Post-Feast Enthusiasm

In coming back just a few days ago myself and two weeks ago for most of you, we come back from the Feast of Tabernacles, which is the high point of the year for the Church, for its individuals, because of the way we keep the tradition in which we keep the Holy Days this year. Everything seems to build to the Feast, and that becomes our largest expenditure of festival tithe and obviously a commitment of time in going to keep the Feast in the way that we have kept it in all of these years in the Church, which we've talked about the benefit of that many times in the past.

But when we come back from the Feast, we have memories, we have to get back into our routine, our jobs, school, our life, and that becomes a mixed bag. You know, over the years we've developed different phrases to convey impressions about the Feast, again, which is the high point of the year.

When we start getting ready for the Feast of Tabernacles, we have coined this term called Feast Fever. How many of you get Feast Fever for the Feast of Tabernacles? Really? How many of you? Raise your hands. How many of you get Feast Fever? Really? You get Feast Fever. You ever thought about that? Think about it. Feast Fever. You know what a fever is? It's a sickness.

It's a sickness. It's caused by an infection. A virus, a bug, has invaded our system and we get sick. So you get sick before you get in preparation for the Feast of Tabernacles, right? Now, I know we adapt that in terms of a fever-pitched excitement for keeping the Feast and whatever, but stop and think about some of these terms that we have adapted over the years. Certainly we don't want to get sick in preparation for the Feast. But then, when we come back, we have another term that we use.

You know what that term is? Post-Feast Letdown. Now, how many of you come back and how many of you have had Post-Feast Letdown this year? Nobody's going to raise their hand. Any more from me, are they? All right, two people. Two honest folk. That's all that raised their hand last week in Indianapolis was two honest people.

Okay. Post-Feast Letdown. Post-Feast Letdown is, again, just what it says. It's a letdown. But again, let me ask you this. Why should we have a letdown? Why should we have a letdown? If we've, you know, I can understand it if you come back and you've got thousands of dollars of debt because you went and kept the Feast and you hadn't planned in advance, according to God's law of tithing, and specifically the point about financing how to finance the observance of the Holy Days.

If you didn't do that and then you just wait till the last minute and you either take the last paycheck or you just take your credit card and you put everything on a credit card and then you come back and you got to start paying for that at 18 percent interest if you don't have the money, which you don't have the money to pay it off when you come back.

So you've got to stretch it out for several months. And I understand that sometimes people do that, or they will borrow maybe some other way instead of doing it God's way, and that's our human nature at times. But that would cause a letdown, just like people have a letdown come January after they have spent all the hundreds or thousands of dollars on Christmas and perhaps not planned for it.

And they have big bills to pay for going forward many months and people get irritated in January and February when those bills start coming due. But that shouldn't be the case when it comes to the feast from a financial perspective, and it shouldn't be a problem if even from a physical perspective. Now, I realize for us, for you ladies, eight, nine, ten days or whatever in a hotel or a condominium, especially a nice luxury-type hotel where somebody comes in and makes the beds every day and you eat in restaurants all the time, you don't have to prepare all those meals, that's a very nice experience and a break from your routine.

And then you come back to that and you've got to do all of that, and that can be kind of an adjustment coming back into that. I understand that. And especially if you go to the beach or to another exotic-type site, which we have the opportunities to do, then we come back to Indianapolis or Greenwood or Bern or Fort Wayne or, you know, our little communities, and they're not quite the same. There's no beach. There's no—and we don't have the time to go shop at the mall or do these extra things or the recreational things that we've done.

And so there is an adjustment, but should there be really a big letdown? If we focused on the spiritual over the physical, then we should come home with a treasure house of memories and experiences that enriches rather than let us down, if we've put the focus in the right area. If we've gone to the feast with the right intent and it's become a truly spiritual experience for us rather than just a lavish vacation, then we should be coming back refreshed and ready to take on the challenges, the trials, and the reality of everyday life that we have.

But we should be able to do it with a renewed sense of purpose, unlike a lot of people who go off on trips and excursions and vacations and are focused only upon the physical or what enjoyments and amenities they can have, and that's all that they are there for. Over the years, I've always tried to remind us that the feast is not just a vacation. I recognize we take our vacation time to observe the feast and it is the time that we do get away, but it's really more than a vacation.

It has to be, if we're really going to keep it properly. You know, if we had ultimate time and money, any of us, we could buy any trip we want, go anywhere at any time and do whatever and see whatever and do whatever we want to do. People do that all the time. And there are some very, you know, the travel business and industry is a very lucrative, luxurious affair. We kind of plug into a little bit of it at the feast as we go to these sites, but we go with a different purpose and we should come back with a different set of memories and a different set of experiences.

I was, when I was thinking about this sermon last week, there was an article in the Financial Times newspaper which was talking about vacationers and what people do when they go to these places and go on vacation and what they, what their real intent is. And I read it and I thought to myself, there's a lesson there for us. This was out of the last Saturday's Financial Times and it's in the travel section. Financial Times caters to a business audience and on the weekends they always have something about travel. And this was about people who go off to Egypt and especially to the temple complex at Karnak, at Luxor, and view these magnificent ruins of the glories of Egypt's past and what people really are going there for and what they're really seeing. Now, you would think if you were going to spend thousands of dollars to make a trip to Egypt, you're going to go there to see the glories of Egypt's history and you're going to have a little bit of preparation for it and you're going there to see those things, right? Well, not everybody goes there for those things. So, in one sense, for some people, it's wrong. As this article was bringing out, some people go there and all they're interested in is sitting on the beach or sitting around a swimming pool. One travel guide here was saying that over the years, as people got off the airplane at Luxor's airport, all of these high-end tourists, they inevitably had one question on their mind. She says, you wouldn't believe how often people ask me where the beach is when I meet them at the airport. She said, the first time I was asked, I thought it was a joke and I laughed and then they got angry with me. So, now she says, I look as professional as I can and I tell them the beach is four hours drive across the desert.

That way, she points one direction. It still makes me laugh, she says. You come to Luxor for ancient history, not an all-over tan. And it goes into other stories of people who are just more interested in getting a massage rather than seeing the the splendor ruins of Karnak. And what was fascinating was some people go there, obviously not really knowing what their the history of the area and what they're more interested in in people, and they strike up a romantic relationship. She said she gave the example here of one man who came to Luxor four years ago when he married a young Egyptian woman and he bought a home and then he went back to England and then came back to Luxor only to discover that his wife's family was living in the house and he was not welcome.

He discovered the marriage had not been registered and as the house had been bought in his wife's name, in order she had told him to save on taxes, he had no legal claim. News of the scandal soon made it back home, not least to the man's astonished English wife. By the following year, he was penniless, single, and divorced on grounds of bigamy. Fascinating reason for going to off to a place like Egypt to get married. Look, people do strange things and this is their vacation.

Okay, and there are a lot of other stories of boorish, rude, English tourists and what they are there in some of these locations for. And I've seen those people in those locations. You've seen them on the beaches. Unfortunately, even you have seen them among some of our own people because let's be blunt, most, a lot of, some of our people, most, a lot, some, some of our people who go to the Feast of Tabernacles don't go to keep the feasts. They go just to sit on the beach or sit around the pool. Now, they may be a non-member mate. They may be a relative of a member in some cases, but other times it's just our members. And it's more important to be at the beach, to be at this particular site, than to be there keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. And when those things happen and for other reasons, we can come back and we can have a post-feast letdown because our focus is only on the physical.

Hopefully nobody got married at the feast to someone under those circumstances. All those matrimonial relationships have arisen from the feast over the years. I knew a man one time. He met his wife at a singles activity at the feast and they drove, they drove home together and planned out their whole life on the drive home from Jekyll Island back up to North Carolina. They did it in a one day, one day, so they weren't overnight in that case. They were very moral couple and very fine couple. They planned their whole life out together and when I met them years later, their life was going exactly as they had planned it on that drive home from the feast. So sometimes those things work out very well for people in the church. Again, if they're, I think, focused on God's way and doing it the right way. If we're focused on God when we go to the feast and we come back, my point is we shouldn't have a post-feast letdown. We should come back energized. We should come back ready to continue our life walking through God's plan throughout the coming months and the experiences and the things that we have to deal with as we return to our daily lives should be done so with the tools that we have sharpened and focused on during the feast of tabernacles. In John 16 and verse 33 is perhaps a key verse to focus on in this way.

As we come back, as we move into our lives and what I want to draw to our attention, as we reflect continually back on our feast experience, in John 16 and verse 33, Christ states this. He says, These things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace.

In Christ, He wants us to have peace. And as we focus on the things that are of Christ and of the Father, we will have peace. Peace of mind, peace of life. He says, If you focus on me, then you will have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

How many times do we come back home from the feast to a trial?

To something we weren't planning. Maybe something on the job. Maybe it's something in school. Maybe it's a mate who's not in the church. Maybe it's a situation that was left unresolved and we get plunged right back into it. I mean, the reality of our lives is always usually very quick. I mean, within two hours of my walking into my home a week ago from the feast, I was plunged right back into the reality of my job with a phone call at about one o'clock in the morning.

So I didn't even get two hours respite. But that's the way it goes. What about you? What happened? You know, when we were young and would go off to the Feast of Tabernacles, my dad was not in the church, never was a member, but he was always good and generous about getting us to the feast, providing the car and the money and a camper for us even in earlier years to go and keep the feast. And he would always be glad to see us take off and, again, generous in that way.

But, you know, in those years, my dad was probably in his, what, mid-40s, I suppose, early 40s, when we started going to the feast, and he'd be left alone. And that might have been good for a day or two. But after about the third or fourth day, my dad began to get tired of the soup that was left behind or the meals of eating out and the empty house that he would have to come home to and whatever else was piling up. And he'd get grumpy. But we were off having a good time at the feast. The feast would end, and we might have had a phone call or two, and then we had to make that drive home from Big Sandy to Missouri, going up through Arkansas. And as the miles ticked off, we got closer to our home in Cape Girardeau. This cloud would start to form because we realized we were going to be going home and seeing dad. And we didn't know what kind of dad we'd walk into.

Would it be grumpy dad, moody dad, angry dad, or happy dad? More often than not, it was kind of grumpy dad when we come back after nine or ten days being gone to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it would be an adjustment. It would be a whole, you know, it would be life that we had to get back into because we'd been gone over that period of time, and he didn't he had to work, and he didn't have the the fun that we did. We would have to pay a little bit of a price. There were anything abusive or anything like that, but it was, you know, it was you knew dad could be unhappy when you walk back in the door. Life coming back from the Feast sometimes can throw us those curves. And yet, on the other hand, we return from the Feast excited by what we've seen, by what we have learned, what we've heard. But the reality hits us square in the face. And if we're not careful, it can begin to erode the flower and the bloom of the experience. Hence, we coined this term over the years, post-Feast letdown. What I want to accomplish through this sermon today is for us to rid ourselves of that term and our reference and our thinking about that and recognize that if we have post-Feast letdown and that really grabs hold, then we're not focusing on the right things at the Feast. We're not focusing on the real deep spiritual matters when we return. And our fear and our worry is dominating the joy and the peace that we should have. Because we should be able to seize on what we've experienced and what has been the light of those days as we come home into our ordinary lives that we've been called and we have to deal with and recognize that we have an extraordinary purpose that God is working out. And that purpose is to glorify God and Christ in all that we do in every in all words and all of our deeds. And yes, we can think about the Passover being months away in the spring holy days and we've got the dark gloomy gray winter months stretching ahead of us. But what's inside us? What's in our heart? What's in our lives? Is it the light of God's Spirit? Is it the light of God's way? Is it that that strength? Is that presence of God's Spirit dwelling in us? Literally the Spirit of God dwelling in us? Is that what is guiding us? I hope so. That's what we have to dig deep and find and live by. In Romans chapter 8, we are told that if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.

But the Spirit is life because of righteousness. The Spirit is life if Christ is in us. If Christ is in us, we should be able to answer affirmatively that yes, Christ is in us by the Holy Spirit. And that power is moving in our lives and that it is in us. And there is life.

And that is a reality. In Colossians chapter 1, verse 27.

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory. There is a mystery being worked out in our lives, and it is a glorious, rich, full, and abundant process. Christ in us, the ancients did everything they could in their own traditions and their own schemes to get their God to live in them. Sometimes even to the point of eating their enemies and eating a human sacrifice, depending upon which particular group of ancients you might turn to in order to get some power within them.

That's the mystery among the Gentiles that they did not understand. God's way shows that He lives and dwells within the individual. Christ is in us, and that is the hope of our glory. Hebrews 2 points to the fact that God is bringing many sons to glory.

Many sons to glory. That is God's purpose. That is His plan. It is the glory of the family of God, the glory of eternal life and the family of God as members of that family. And the holy days walk us through that plan, that purpose, and how it is being done. We begin with the holy days in the spring, and we focus on the days of Unleavened Bread, the Passover period, and walk all the way through to the time of the great white throne judgment, the eighth day of the feast.

We are walking through not just days, not just events.

Their meaning of those days is something that is in us, and that's where we have to come to. In our observance of the holy days. They're more than just days. They're more than just happy occasions. They are really pointing us to the glory that is in us, the hope of our glory, Christ in us, here in verse 27. That's what they point to so emphatically. Here in Colossians, in chapter 2, we have the very famous verse, verse 17, verses 16 and 17 actually, where when we look at these two verses, Colossians 2, 16, and 17, so often we just look at this and we focus on the technical problems that people have brought up about this verse, where they have twisted it to say that the Sabbath and the holy days don't have to be observed and don't let anybody judge you and some say, well, you know, don't keep them in that way. And that's the conclusion that they draw regarding the festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. But in verse 17 is the real crux of the meaning here and even more so than what we sometimes think, because Paul writes that these are a shadow of things to come. And that's true. The holy days are a shadow of things to come. And you know that a shadow is not the reality. When you and I cast a shadow on the floor or the wall, that's just an image of us. It's not the reality. The image or the substance is us.

Paul is saying here that the holy days are a shadow of things to come.

When we keep the holy days, we are showing something that is to come.

God's kingdom, Christ's return, the reconciliation of all mankind to God through the atonement, the giving of the Holy Spirit, the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God. Those are the things that he says that the days are really a shadow of. But then what does he say at the end of verse 17? He says, but the substance is of Christ. The substance of the days is Christ.

Now, that doesn't, shouldn't cause us to go jettisoning way off into some erroneous conclusion that it's just Christ only and that's all that it's about. No, that's not the case. And just accept Jesus and live by Jesus's teachings and let him do you. He did it all for you. That's not what it is saying. We just read in verse 27 of chapter one that the mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. When we keep the Holy Days, we are walking through the substance of Jesus Christ. The substance is of Christ when it comes to the Holy Days. So that's, that's the real heart and core of the observance of the Holy Days. Now, think about that in regard to the Feast of Tabernacles. How, what is the substance of Christ during the Feast?

Did you focus on that? What was your intent?

Why should there be a letdown from focusing on the substance of Christ for the Holy Days? Why should we come back and be discouraged and forget what we should have learned and what we should have been focusing on during that period of time? In other words, what we've, what we've done through all the Holy Days should vault us forward over the coming months in our life and be the reality that we focus on. We don't have to be worrying, traveling from pillar to post in some state of worry or panic that we're not going to make it. We're going to be discouraged come December, you know, and the reality of a hard winter comes in. We should be encouraged by the reality that our Father has allowed Christ to set up shop in our lives, in our hearts, and that is the real temple of God. That is the real work of God. That is the real substance of Christ that is being done in our life now. And what we have walked through with all the Holy Days each year moves us in that direction so that it's really what we are doing every day of our year. We focus on seven festivals of God as we observe those, but those move us move with us every day of the year because God is doing His work in us every day. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and verse 16. I hit this several times during the Feast of Tabernacles to focus on because we were literally looking at some of the lessons that teach us this, but in 1 Corinthians 3 verse 16, Paul writes, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? We are the temple. There's no longer a temple in Jerusalem, and God's Spirit is not in Jerusalem because there's not a temple. The temple was the only thing in which He dwelt, and it's not there. Where does it dwell? If anyone in verse 17 defiles the temple of God, God will destroy Him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are?

You are the temple of God. If God, if the Spirit of God dwells in us, as we read in Romans 8, 10, you are the temple of God, and you are holy because the substance is of Christ. And this is something that we have to really focus on and we have to learn. The world doesn't get this. The world thinks that they can make something holy, they can make a day holy, they can make a site holy, they can make a building holy, they can consecrate something to worship, and it becomes a holy spot or place. And so we have our various temples and buildings and locations that are holy places. One of the things we had to really work hard with the tour guides that we had in Israel, and one of them was a lady we had two years ago, so she was more up to speed on us than the other one was, but I said, look, we are not interested in seeing the church of the holy sepulchre in Jerusalem, which is the one site where you have the place of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ right there in that building. I said, we're not interested. It holds no interest for us. And so we didn't go there this time. If you have the time, those are interesting places to see, but if you have only two days, they're more interesting, vital places to see in a place like Jerusalem. But our tour guide, she slipped up in her real thought because, although she's Jewish, she is a very interested person in the traditions of Christianity, and she guides Christians through the Israel all the time. And she made the point, was we were at one spot, and she was talking about people come to a place to venerate it. If you go to the northern shore of Galilee, they have a big Catholic church built on a spot where they say that the Sermon of the Mount was given. I said, we don't want to see it this year, okay? Because it's a beautiful spot other than the church, but I'm not sure that that's where the sermon was given. And we just, again, we just didn't have time. But she made the point, and she was explaining some things to her group. She says, a spot earns its veneration by what people do as they, through the centuries, go to a spot and they venerate, they worship, they remember what was done, what they remember an event. And, of course, they have done that. They have, over the centuries, they picked a spot in Jerusalem where they thought Jesus was crucified. And they built an altar, they built a church over it. And through the centuries, people go there. And in her line of reasoning, which follows that of a lot of others, that spot then earns its veneration by what people attach to it. Whether or not it happened there is irrelevant. And beyond that, those places are not spots where God tells us to worship anyway.

You know, He wouldn't let Moses' body become an object of worship for the Israelites. And it was taken and hidden, and there is no church built in a spot over there in that land where Moses was buried. That's one thing you will not find. Now, you'll find a church where Aaron was buried. They say Aaron was buried on top of this one big mountain. You don't know that. But again, people go there and they will worship there. And the reality is those things don't matter. They don't matter. And you might say, well, then why go to those places anyway for, you know, to Israel or to Jordan and go to all these spots? There are reasons and there's value to those trips. But that is a time for another explanation to understand all of that, as I think most of you would realize. But what these verses tell us is that God's Spirit is within us.

And as he says, because of that, the temple of God is holy and you are holy as God's Spirit dwells in you because of God's presence. And that is the only thing that, in a sense, makes us holy in that way. And because of that, brethren, we should take great comfort and encouragement from that. That God's Spirit is in us working and moving and we have that every day. And we don't need to be on the beach at Panama City or Jamaica or the Bahamas or wherever we might have had a wonderful experience during the Feast of Tabernacles or in Jordan or even in another location to have that joy, to have that peace, to have that sense of God with us and everything being right with us. We have, we can have that even where we are. And we have to because that's where we are, is where we are today. Dealing with our lives, dealing with the reality of age, sickness, expectations in our life, in our marriage, with our family, with our job, the frustrations of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That's what we have to deal with. But how do we deal with it?

We don't deal with it by escaping in a flight of fancy. We deal with it by yielding ourselves to God and letting Him work within us and knowing that we can make it and knowing that God is working in us to His good pleasure. In Philippians chapter 2 and verse 13.

After saying, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling in verse 12, He says, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. That's what it's about. That's how we make it because God is working within us to do His pleasure, to do His good will. Now let's turn back to John 16. I want to take a few minutes and go through what Christ said here. I read John 16 and verse 33, but let's read the few verses leading up to it because I think in this section of what He said to His disciples, we can gain a great deal for our lives at this time as we build on the experience we've had through all of the holy days this year and moving us forward over the coming months and for every day of our life. Christ seemed to, in this section, give some encouragement and words of instruction to His disciples that I think we can carve out a few points. Beginning in verse 16 of John 16, he said, He said, And you will not see me. And again, And again, And again, And so, He was going to be arrested. Then He would be taken from their presence. And then a little while after that, three days and three nights, He would be resurrected. And they would see that as well because He says, I go to the Father. But this was a puzzle, a puzzlement, as we say, to the disciples. They talked among themselves in verse 17.

What is this that He says to us?

What's it mean? What's the meaning of this little enigmatic statement? A little while, and you'll not see me. And again, a little while, and you will see me because I go to the Father. The disciples, throughout their time with Jesus in the flesh, were always asking, what does He mean? What is that saying? And their understanding grew incrementally through their experience with Him.

They said, therefore, what is this that He says a little while? We do not know what He is saying.

Now, Jesus knew that they desired to ask Him, and He said to them, Are you inquiring among yourselves about what I said? A little while, and you'll not see me. And again, a little while, and you will see me.

Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.

Those who engineered His death would rejoice for a period that they had finally rid the land of this troublemaker. The Jews, the Jewish religious leaders would think that, and the Roman soldiers, thinking that they will have put down a threat to their rule, they will rejoice.

So the world will rejoice. Again, they did not know who He was, understand His mission and what He was saying.

And you will be sorrowful, and they were. That sorrow took them to the point where many of them just disbanded for a period of time. Peter denied Christ three times, then he said, I'm going fishing.

And they were disjointed and scattered for a brief period of time in the aftermath of His death. They were sorrowful. And that letdown, if I can use that term, that post- Christ letdown caused them to lose focus, and they were sorrowful.

They didn't know what to do. They didn't know how to approach their life. For three and a half years, they'd had hit Him there. They were disciples. They had a focus. They knew what they were going to do every morning when they got up.

And many of them, for a long period of time, felt that they were moving toward a re-establishment of the Davidic Kingdom.

Until they finally realized, where at the end, that it wasn't going to happen then. But they had a focus and a mission and a reason to go to work every day. And now that was gone because they were, they again lacked certain key dimensions of understanding. And that's why He said at the end of verse 20, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.

Your sorrow will be turned into joy.

Joy is a key thought of Christ's message in this phase of His sermon or His teaching to them that night. And He goes on to make the point by describing the process of birth for a woman. When she is in labor, she has sorrow because her hour has come. But as soon as she's given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Verse 21, folks, is a verse in the Bible that us men will never fully understand.

Get it? Don't ever expect to understand that verse, men.

A woman who has had a child will understand that verse in a way that we will not. And so you ladies, you have a verse that is yours.

You have an understanding here that is your understanding. And you have a depth of understanding of this verse that we don't have.

So don't, you know, let's don't say that God doesn't give you insight and speak to you in the scriptures here.

Therefore, in verse 22, you now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice. And your joy no one will take from you.

So again, he focuses upon this joy, one of the fruits of the spirit. He says that no one will take it from you.

And we better be good and sure that we don't take it from ourselves because our priorities are mixed up, because we haven't worshiped God in the right way, because we've had too much emphasis on the physical to the detriment of the spiritual. Then we can have our joy taken away by our neglect. And certainly, we can let a man, woman, or situation take our joy from us as well. But that's not his intent. He said, no one will take your joy from you. It doesn't have to be taken.

We can live with that joy each day of our life.

If we, again, have God's spirit within us, and if we are nourishing that spirit, and we are working with that spirit, God will give us that joy. Now, there are times and situations where we're going to think that God's not working.

What's the use in praying? What's the use in asking?

Nothing's going to turn out all right anyway.

How many times have you ever got to that point over something going on in your life? Oh, what's the use of praying anyway?

God's not going to hear. And then every once in a while, God does something for us, and He'll give us an answer.

And He'll kind of stun us. And we'll get an answer.

And if you're really tuned in, you kind of get rocked back on your heels, and you realize He is answering, because we're tuned into what He's doing.

But we have to be tuned into what He's doing to have that type of an experience, and to realize that we can live with that joy every day.

In that day, verse 23, you will ask Me nothing.

Most assuredly I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. Until now you've asked nothing in My name, ask, and you will receive that your joy may be full. So point number one, He says your joy no one can take from you.

Write that down and remember that one. Then He goes on, These things I have spoken to you in figurative language, but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language.

I will tell you plainly about the Father. And I take this verse to understand that Jesus, when He says something, He tells us plainly what is, what will be, what's going to happen. That's what He says. He says, I will no longer speak to you in figurative language. I will tell you plainly about the Father. When we look at the subsequent revelation of Jesus through His apostles, through Paul and Peter and James and the letters that they wrote, we're getting plain teaching about the Father and about the plan of God and the details are worked out.

And we don't take that for granted, do we? I hope we don't. Paul talked about the Scripture being inspired of God. And we look at the details of salvation, the details of conversion, and all that Romans tells us in Galatians and Corinthians about Christianity and a way of life, the details. That's plain speaking. That's not figurative, allegorical, metaphorical, gobbledygook. That's plain speaking. That is the truth that we have going forward from this time from Jesus. And then when we come to that very last book of the Bible called Revelation, why should we look at that book any less plainly than we look at Galatians or Corinthians or Romans in terms of understanding of God's plan, purpose, and way of life?

Revelation, which is the revelation of Jesus, the verse tells us, to His servants. We should take this instruction from verse 25 and apply it to Revelation as well. Just an aside point when it comes to the reality of what Revelation tells us about prophecy and the church, the plan of God moving forward to the consummation at the end of the age. Jesus here doesn't deal in vagaries and obscurities. He doesn't want us to be deceived by arguments to that end. Verse 26 then, He says, In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you. The Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God. So our relationship is not just through Christ to the Father, but it works altogether. Here's what He's saying. The Father hears us and He loves us, and we have a relationship with the Father as we do with Jesus. And He says, I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father. And His disciples said to Him, See now, you are speaking plainly and using no figure of speech.

Now we are sure that you know all things and have no need that anyone should question you.

By this we believe that you came forth from God. So their level of understanding increased by a measure at this point as they looked to Christ and understood the relationship of Christ with the Father. And then He asked, He answered them and said, Do you now believe?

Almost like putting out a question. Indeed, He says, The hour is coming. Yes, has now come that you will be scattered, each to His own, and will leave Me alone. They'll be abandoned. And yet, I am not alone because the Father is with Me. Point number two, Christ said, I am not alone because the Father is with Me. We are not alone because that same Father is with us. And as we read back in verse 27, He loves you. He loves you. And so we are not alone in the same way that Christ knew that He was not alone. So whatever we have to deal with in our lives going forward from the feast, from what might pop up in the coming weeks or months, we're not alone.

We have God and we have Christ in us and we have the Father loving us. Sometimes it's good for us to look at these scriptures here in the light of just understanding how Christ and the Father work and relate to us. Christ is in us the hope of our glory. The Father loves us as He loved Christ. We don't, you know, we have a direct relationship and we go through Christ and we don't need to get tangled into theological reasonings about how it all works. They are both very much involved with us and to the point where we are not alone. We are not cast off. We don't need to be let down. We are not alone. God is with us. God is in us.

And then He says in verse 33, these things I have spoken to you that in Me you may have peace. And once again, peace of mind, peace of heart and will. In the world you will have tribulation and how true that is. There will be opposition as long as we are in the flesh prior to the time of Christ's Kingdom and His return. We will have difficulties and challenges.

None that should ever overwhelm us to the point where we sincerely reject and give up on this relationship to which we have been called. Doubt, yes. We will waver and we will wonder. We are human. But when we find ourselves in those moments, we have to ask God's help and do what is necessary through prayer, through Bible study, through fasting, to be close to God, to be hearing that still small voice, to be able to have the strength to deal with whatever challenge is there. In the world you will have tribulation. But He says, be of good cheer.

I have overcome the world. I have overcome the world. That's point three, He says. I have overcome the world. If He overcame the world, then with His life in us, we can overcome the world. We can overcome our world. We always think about our world, not the world. If I can take a little bit of license with verse 33 and you understand what I'm saying, insert, I have overcome my world as your own model. And what is your world? What is my world? My world is my thoughts, my imperfections, my challenges. Your world is the people you have to deal with, a family, an irate boss sometimes who doesn't understand why you have to take off for the holy days, or a family member, husband, a wife, or some other family member that just doesn't understand your faith, your commitment, who just doesn't understand God. That's your world. Your world is your faults and imperfections in your sins. That's your world. Can you overcome your world? Well, Christ overcame His world, the world thrown at Him, and we have the challenge and the opportunity to overcome our world. He says we can, and if we yield to Him, then it can be done. So I think He gave three points here.

Your joy no one will take from you. We're not alone, and we can overcome our world because Christ is in us. And we are holy as we are with the Holy Spirit, and the temple is being built, and that spiritual sense and that work is being done. So when we come back from the Feast of Tabernacles, why do we have a letdown? Why do we let ourselves get morose? Let's think about that as we move through the months ahead of us, and let's make sure we don't get a fever and get sick, but let's also make sure that we will be able to rehearse the saving acts of God through Christ as we are given the life and the fullness and the substance of Christ as that is working within us through every day. We're not alone, and we can overcome. We can avoid any letdown and move forward with confidence in the days of our lives.