How To Have The Absolutely Positively Worst Feast Ever!

So, all right, let's go to the sermon. Let me look at my watch, because I will get through this on time. I'm going to make sure how to have the absolutely, positively worst feast ever!

A week and three days from now, we will be at the Feast of Tabernacles. It's one of the times that God has set aside. We've looked at that in Scripture, and it's something that we've always enjoyed. It's the time that God has appointed for us to enjoy ourselves, keep two holy days, but we meet and fellowship and everything during those times. I have a title because most of us can remember our best feast ever. Anybody remember their best feast ever? Okay, Bill, where was it? Really? Why?

The people were so warm, and of course the whole island is beautiful. Nothing could hurt you on that island, so it reminded me of the millennium. Jeff? 2018. You weren't with me. It was the best feast ever? Oh, is it a couple? Oh, okay. So you were there. It just wasn't you and your wife celebrating alone, and that was your best feast ever. Who else? Raise their hand. Jeff? Tucson, Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. Isn't it really hot there?

So you enjoyed it. Did you raise your hand? Are you sure? Yeah, Jonathan? 1975. Well, that's a long time ago. 1975. And why was it your best feast ever? It was my first feast. How was your first feast? Yes. I remember my first baptized feast more than my first feast because it was just, yeah, something was, you know, I just, wow, I got it finally, and so forth. We all have reasons why we enjoy the feast. Until you've experienced it, I've been on vacations before. I've been off and had a good time, Mary, and I did. There's nothing like combining the best of the physical with the best of the spiritual. There's nothing that nobody, no one can explain it to you. It's not, you know, nobody could explain that to me until I've experienced it when you really set that forward. Go with me, if you will, to New King James Version, to Deuteronomy 16. Deuteronomy 16. Deuteronomy 16 in verse, let's go to 14. Deuteronomy 16 in verse 14. It says, and you shall, what does your Bible say? Anybody say something else? And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your man-servant, your maid-servant, the Levi, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates. Seven days, verse 15, you shall keep a sacred feast to the Lord your God in a place which God chooses because the Lord your God will, mine says, bless you in all the produce and in all the work of your hands so that you surely rejoice. Your best feast ever, did you rejoice? Yes, I did. Good. You're supposed to. I can either say it wasn't my best feast ever and I still rejoiced because it kind of laid in my lap. Well, why did God do this? Well, in verse 15, verse 16, no, no, let's stick with verse 15. Let's stick with verse 15. We have to understand that God is setting this aside because they're going to enter the promised land, children of Israel, and they're all going to get land. They're going to get a lot of land, and it's going to already have crops. It's going to already have fruit. It's already going to have cattle. It's going to have a lot of stuff. And so God says you're going to live because everybody's, every tribe is going to divide the land up, and they were all going to get a fair share of land. And they were going to be, they're going to be able to what? Farm. Raise things.

And so you're going to have at the end of the year, you're going to have a festival with me as soon as you harvest all your crops, and you're going to have an abundance, because I'm going to bless you with rain. And you're going to be able to come together, and you're going to be able to eat, and I'm going to have a festival for eight days. It's going to be a holy day on the first and a holy day on the last. And the next days, you're to enjoy, you're to be able to come and just rejoice, share with people, and food, and just worship me and see my blessings and my glory. Now, not many of us are agriculture people today. We don't grow things like that. I did when I was on the farm. We milk cows, and many of you have in the past. Maybe you have gardens. Do we have anybody in here have gardens? Wow! I forgot. I'm not in Fort Lauderdale anymore. There's something unique and rich about watching something grow, and then harvesting it, and then, you know, eating that first bit of crops, and then having an abundance of it, whether Mary used to do some can, we used to do some freezing of things, and there's nothing like it as you would watch something come from nothing to full growth. Can you imagine God sitting there? That's what He does with us. He watches us grow from nothing to from dirt to divine as the word goes to eventually being in his family, being like his son. We will see him as he is because we will be like him. Powerful, powerful. Why do we do it? Well, I don't farm anymore. Mary types on a computer. Jeff works in an office. Many of you do different things. Okay.

But there's something rich about a spiritual feast that we keep under God, and we don't sell crops. As a matter of fact, the Bible even says if it's too far for you to carry the cross, because I used to carry crops all the way and carry animals and everything else there, but if it's too far and too much of a problem, good. Sell them and take the money and go and enjoy this feast because God wants to spend time with his family, and it is a family affair, whether people want to say it or not, and it should be, and it's another way to bond us together.

And people should rejoice. They should be happy at this time, and it's hard sometimes to let it go. Looks like this guy did. He let it go. He's enjoying himself, and we need to do that because God wants us to. God says, where two of my people are gathered together, I'm going to be hanging around you, too.

Put it in southern terms. No, southern terms, I'll be hanging around you all because he wants to. And I understand that because of my father, when all my nephews and nieces and brothers and sisters and everybody came, it was like 20-some people, would come over on a Sunday just to have lunch that my father said my mother would prepare without giving her much notice. And see the joy when the kids were out playing, when we would sit around and eat and do this kind of stuff. My father, you could not believe his joy of that, and he would do it every weekend if my mother didn't kill him for wanting to do it every weekend.

But he just loved that. He loved to see the family. This is what God does. He loves us to come together at the feast. And yeah, not everybody can make it to the feast, but you can at least be joyful during that time, no matter where you're at.

We have some people on the islands that can't go because the government has locked them down. They're going to try to get together in people's homes. So at least a couple families are there and share meals and do this. It's family. That's what God wants us to do. Let me go over to Leviticus. Let me go to Leviticus. So look at this. Oh, this incredible feast. Leviticus 23 and verse 41. It says, You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord. So if you're his people, and Israel was at the time, they were to keep this feast.

Are we his people? Yeah, Christ kept it. That's why I keep it, because he kept it. Not because he was a Jew, but because even the disciples kept the Holy Days, those seven amazing days and appointments with God. You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a statue forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. And we know we are in the seventh month. Celebrate. Another word is praise. Celebrate. It's a verb in this.

Do we celebrate? Hmm. We set aside time to honor our God. We set aside time. We celebrate certain presidents or whatever's birthdays here in the country. We celebrate national holidays. We celebrate various things. God has asked us to come together and celebrate Him and us together for eight days. It's seven days here, but he's talking about another feast day. Do we go to the feast thinking about that?

You do if you want to have the best feast ever. And that incredible word celebrate. Everybody seems to know what it means, but very people, very few people really do they do it to the max. Well, wait a minute. Religious people have to be very reverent. We have to watch what we do. We have to be very stark. We're not Epicureans. Really? God says I'm just reading what God said. He said to celebrate. And you know, we have to give a lot of instruction to people about being reverent and following God's laws and doing this kind of stuff.

You know what we don't have to talk much about? Celebrating! Because most of us know what it means. If my Tennessee Titans win tomorrow, I know what that means. You know? You know? Yes, and we know different sports are just going to a concert. I mean, Mary used to love music and I know Bill loves music. Many of you love music. Go there and man, you just walk out of the say some incredible performer and you just wow, that was so it just lifts you up.

So what's supposed to happen here? People having a good time. Deuteronomy. Let's go to Deuteronomy. Well, Deuteronomy 12. Deuteronomy 12. Let's go to verse 15. What about this feast now? Verse 15. However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates whatever your heart desires according to the blessings of the Lord your God which he has given you. Young clean and the clean may eat of it. Means you can feed it to your dog. Okay. Eat of it of the gazelle and of the deer alike.

Doesn't mean we eat unclean meat. We don't do that. But if you want meat, because at that time meat, we're different in this country and in this time meat was not something that was eaten very often. I mean, he just couldn't afford it. But during this time he said, bring it. You can have it. I want you to have it. I want you to I want you to celebrate. Down in verse 20.

When the Lord your God enlarges your borders as he has promised you. Okay. Well, he had enlarged my borders. My borders pretty much in a in a subdivision. And they're not going to let me expand my borders and large my borders. But you know what he has done? He has blessed me financially, has blessed me health-wise, even though I have to say that, you know, COVID wasn't too much fun, but I got through it. But I have been blessed this year. He has enlarged my borders in so many ways. This year, different than last year, I have this church and you are a blessing just to see you, hear you, speak with you and have an opportunity to see a bunch more people one on one than I hopefully will be spending eternity with. That's a blessing. I'm not saying that because we're going to take up an offering later for the Chuck Smith Fund. I don't do that. But as you promise, you shall let me eat meat because you long to eat meat. Some of you are vegetarians. That's good. Eat all the veggies you want, is what he's saying. If you like meat, I like meat. You may eat as much meat as your heart desires. Now, I've gotten older. My heart doesn't desire as much meat as it used to, but man, that's all I wanted to eat when I was younger. But this is what he's saying, that he really wants us to enjoy ourselves, to have a great feast. Let's go to 2 Chronicles, if you will. 2 Chronicles 7. I think it was Chronicles 7. Verses 8-10. Here's a time when this is believed to be the time he's dedicating the temple, and this is also the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, according to many historians. In verse 8, this is a great time for Solomon. At that time, Solomon kept the Feast seven days, and all Israel with him a great congregation from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt. On the eighth day, they held a sacred assembly, which we do at the Feast of Tabernacles, for they observed the dedication of the altar seven days and the Feast of seven days. On the 23rd day of the seventh month, he sent the people away, which tells us what? That's the end of the Feast. That's the end of the Feast, what he, Feast of Tabernacles. He sent the people away to their tents, joyful and glad of heart for the goodness that the Lord had done for David, for Solomon, and for the people of Israel. Joyful and glad of heart. Let me turn to one more. Deuteronomy. Back to Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 14. I don't think you guys have this one on our list, but I'll read it. Deuteronomy 14.

Verse 26. He's talking about their exchanging money if it's too far to go. You can't carry your crops and your livestock. You shall spend the money, turn it into cash, for whatever your heart desires.

Maybe you desire, like maybe my wife, a whole bowl of those nasty Brussels sprouts every day. Well, she can have that. Okay. I won't eat them, but so she knows she'll be safe to eat them all. Certain stuff she loves that I don't. Whatever her heart desires, that's what I want her to have during these eight days. Because the eight days, they picture the coming kingdom of God, where everything's going to be abundant. And we're going to have the King of Kings sitting over us. For oxen and sheep, I like, I really like oxen. Okay. I also like some lamb chops. For wine and similar drink. Okay. I like wine. For whatever your heart desires, you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall, what's the word, rejoice. You and your household. This is a time to rejoice. This is what God wants us to do for that time.

So, it gives the word joyful and glad of heart. Joyful and glad of heart. Do you know what that means? Most of us know what joyful means. I feel good. I'm pretty joyful today. I feel joyous. We have a song called, let there joy, joy. What is it? Joy in my heart. There is joy in my heart, knowing Christ will come again. Yeah, that's it. We know joy. Sorry about the voice. I just got carried away. I got joyful. I started singing. Okay. You didn't say you had to have a great voice. You just said you need to sing. But glad of heart. Glad of heart takes another step because it's really internal because we can be a little joyful on the outside. But gladness of heart, it means it's inside you. You can't help it. It's just you're so happy. You ever see somebody who you're so happy that maybe somebody got married and they're just like the perfect couple and you watch them get married and you almost get choked up and you're just but you but you're it's it's because you're so happy. God wants us to go to the feast and be just so happy because he has he has called us out of this world now, but he's also promised a new world coming. It's going to be so great. People won't even remember what this old one was like. And that's what he wants us to do for eight days. So I always tell people, you know, if you can, lay the laptop down as much as you can. Set the cell phone aside. You know, spend more time with people. Spend more time just walking in nature. Spend more time just talking to God or finding finding friends that you can share a good meal with a good time with. I mean, it's just it's incredible. When you meet people, I mean, I've got friends I met at a feast and 30 years ago, 40 years ago, and for some some reason you bonded. Well, for one thing, you had the same spirit and you also came there to celebrate the feast and you're looking forward to spending eternity that way.

Great food. It's time because we don't normally I don't know how much you guys make. Wouldn't know. But we don't make a tremendous amount of money. And so we don't have abundance to spend regularly, but at the feast, we set aside our 10 percent of our income and that doesn't go to the church. It goes to us. People you say, Oh, I don't like that church. You always pay 30 percent of your money. No, no, I don't. That's a lie. Big Internet lie. No, we have 10 percent of our income. We set aside and that's for us and we share it with people. We buy meals. We have it and we live like kings for seven or eight days.

Which pictures the King coming kingdom of God.

And we're able to share that with so many people. Maybe that nice bottle of wine. I like wine. Maybe you don't drink. That's okay. No problem with you drinking. Jesus did. I certainly do. And I like wine. I like good wine. And so, hey, it's nice to have nice bottle set aside. Mary and I have a tradition every year at the feast. Tabernacles. I'm usually given the opening night message wherever I'm at. Have for many years. And we always go afterwards and we go to the beach. Because we know there's going to be a full moon. And we're usually out of the beach somewhere because we're in the Caribbean. And we take a bottle of wine and two glasses and we toast. Toast our great God who made it possible for us to be here another year. I don't take any year for granted. Some of you have gone through cancer. Okay? Had some scares. Some of you have had other things. Had some scares. You have one of those? Guess what? You don't take a year for granted. Oh, next year! Well, no. Enjoy that. And I thank God. And I have another year. And thank Him for bringing me through another year. And we toast having an even greater year if He'll bless us with it. But it's all because of Him. And it's very humbling. If you're standing on the shore, you see that big ocean, and you see that big moon, and you realize just how small you are, and He knows who you are. He knows exactly who you are, and He cares so much for you. That's moving to me. It's moving every year. And that's what we try to do. Maybe you go in the mountains. Ah! I've been to Hawaii, and Jeff has too. And some of you have, and the beautiful mountains that Mary and I would just go on a feast day and go out walking in the mountains. Oh, it's so nice there!

One thing, it's beautiful weather. It's always 80 degrees. And you want to be great about this, other than Tennessee and Georgia? They don't have any snakes in Hawaii. So you don't have to look. Is that a stick or a snake? You know, almost like the kingdom, except kingdom, it'll be snakes we can play with. That's the good thing. But Psalm 133, verse 1, How good and how pleasant it is, what, for brethren to dwell together in unity? And that's what we are, a family. There'll be a time when I can actually, I've been in the Caribbean for the last 17 years, something like that. Oh, yeah, all but maybe a year or two out of 20. And there'll be a time when I can spend the feast with you guys. And I'm going to go on a feast. I'm going to go on a feast. I'm going to go on a feast. I'm going to go on a feast. I'm going to go on a feast. I'm going to go on a feast. I'm going to spend the feast with you guys. And when I'm not assigned, that man back there decides he can run three or four sites by himself. And now he's got Jonathan, and I can come out and hang with you guys.

How good and how pleasant it is. Hope you feel that way. Or...

Not. Or not. How to have the absolutely, positively, worst feast ever.

You start out with having a negative attitude. You start with a negative attitude. You go there, and you just find issues with things. You go there, I really don't want to go. This is too much money. I could be watching the Titans playing ball. I could afford a suite almost. If I didn't go to this feast, I could sit up there and watch the Titans most of the year. So it is a negative attitude. Maybe it's a negative attitude even when you have been a few times. But I had that one time. Matter of fact, in the feast in St. Lucia where I'm going this year, we went there once or twice, and we would always go to my favorite restaurant. That's a feast. It was called the Big Chef. The Big Chef was like steaks that big, aged, perfect. Man, I could eat there every night. Mary, steak's okay, but how about this Indian food? Indian restaurant called Razzmatazz down the road.

Maybe next year.

You know? But then she brings those blue eyes and she says, okay, how about a deal? I'll go to the Big Chef twice if you'll go with me to Razzmatazz once.

Like, I can't say no because I'm supposed to be like Christ in our marriage, you know, and the church and give yourself for it. Indian! What do they eat? And we went to Razzmatazz that one time. And I don't know if we've ever been back to the Big Chef since. We go to Razzmatazz. It's our favorite restaurant. There we go so many times. It's just incredible food.

But I went with a negative attitude there and it just shows how some things can be turned around. Next, I'd have the absolutely, positively worst feast ever. Eat too much! Eat too much! I see people smiling so I see I will not alone.

Mary's on because we showed a woman. It's that man's fault back there. He picked the photos. But we can't eat too much. And we don't feel good. We eat usually what happens at a feast of tabernacles. We do pretty good to the second half of the feast and then all those desserts that we normally don't eat that we begin to begin to eat. We start getting the sniffles. We start having some of these things and come back. For this year, it can be very dangerous doing that with a chance of COVID, because you don't know whether that's what it is or something else. But just guard yourself. She's really eating ice cream.

Is that? Is it? Yeah, but is that genie? I just had to look. She's got her glasses off. I thought it might be. This is so, you know, we need to, if you want to have the absolutely worst feast ever, eat too much. How about this one? Drink too much. God says, you know, He wants you to drink, but wow, how much have I had too much to drink?

Come in and wow, not really feeling too good the next morning. And if you're a man, you've got to worry. Are they going to call on me to say the prayer? Ors, they call on you to give the sermon.

That's what we need to make sure that if you want that worst feast, drink too much. We've all seen it before, haven't we? Okay. Next one, don't serve. That's how you have the absolute worst feast. Get out there by yourself, and don't let any don't sign up for anything. Don't volunteer to do anything.

I know some of my best feast I've ever had was because, even before I was a pastor, before I was too involved, I signed up to do things. I met people I would have never met any other way, and they have become lifelong friends there. And so that's the opposite. You meet people, talk to people, and you have the opportunity. But if you don't want that, if you just want to, you know, go back to your room, turn on the TV, watch it, go eat, go to services, get there right, open in prayer, walk out the clothes in prayer, you can be that. You can be that because sometimes it's easy to be a loner, and you think, nobody likes me, or I don't know anybody. Right? I don't know anybody. I don't know anybody here. Who are these people?

Brethren, we're all family. That's why we come there. We worship the same God, we have the same Father, and guess what? We're all supposed to act like our elder brother. Do you think you ever met a stranger? I read three and a half years of his life, and I don't think he did. Whether they were poor, whether they were poor, or whether they were crippled, or whether they had other problems, he was the first one to go see them. How about us? But if you want to have that absolutely positively worst feast ever, don't read your Bible. All eight days. Even better, don't even bring it. Because what? Well, we're going to have services for an hour and a half every day. Isn't that enough? Ask yourself. Is it enough? I know some people who don't. Well, and then most people say, well, I got my cell phone here somewhere. Just reading, just taking, just looking over your notes that you take if you take notes, and rehearsing the sermon that was given before the message is a pretty good review every day. Because there are going to be things you want to do. God wants you to have plenty of time. We do. We schedule things so that you can have plenty of time. You can do it all. Even if you want to sleep 12 hours a day. There's still plenty of time to do things. But if you want to have the absolute positivity, leave that thing at home. Or don't even open it. And I can guarantee you, you will. You will definitely have that. Don't pray! Don't pray.

Don't pray about your family. Don't pray about the message you're about to hear. And then you wonder why you slept through it. But don't pray about anything. Leave God out of the picture. And guess what? You're going to feel it. You're going to walk away from the feast going, it wasn't a very rewarding feast. Because that is our connection. When we pray, we talk to God. When we read His word, He talks to us. That's why it's important. Because He wants to talk to us. And He wants us talking to Him. And sometimes we have some of the most beautiful places to pray that you don't have at home. I know I do. I usually take mine. I may be one time Mary be in the room. We're usually off in different directions going to pray out by the beach. And I walk and I sit. I do various things. But boy, is that not a beautiful place or in the mountains or just in a park or just somewhere where you had the beauty? Now that can change your whole attitude. Don't fellowship. Yeah, don't talk to anybody. Especially don't spend any time with anybody. Don't invite somebody out that might have a positive attitude because it might rub off on you. And you might start smiling and you might go, I want to come back here again next year. And Jeff is saying, please don't come to Jamaica.

We see it as festival coordinators. And guess what? You'll get a front eye view. Both of you, that's right. Jeff's my assistant in St. Lucia. And you're the assistant now there. So you get a chance to see a lot of people. You get a chance to see everybody. Everybody sees you because you're the coordinator. You're up every day and you're doing all this. But you get really, you get a chance because you're having to have counts and you're having to check this and check that and make sure everything's running. So you get an overall view of everything, especially during services. You see who wants to have a good feast and who doesn't. You see the smiles. You also see the people that are just like... Walter. Yes. Yes. Yes. Just like Walter. Finally, as I begin to wrap this sermon up, make it about you. You want to have the absolute positively worst feast? Make it all about you. Think about you. Don't think about others. Don't think about the poor. It might be there for the very first time with just scraping by on just a little money. They may not even go out to eat. You know, have the opportunity, but they're there because they want to worship God and they want to keep the feast of tabernacles and isn't always about food. It's about being with other people and hearing their stories. You know, you have the perfect conversation. What was your first feast? What was your favorite feast? Where did you go 20 years ago after 9-11? Where did you go to the feast? What was it like there? What was the tone? What was the mood? How was it? You have so much that you can talk about. Get to know about your family. Where are you from? Who's your pastor? Oh, you have him? You know, don't be surprised you hear that. You know, that guy's a little off the wall, isn't he? But you have the opportunity to really spend time with people. I give this because I'm an expert. Okay? This is my 45th feast I will be keeping. My 45th feast I will be keeping. And every one of these things I've done. Ate too much, drank too much, loaner didn't sign up. My 45 years I've done it all. Maybe I didn't do it all at one feast. Well, maybe I, yeah, you may be right. I, oh, 19 or 20, yeah, I might have.

But I don't want you to have those. There's no reason to have them. I want you to have a wonderful feast. I want you to have a wonderful celebration of God and His amazing gifts and glory. Think about it. In 13 days from the day of Atonement, which is coming up Thursday, to the eighth day of the feast, you will hear 12 sermons at least, at least, and sermonettes. That's three months of sermon in a regular service at the regular seven-day services. That's three months of messages. Spiritual food to feast on. Will you feast on the spiritual as much as the physical? Because the two, there's no way to beat them when you combine the two. There just isn't. Deuteronomy 28, you all know it. It's a blessings and cursings chapter. You don't have to turn there. Just you know it. God says there's blessings and cursings. The Feast of Tabernacles should be a blessing and not a cursing. It can be a curse if we let it.

In the movie Cool Hand Luke, many of you remember from the 60s, Luke was arrested and sent to this farm to work. And oh, the character actor, Strahdard Martin, came to him at the first and brought him up there. You might remember it. Then and there, Strahdard Martin, in his own way of saying, Luke, I can be a nice guy. I can be a mean SOB. It's totally up to you. Brethren, whether we have a good feast or not, it's totally up to you. Whether you're how we conduct ourselves. God sets before you joy and gladness, misery, selfishness and negativity. And he says, choose. Therefore, choose. So you have the opportunity at this feast of tabernacles to be a cheerleader or a referee. One who cheers everybody on to the kingdom, or a referee who finds something wrong everywhere they look. It's your opportunity. And you can have the feast of your choosing.

As for me and mine over here, we choose joy and gladness. We choose to have a great feast. I pray and hope that all of you choose that also.