with many others that we are going to be meeting when we go to the Feast.

But it's exciting because it involves God revealing more about His Kingdom, about what that Kingdom will be like, about how the world can be transformed, about how so many things are going to be different, and how they're going to be changed, and then what we are being prepared to do in serving others during a future time that we very much look forward to. I want to focus on the Feast of Tabernacles today. I know that you are aware that it is described, not only as the Feast of Tabernacles, but it's described as the Feast of Boots. There's a real reason, a significant reason, why the Feast is described that way. I want to go through several scriptures that I know that we certainly have not only read, but that we live by.

But I think it's good for all of us to be reminded of why it is. God asked us to go and temporarily live apart from what we might even say is the convenience of our home. I know when we're at home, of course we're going to work and we have other things we have to do. We're coming to church on the Sabbath. But when we go to the Feast of Boots, the Feast of Temporary Dwellings, that's quite a different setting. Actually, sometimes you find it a little bit harder. I know I do. If I'm trying to live in a motel room, and certainly if you're doing that for seven or eight days at a time, and you've got a bunch of church clothes there, motel rooms are not set up for that. They don't put closets in hotel rooms, or they do put closets, but not much of a closet. And certainly, and I don't know why, this just this must mean that my wife and I are just trashy people. They have this little wastebasket about this big. That doesn't last us very long.

We end up filling that up and looking for a bigger trash can somewhere almost anytime, anywhere we might go. But certainly if you're going to go and you're going to be at a festival for eight days, and you're going to church each day, and you take what you think would be adequate clothes for that, living in that small area is not terribly convenient. But it is important for us to learn some lessons from that. Let's look at Deuteronomy 16, because here you see, describe the information that we can easily read about the festival of booths here in Deuteronomy 16. Again, all of us should be familiar with most of these scriptures, but if we were to have to pick them all out, well, maybe we'd struggle to find them all. So I hope that you will benefit from going through this. It says in Deuteronomy 16, this is a summary, actually, of the spring holy days and then the Feast of Pentecost. And then starting in verse 13, it's reviewing the Feast of Booths. It says, you shall keep the festival of booths for seven days when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your wine press. And so this would be in the fall of the year after a late spring and summer throughout the harvest time. It's going to be in the fall. You're going to be keeping this festival, this Feast of Booths, for seven days. And in verse 14, it says, rejoice during your festival, you and your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, as well as the Levites, and the strangers and the orphans and the widows who reside in your town.

And so this celebration was going to be a lengthy celebration. It was going to be a time of family. It was going to be a time of rejoicing. And it goes on in verse 15, seven days you shall keep the festival for the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose.

And so again, it's directing that this festival would be observed in different locations, but God would make those He would select those locations. In Israel, there were actually several different locations over the years where the Feast was held, where it was directed to be held. And as we celebrate this festival today, we have festival sites that are designated to be sites where we can go and where we can meet together with other brethren and be able to enjoy and celebrate a seven-day festival of booths.

But again, it points out that it's going to be at a place where the Lord will choose. And it goes on to say in verse 15, For the Lord your God will bless you in your produce and in all your undertakings, and you shall surely celebrate. And so a part of going to the Feast of Tabernacles, a part of being a part of that festival, is to thank God for His blessings, to ask for His blessings, but to thank God for His blessings in enabling us to be able to serve and honor Him in this way.

If you back up one page, at least one page in my Bible, chapter 14, Deuteronomy 14, you also find another directive dealing with the festival and even how you pay for being there. Here in verse 22 of Deuteronomy 14, it says, Set aside a time of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the fields, and in the presence of the Lord your God in the place that He will choose as a dwelling place for His name, you shall eat this tithe of your grain and wine and oil, as well as the firstlings of the herd and flock. And so here it's talking about using this is God's system of financial management, using a tithe, not one that you would contribute to God or return to God, as He also directs us to do regarding the eighth commandment of not stealing from God.

But He tells us to use an additional tithe, an additional amount that we are saving throughout the year, in order to go and take that and then eat that tithe before God. And yet it also adds in verse 23 why you're doing that. Why we are not only saving and preparing to go to the feast throughout a year, but why we're going to go to this festival and it says, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

So a part of going, a part of being a part of God's appointed festival is to learn to fear God, to have a proper respect, a proper devotion, a proper worship of God. And He goes on to describe in verse 24, but if when the Lord your God has blessed you and the distance is so great that you're unable to transport it because the place where the Lord your God has set His name is too far away from you, then you may turn that into money.

And with the money secure in hand, go to the place that the Lord your God will choose and spend the money for whatever you wish. Oxen and sheep and wine and strong drink and whatever you desire and you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God. You and your household rejoicing together. So again, this is information that I know almost all of us have read and are familiar with, but it points out being able to go to the feast, being able to enjoy and to celebrate that festival with your family, be able to enjoy some things that you might not otherwise have throughout the year, and yet it's not to be a festival of excess.

Now that's one thing I could point out. Clearly, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Booths, is to be the feast of temporary dwellings, but not the Feast of Booths necessarily, certainly not excessively. I know, unfortunately, living in Lake of the Ozarks, living in that setting where people often came, unfortunately, our example was not always the best. It was the best most of the time.

But living there, of course, you hear all the scuttlebutt afterwards, and we want to be doing what we do in an appropriate way, in a moderate way, and yet clearly this points out the eating of a tithe of our increase throughout the year. And in verse 27, as for the Levites, there are residents in your towns, do not neglect them, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you. So there are a lot of different things that you perhaps could think of or discuss regarding that section, but it's currently talking about how it is we're able to finance going to the Feast of Tabernacles. Now I want to go back to Leviticus 23, because Leviticus 23 outlines each of these holy days in specific. It goes through each one of them, starting even with the Passover, or with the Sabbath it mentions, and then the Passover in the Days of Unleavened Bread and the Festival of Weeks. In verse 23, it mentions the Feast of Trumpets, which we'll observe this next Thursday, the Day of Atonement two weeks from today, and then, starting in verse 33, the Festival of Booths. It says, The LORD said to Moses, Speak to the children of Israel, and say, On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and lasting seven days, there shall be a festival of booths to the LORD. And so it was clearly defined as far as what it was about, and actually what some of the lessons would be as this was celebrated. It says, The first day of those seven days shall be a holy convocation, so it is to be an annual Sabbath. It's not necessarily going to fall on Saturday, but it will fall on one other day of the week, perhaps, and yet whatever day that is, the first day is a holy convocation. It's an annual Sabbath, and you shall not work at your occupation. Seven days you shall present the LORD's offering. Down in verse 37, These are the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you shall celebrate at times of holy convocation. And then as we drop on down to verse 39, he says, The fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall keep the festival to the LORD, lasting seven days, a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day.

So clearly, we've got some delineation here as far as the first and then the last, the eighth day, where we conclude the feast, to be holy convocations, again, annual Sabbath.

And yet it says, and this is what I want to get to in verse 40, it says, On the first day you shall take the fruit of majestic branches, of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. So there was a certain amount of preparation that needed to be done in regard to what type of a temporary dwelling am I going to be in? What type of a lean to or tent or some kind of shelter or cover are we going to have? And it says, You shall, in verse 41, keep it as a festival to the LORD seven days in the year. You shall keep it in the seventh month as a statute forever throughout your generations. And you shall live in booths for seven days. All that are citizens of Israel shall live in booths. And so again, clearly, it points out how that the name of the feast comes from the temporary dwellings. It comes from being in a temporary setting. Now, in Israel, they were creating some of those, and perhaps you may, as a kid, I remember as a kid, camping out and making somewhat of a makeshift, some kind of shelter. It wasn't always all that well made, but at least, you know, it was a temporary protection if it happened to rain or if it hailed or something, we wouldn't get too badly damaged.

But it says, You have to live in these booths, in verse 43, so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.

I am the LORD your God. See, the connection with living in booths or living in a temporary dwelling or wandering around in a tent, with a tent. And that's what you see. When you read about Abraham, you find him being a wanderer. I'm sure he had pretty extensive tents because he had quite a bit to move, and whenever that was moved, there was a lot of work to be done.

But here in this case, it points out that making this type of an effort to put together a temporary dwelling, the purpose for that was so that you would know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. See, there was a connection with the wandering in the wilderness. The Israelites had gone into slavery, into Egypt. They had moved there, they were in a drought, they moved there, they lived there, but they became enslaved, they became captive to the land. And after 400 years or so, God rescued them as he sent Moses and brought them out of Egypt, out of this land of bondage, out of being enslaved to the Egyptians. He brought them through the Red Sea and out, and he told them, I'm going to give you the Promised Land. I'm going to give you the land that I've told Abraham he is to have. But because of their rebellion, because of their resistance, because of their refusing to go in, he says, okay, I'll have you wander.

Wander in the wilderness, and that's what they did. They wandered. Now, it wasn't that they didn't have any direction because they still had the pillar and the cloud. God was still directing them wherever they went in that wilderness, but living in that wilderness and living in the temporary dwellings in the wilderness had purpose. It had purpose, and it has purpose when we apply that to our living in temporary dwellings at the Feast of Tabernacles.

I know that you can think back, perhaps, because I know many of you have kept many festivals.

I go back and think it's close to 50 years, I guess 47 years, I guess, as far as how long that I have observed the Feast of Tabernacles throughout the last 47 years. But I remember initially going to the Feast of Tabernacles. This was when I was a college student, and this was down in Big Sandy, Texas. And at that time, the Feast of Tabernacles was being held there in Big Sandy. I think there may have been one or two other sites. And yet, I went down to college in August of that year, and about a month later, you know, we had, you know, this unbelievable gathering of people. There was a huge tent, there was about 10,000 people, and most of those people were camping in the Pining Woods campgrounds because there was a line of pine trees that went down through numerous acres, and that's where people were camping. And of course, at the college, you know, they had built a number of even little metal buildings, little metal booths. We called the whole area there where those booths were, Booth City. And ultimately, that was used for people coming to the Feast and being able to live in some of those, at least some people could, not all that many, because the campgrounds was much, much more likely to be used, and people often were very prepared for that. But I remember, you know, a month after getting to college, I had never been to church before, and I'd certainly never seen a Feast of Cabinackles before, but to see 10,000 people there, and to see, actually, my parents were there at that time, and again, being brand new to me, I thought this was just fascinating. This is unbelievable! You know, there was a good deal of order. There was a certain amount of organization that had to go into, you know, who did what and when and how, and, you know, it was a marvelous blessing to be able to see that and to begin to be a part of that. And of course, over the years, I remember being in many different, you know, settings for the Feast of Cabinackles, and yet always living in some type of a temporary dwelling during the time that we were at the Feast. Here, 30 years ago, you know, we lived in the Lake Ozark area, as I mentioned, and of course there was a huge building there.

And I was thankful to be able to live right there close, and we did live right on the site where the big building was and where the big parking lot was. And it was nice to be able to just walk over and go to church. Of course, I was responsible for trying to be sure that that was going to happen as far as having things ready. Having things, we were working all year to try to get things ready and be prepared for the number of people that would come to the Feast there in Lake Ozark. But I always recall, you know, living in my house thinking, well, I'm not living in a temporary dwelling. And so we put a tent out in the yard. And of course, I don't know whether that was maybe a... you could say it was somewhat of a... it wasn't where we moved. I mean, we didn't move out there and stay in it all week, but at least I think the boys probably did stay out there some of the time. And I remember this brown tent that was out in front of the house. And in the way I'm remembering, of course, this has been a while ago, I'm remembering my little brown... it was a fairly good size brown tent, kind of a... probably supposed to be a family tent, but it really wasn't hardly sleep three or four on the floor. But nice brown tent, and then the dog chews a big hole in one corner.

And so I remember having to patch that corner with an orange patch, and then, because he did it again, a blue patch on top of that. So we had a brown tent with an orange patch and a blue patch, but at least we were thinking. We were trying to think of a temporary dwelling, because of course, most of the people coming to the feast there were living in motels or on the campgrounds, because there was a campground close. And yet all of you, perhaps, can think back, you know, to different settings that you have been in whenever you've attended the feast. I know there have been a few places or a few times when there have been some weather conditions that have been pretty bad. I think over in Jekyll Island there was a sizable, you know, probably hurricane that came into the area. And I don't believe it directly hit where the group was meeting, but it did affect a lot of the housing, a lot of the hotels around. And so clearly, that truly wasn't convenient at all. That was very inconvenient. That was actually completely disruptive. And yet God has a purpose in telling us to go and to live in a temporary dwelling, go in and be celebrating the feast in that setting. I know even some of our festival sites around the world, we have 10 or 12 here in the U.S. or maybe a few more here with Canada and several in Mexico, I guess, and numerous ones then in Africa and in other parts of the world.

And we are all going to be observing this same festival at this same time, and yet we're all going to be essentially in a temporary dwelling. I want to go to Deuteronomy 8, because you find a reason. Maybe you find several reasons, because they're here in Deuteronomy chapter 8 in connection with the children of Israel, and they're wandering in the wilderness. What does that have to do with us and our wandering today? There is a connection. Here in Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 1, it says, "...the entire commandment that I have commanded you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live in increase and be able to go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors." And so this was actually Moses writing the book of Deuteronomy kind of at the end of the 40 years. He's writing it before they go into the Promised Land. They've been through the 40 years. They've been wandering at God's direction. And then, you know, they're awaiting going over the Jordan and going into the Promised Land, and Moses is giving them instructions. He says, I want you to know what it is that God has been doing. So he says in verse 2, I want you to remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness. See, God had been leading them. They had been wandering around, but God had been with them. God had been providing for them. God had been giving them an understanding, at least for the ones who would listen. Now, most of the old, those who came out of Egypt and who resisted God, they were all going to die before, you know, that 40 years was completed. And so you essentially had a younger group who were going to go in and take the land. But he says, I want you to remember the long way that the Lord led you through these 40 years in the wilderness. I want you to remember that because I've done that in order to humble you.

That's what he begins to say. The reason that you went around in the temporary tents and dwellings that you were in is in order to humble you. Here he gives, actually, he enumerates three direct things. Maybe there are more in order to humble you. Testing you, number two, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.

And so these are direct instructions about what it was they should learn, what it is we should learn today. He says, I've done this to humble you, to test you. And in verse 3, he humbled you by letting you hunger, and then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Here, this was the area or the time when the Israelites were feeding on the manna. The manna that they had no control over, they were learning obedience. Just as we are learning obedience today, we should be learning to be humbled and to understand the need to be dependent, because that is clearly what we are.

We are to be dependent as the Israelites were. But he says, I gave you that manna, but I wanted you to come to understand that one does not simply live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God. That clearly is even more applicable to us today, because our entire lives are to be governed by the word of God. He says in verse 4, The clothes on your back did not wear out, your feet did not swell during those forty years.

And then he also points out, not only did I humble you, not only did I test you to see if you would obey those who went out and tried to find the manna on the Sabbath, but didn't find any.

Maybe it didn't take too long to learn. You've got to pick it up on Friday. You've got to pick it up on the day before. You wouldn't think it would take too long. But that was a part of the training, part of the process of the trials and tests that these Israelites were led through in this journey in the wilderness. But finally, then, he said, I want you to know in verse 5, Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

Therefore, keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways, by fearing him for the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land.

And so here he has given some instruction about Moses giving this to the Israelites as they entered the Promised Land or on the verge of doing so, but also to tie together with why being in a temporary dwelling, at least for a short time, is beneficial. How it is helpful to us.

If we drop on down to verse 11, he says, Take care that you don't forget the Lord your God by failing to keep his commandments. And in verse 14, and this again is as they were going into the Promised Land, as they were receiving what God had given as a promise, he says, Don't exalt yourself forgetting the Lord your God. This is in verse 14, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and he fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors didn't know.

So he kind of repeats again what he said earlier, but then he mentions what he really wants them to realize. Verse 16, I have fed you in the wilderness with manna to humble you, to humble you and to test you. So he actually makes three different statements here. To humble you, to test you, and in the end to do you good. He says, I've been working with you, I've been guiding you, I've been directing you, I've been showing you that you need to live by every word of God. You need to be respecting God and fearing God. And of course, all of these are applicable lessons to us today. And he warned in verse 17, don't say to yourself, my power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth. Remember that the Lord your God, for it is he who gave you power or gives you power to get wealth so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors as he is doing today. And so the lesson of wandering in the wilderness was not just wandering around. It was to see we are dependent on God, to humble them before God.

It was to test them and see whether they would obey, whether they would respond. And it was to see if they would recognize that God actually guided them and disciplined them for their good.

That was his lessons that he was going to teach them. And you actually see that summarized in verse 16. And yet I think it's important for us to think about all three of those things, because those are areas that we grow in as we keep the Feast of Tabernacles, as we celebrate a time that is looking toward the coming Kingdom, coming of Christ and the intervention in world affairs that he is going to create. And then, of course, the world tomorrow. I want us to look at Hebrews 11, because here in Hebrews it clearly brings all of this up to our setting today. Hebrews, of course, is in the New Testament. It's written to the Israelite members of the Church of God. It's written to those who had been familiar with the Word. They've grown up in it. It was their religion. But they were coming to see that, well, I can't depend on Moses. I've got to depend on Jesus Christ. And that's what, of course, the first couple of chapters of Hebrews are all about. About how Jesus Christ is the one who draws us together, the one who leads us, the one who guides us, the one who, in many ways, is leading us to the Promised Land. He's leading us to the Kingdom of God. And yet, he's doing the same thing to us. He's humbling us. He's trying us.

And he's guiding us through his guidance and direction as we look toward that coming Kingdom. But here in Hebrews 11, you see the examples of Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham.

You know, these are mentioned here early. You see many others that are mentioned a little later.

But I want to break in in verse 13, because he says all of these, all of these that are listed as people of faith, people that God chose to work through. That's what he did throughout the Old Testament. He chose to work through certain of the people that would not only later make up the people of Israel, but also the prophets and those who would actually lead them like David as a king.

But he says in verse 13, all of these died in faith without having received the promise.

Abraham is yet to receive the promise, the promise of eternal life, the promise of the kingdom of God. He says all these died in faith without having received the promise, but they have from a distance, they have seen and they greet those promises.

See, he was saying that individuals that he worked with throughout their lifetime in the past, as we read about them in the Old Testament, they had a vision of the future. They lived their lives in faith, which we're required to do today. Yet we want to have a vision of what's to come.

So it says, he's died in faith without having received the promise, but from a distance they saw and they greeted those promises. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth. See, they not only confess that, they recognized, as we have to recognize today, that our physical temporary existence, our very limited temporary existence, again described by living in a temporary dwelling for a short time at the feast. That's not the answer. That, you know, that takes us nowhere except to look beyond, to look into what God is going to give us when He brings His kingdom to the earth. And it says these paragons of faith recognized that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. And if they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, then they would have had opportunity to return. You know, if they really didn't want to come out of the land, even as the Israelites, if they didn't want to come out, and of course, as you know, some of them complained anyway, some of them were groaning, and, oh, you know, think about all the onions and the leeks and, I don't know what else, grapes and stuff we had in Egypt, and here we are out here eating rocks, you know, eating manna and wondering if water's going to come. They had a lot of things to to grumble about. And yet, the people of God, and as God's people today, you know, we want to understand clearly that we are strangers and foreigners on the land, that we are looking toward a homeland. And in verse 16, as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, and indeed He has prepared a city for them.

See, this was Paul's, you know, instruction to, you know, to those who were needing, Christians at the time who were needing to see the future, who were needing to see what God's promises were. And of course, this all ties together with being humbled, being tried and tested. See, we don't like trials, trials are tests, and yet, you know, we have difficulties, we have struggles, we struggle through with God's help. It's not a matter He takes them all away, He actually strengthens us through the trials that we go through, even as He said about the Israelites, I'll continue to work with you, I will help you, I will encourage you, and I will also discipline you, as He's going to go ahead and say. If we turn on over to chapter 12. Here in chapter 12, after finishing His discussion in chapter 11 about how it is that these people of faith had to have a vision of the future, even as all of us, brethren, have to have our eyes on the Kingdom of God. You know, Jesus' directive is to seek first the Kingdom of God and to seek His righteousness. He tells us that that's got to be our focus, and certainly the Feast of Tabernacles is focused on the Kingdom of God, on earth. It's focused on the Millennial Rule of Christ, and we want to keep that in mind. Here in chapter 12, He follows this whole discussion about people of faith.

He says, "...Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a crowd of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and lay aside the sins that so closely cling to us. And let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." He tells us we have a certain level of responsibility as well. We've got to turn from sin. We've got to be overcoming, recognizing and overcoming sin.

Looking to Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, disregarded the shame and has taken His seat at the right hand of God. We can easily see the answer there, at least if we read that in verse 2. The answer is keeping our eyes on the one who was able to lead us into the kingdom of God. It says, "...Consider Him in verse 3, who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you won't grow weary or you won't lose heart, because in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." He says, we've clearly not gone to the lengths that Jesus did. He not only leads us, but He led us through the path and through the example that He set. And He goes on in verse 5 to say, "...You have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children." So this was a part of what we read in Leviticus 23. No, excuse me, Deuteronomy 8 is where this was. That He works with us and disciplines us for our good. He says, "...You've forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children. My child do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when you are punished by Him. For the Lord disciplines those whom He loves." And He chastens every child whom He accepts. God is interested in us. He's interested in our growth. He's interested in our heart being open to Him. And clearly, in receiving His guidance, going on in this topic here of being guided by God in His Word, He says, "...endure trials for the sake of discipline." God is treating you as children. For what child? For whom a parent does not discipline. For you don't have the discipline in which children share that you are, or if you do not have that discipline, then you are illegitimate and not children. Moreover, in verse 9, we have had parents who disciplined us, and we respected them, should we not even more be subject to the Father of spirits and live. For they disciplined us for a short time, and they did it as it seemed best to them. But He disciplines us for our good. That's the same wording and the same description that He gave back for His guiding the Israelites by directing them. He says, I'm doing this for your good. And of course, He follows that up by saying that discipline, verse 11, always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who had been trained thereby. See, He points out how that God's concern for us, His love for us, is probably even greater than His love for the Israelites in the past. He kind of knew where they were headed. He kind of knew part of what the problems would be they would run into, and He wasn't offering them as He is to all of us today, the Holy Spirit of God. But as we go to the Feast of Booths, as we go to the Feast of Temporary Dwellings, I hope we'll keep in mind what God says His reason for living in temporary dwellings is.

And for us, too, as it says here in chapter 12 of Hebrews, keep our eyes on the leader. Keep our eyes on Jesus Christ, who is leading us into the Promised Land. And of course, He tells us to resist sin. And I think it's fascinating to see, as you read in the a couple of chapters of Revelation, chapter 2 and chapter 3, you see seven churches. You see messages to seven churches, and all of those messages are different, and all of them are applicable to us today. And yet, all of them have some things in common, because they tell us that we want to learn the lessons of the churches that God is giving in Revelation 2 and 3. But they all end up with a kind of a similar ending, because it says, to Him who overcomes, to Him who puts aside sin in His life. See, what are we supposed to overcome?

Sin. We have to also overcome this society, because you try to talk to people very much about the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles, and they'll think you're kind of loony. And yet, that is clearly something that we're going to be battling, because Satan is injecting his power through society. But we also not only overcome sin in society, we overcome ourselves. Overcome our own nature. Overcome our own inadequacies. And of course, he says to Him that overcomes, and then he mentions numerous things for different ones of the churches. He talks about that individual who overcomes will not be harmed by the second death. That individual's name will not be blotted out of the Book of Life. They will become a pillar in the temple of my God.

He has a place for us in His kingdom. He is preparing us for that place. But our part in it is to understand what He's doing with us, to understand how He's working with us, how He's guiding us to clearly be subject to His Word and truly to be overcoming sin in society and ourselves. See that we can rejoice as we attend not only the festival this year, but as we look beyond this into the coming of Christ and the establishment of His kingdom as soon as He can possibly see fit to bring it. I don't know. None of us do know when that's going to happen.

But I do know it is going to absolutely happen. And we want to hasten that day.