Preparing For The Feast

It was nice to hear some true confessions about the Cloudess family.

Thought we were the only ones who had challenges of loading up a kid or kids and driving hours on end, but I think we all know what that is like. If we would turn the clock back a lot of years, it was July 1981. The church had just hired us two months earlier, and we had moved to Memphis, Tennessee. And for most of my 20s, I had worked as an electrician. I shouldn't say that, I guess, but I did, and I remember a little bit still. But we just moved to Memphis, and I went to the first Ministerial Refreshing Program. I went by myself, sadly, because our daughter was about four months old, and it just would have been very, very awkward to have a nursing baby there in classes that run all day long. There were, as I remember, five Ministerial Refresher Programs through most of the 80s, and then I think it ended around the earliest part of the 90s. But the first two or three were extremely valuable to me, very helpful, and it really was a breath of fresh air. I'd like to turn, like us to turn, to Acts chapter 3, because in a statement that's made here, it speaks of a coming time of refreshing that is coming upon the earth. And, of course, the fall feast of tabernacles, especially foreshadows, pictures that time. These are the words of Peter. In Acts chapter 3, beginning in verse 19, he said, Repent therefore and be converted. That your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. So times of refreshing and times of restoration are spoken of here. And when we come to the fall, the feast of tabernacles has always been our highlight of the year. The other holy days are extremely important, because they're like seven rungs of a ladder. We take one step after another, and with each one we climb a little higher, and we can see a little further into the beauty and the marvels of the plan that God has for us. As we plan to go off to the feast, it is extremely important that we arrive prepared for the feast. And I'd like to give you a number of points as well, and they'll be completely different, and they'll add together nicely with what we heard in the sermonette. Point number one is anticipate.

Anticipate. We should anticipate a marvelous feast, because in just a very short period of time, we'll be gathered here for the feast of trumpets, and then the Sabbath at the end of this month, the day of atonement, and then we'll actually be going to our feast sites, or in some cases, making preparations at home to either do cybercasting or to listen to a particular sermon, a set of sermon tapes that you may have access to at home. Let's go to Luke chapter 2. Here is an interesting little statement that is tucked away here whenever Joseph and Mary brought the Christ child out, and here is this older gentleman whose name was Simeon, and he had been waiting a long time. He had been anticipating the time when he would see his Savior with his own eyes, and once he saw him, then he was ready for his life to end. But Luke 2 verse 25, And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God, and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation. And I think that's as far as we need to go. But anticipation was something that drove Simeon on, day after day, to go and to wait and to watch. Anticipation is one of the great tools that God uses in working with us as well. What we eagerly look forward to, we will work hard to achieve, and sacrifice for. Let's look at Philippians 1 verse 19.

Philippians 1 and verse 19. It speaks of an earnest expectation.

Verse 19, For I know that this will turn out through my deliverance, or for my deliverance, through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always. So now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. And of course, he was writing these words from his first imprisonment, and he didn't know how it was going to go. We know the rest of the story that he was set free and then recaptured and sentenced to die a little later on. But he had an earnest expectation. Do we look forward to the completion of the plan of God this same way? The extent to which we anticipate or look forward to the Holy Days is probably the same extent to which we anticipate their fulfillment. Let's go back to Nehemiah chapter 8.

Nehemiah 8. This is an earlier time in the people of God that at restoration age, when the Jews were allowed to go back, so many of them went back to Jerusalem and Judea from Babylonian captivity. Nehemiah 8, beginning in verse 13.

I should add earlier, the end of verse 2, it mentions this assembly was on the first day of the seventh month, the first day of the seventh month, and speaks of how they were reading in the book of the law. Then let's go down to verse 13. On the second day, the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people with the priests and Levites were gathered to Ezra the Stribe in order to understand the words of the law. And they found written in the law, which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths, marginal note, temporary dwellings, temporary shelters during the feast of the seventh month. That they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, Go out to the mountain and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, and a similar statement to what we heard read in the verse there in the sermonette. Verse 16, Then the people went out and brought them and made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house, or in the courtyards, or the courts of the house of God, and the open square of the water gate, the open square of the gate of Ephraim. And so the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths, for since the days of Joshua, the son of none, until that day, the children of Israel had not done so, and there was very great gladness. It goes on how they kept the feast seven days, and then also the eighth day, was a time that they kept as well. There was very great gladness. So the feast for us is intended to be mainly the spiritual high point of the year. Now, we have a lot of physical blessings that we can enjoy, but it is to be the spiritual high point of the year. It takes a lot of anticipation, a lot of planning, a lot of preparing. Number two, I'm trying to give you just one word point, so we had to anticipate. Number two is God, because we must remember the one who ordained these feasts. It is possible to get so caught up in fellowship, in eating, in playing, in even serving, in rejoicing, and having a lot of fun that we forget that we are there for a sacred and holy reason, and that is to appear before our great God. Let's go to Leviticus 23 and read the first few verses. These are God's feasts, and God set them apart as statutes forever.

And the early verses speak first of all of the weekly Sabbath, but then also of the annual feasts of God. Leviticus 23 verse 1, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts. Now, there's a little Hebrew word that we probably should be familiar with. It's moed, M-O-E-D, or the plural is moedim. We find it first of all back in Genesis 1 verse 14, as far as the lights in the sky, and they are four times in seasons. And God, in certain seasonal times, sets apart a time to come and to stop what we're doing, and go and appear where He sets His name, and to rejoice before Him. Verse 3 speaks of the weekly Sabbath, Six days shall work be done, but the seventh is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it, for it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. And there's the the Hebrew moed once again, and as the chapter unfolds, it takes us from Passover all the way through Tabernacles with the eighth day. Let's go to Deuteronomy 14.

Deuteronomy 14.

And we read verse 23. 14 verse 23.

Verse 23. You shall eat before the Lord your God in the place where He chooses to make His name abide. The tithe of your grain, and your new wine, and your oil of the firstborn of your herds, and your fox, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And so we go where God sets His name. And God has, we have had for the longest time, a procedure. Certain ones who work in procuring and then contracting with various feast sites. It's amazing to see how God opens doors and then sometimes closes doors. Same is true with getting local Sabbath halls or getting facilities to have a summer camp. Doors open and doors close, and God has a way of making known where His name is going to be placed. And by learning, by putting the practice what we learn throughout the year, we learn to fear God in the context of rejoicing specifically on the feast days, and in particularly the fall Holy Day feast. Second Corinthians 4, verse 16.

Second Corinthians 4 and verse 16. It speaks here of being renewed day by day. Second Corinthians 4, verse 16. Therefore we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing. And many of us have reached a point in life where we look in the mirror and we realize things are changing, things are different. And we get up and whatever doesn't hurt doesn't work, maybe. And it's just the stages, the phases of life that we go through. Yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. And when you think of that in a spiritual sense especially, we have the basics of prayer, of study, of meditation on what God is giving to us and asking of us, what God is teaching us. When we go off to the feast, our regular routine will be upset. We have challenges to renew the inner man day by day in order to appear before God at his time. We have challenges. At home we may have our own study. We may have an extra bedroom. We may have a separate room where we can go to and easily find time to have privacy, to pray. We may have a screened-in area outside where we can sit and read our Bible. But sometimes you go off to the feast and you've got a motel room. And been there, done that. Motel room with three children and two adults and quiet time is hard to come by. But, you know, Enoch walk with God and so did others. Sometimes the best time or best way to commune with God is to go for a walk and as you walk, pray with God. And there are times when you may just go somewhere in the facility and go sit somewhere at a table alone and study your Bible. But there are ways to improvise and make it work. Privacy may not be easy to come by, but it is usually not impossible if we work around it. Maybe a married couple can share time keeping kids and allowing the other one a little bit of quiet time, a little bit of privacy to prepare to appear before God on that day. Let's go over a little further to Colossians 3. Colossians 3, in reading verses 1 and 2.

Verse 1, if then you were raised with Christ, and that's speaking of the path we walked of repentance and accepting in faith the sacrifice of Christ and being baptized and coming back up, it symbolizes being buried in a watery grave but then coming up and being raised with Christ and sharing in that. Seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. And again, the challenge would be sometimes we come, of course we've got a lot of weather that's coming this way, sometimes if we've had severe weather we talk a lot about weather, and sometimes we have other physical things that tend to dominate our conversation, but we're going there to worship God. We're going there to appear before God. We're going there to be at the place that God has set His name, making it holy. And so we want to remember the one whose feasts these really are.

We have a family to prepare, depending on what stage of parenting you're in. Younger ones need little ones need quiet toys. They need quiet toys. I remember hearing an alarm clock, you know, one of the old wind-up ones, I heard an alarm clock go off in church once, to the eternal embarrassment of dad and mom who didn't realize someone brought an alarm clock to church. There are quiet toys, and as they reach a certain age, I remember reaching a certain age, and my dad said, all right, you're old enough, bring your Bible, bring your notebook. And I still have those notebooks all the way back to about 1967 or eight, something like that. And all of a sudden I started getting a lot more out of services because it forced me to follow along. And once in a while, the sermon topic was something that, age 14, I couldn't follow. And I turned back and found some really good reading about David and various others.

We prepare ourselves daily to go and appear before God, and we respect others during the feast, respect others during the actual service by trying to keep down distractions, excessive noise, and getting up and down. I used to think when I was younger, well, nobody ought to get up and leave church once it starts. Well, now I know. I'm beginning to understand. The body begins to tell you different things as you age. Ecclesiastes 5 verse 1.

There's a wonderful principle tucked away here that can be applied to anything that is holy.

Anytime we go somewhere to appear before God, let us remember these words. The Ecclesiastes 5 verse 1. Walk prudently when you go to the house of God, and draw near to here rather than give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. Walk prudently when you go to the house of God. We should conduct ourselves in a different manner when we go to the feast, just like we do when we come here on the weekly Sabbath.

This is God's holy time. All right, let's move on then. Number three is budget. Budget. We were there just a little while ago. We're talking about our festival funds. There's festival tithes, perhaps for so many, but then there are others on fixed incomes, and they have feast money from other avenues. There's a lady in Gadsden last week who told me she does not have titheable income. She told me she is the the yard sale queen, and she was giving me a running tally on how much she has. To me, it's inspiring to see it. It's $150. It's $300. It's $450. Some years she says, I'm fine.

I've got enough to go to the feast. And then other years she said, well, if I could have a hundred more dollars, and so we get her $100. I like to see that in somebody where they're willing to bend over backward to do what they can to find a way to fund their way to the feast. Well, we were here a while ago, but let's read verse 22.

Now, when you read back in the Old Testament law about tithing, there clearly are different tithes that are addressed. For instance, I believe it's Numbers 18. It talks about what our term is first tithe. There is this tithe, this tenth of your increase, that is holy to God and is given to the local Levite. Then you have this other tithe that's written about differently, and you keep it. And it is to fund you and your family going to keep the annual feasts.

So in Deuteronomy 14 verse 22, you shall truly tithe all the increase. Now, that's a very important word, increase. All income is not increase. You may have a lot more money come in, but then you've got to consider business expenses and take certain things into account to figure out what is the increase that came in as a result of the fruit of your labor. All the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. We read verse 23 about going to the place where God sets His name.

It goes on and explains verse 24, if the journey is too long for you that you are not able to carry the tithe. Again, when these words were written, we're dealing with an agrarian society, and the tithe would be in the form of bushels of grain and of produce and of livestock. And so it may not have been feasible, depending on where they lived within Israel at that time when there was only one feast site.

Or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you when the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money. Take the money in your hand. So get it in your hand and be careful it doesn't get away from you. And go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. And then it says, spend it whatever your heart desires. Oxen, sheep, wine, similar drink.

Eat before the Lord your God. Rejoice with your household and don't forsake the Levite within the gates. Now, 10% of one's income, of one's increase, to spend an eight days for some is a phenomenal amount of money. And for others, it pays the way, and that's about it. For others who have reached a point in life where they do not have tie the blend come, tie the blend crease, they may need help from family or from the church, or they may need to have yard sales or whatever.

But budget. We are too wisely. You get that money in your hand, hang on to it, be careful with it, make it last. God doesn't want us to be overly frugal and afraid to spend anything or share it with anybody. He doesn't want us to be spent thrift and just give it away to where we turn around that's gone. Luke 15. Luke 15.

And here we have the it's commonly called the parable of the prodigal son or sometimes the parable of the two sons. The younger wanted his inheritance. You can just refer to verses 11 through 14. He received his inheritance and in verse 13 at the end it says, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living, with wasteful living. Now we can be prodigal, we can be wasteful with this tithe. It is not tithe we turn into God. It's tithe that is holy or it is for a holy purpose. We keep it to find our way to get to the feast. Luke 19 verse 11.

Well, let me just refer here to this parable of the minas or parable of the talents and excuse me the pounds and verses 11 through 15. And the Noah of the nobleman going off to a kingdom, but he would return. Ten servants, do business till I come.

Verse 15. So it was when he had returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know how much each man had gained by trading. And so we have the answers given. God expects us to use opportunities we have to develop character. And one area of that, one facet of that is finances. For many, once a year at the feast, we're a little wealthier than we might normally be through the rest of the year. And for others, it's barely being able to go, but the point is being able to go, to be there. But how we spend our money, I believe, tells God how well we've learned about his way of life. That we are to have an investment, have a return from the investment God has made in us. And we should be able to be generous with others, take care of our own family, but share with others. Remember the widows, the elderly, those who are barely able to get there. To remember, perhaps, those who are new to the church. And this is their first feast, and they're still learning all the ropes. Deuteronomy 16, verse 13. Then you shall observe the feast of Terribanakkal seven days when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your wine press. Grain and grapes come in later in the year. And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, the widow, who are within your gates. Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hand so that you surely rejoice. And then it goes on talking about the giving of an offering on those annual occasions as well. Number four has to do with travel. Travel carefully.

This is the time to be looking at automobiles if you're going to drive your own automobile. We've got a bit of time left. We can have breaks checked out if we have any questions. If there's a bit of work that needs to be done, better here than somewhere on the road halfway. Better here than, you know, at a shop you're familiar with than just picking one near the feast site where you are. But we read a while ago, take your money in your hand, implying, be careful with it, don't lose it. And the same would apply to possessions and to lives, your life and others' lives. Again, Denise and I had a wake-up call on July 1st. We found out what it's like to be caught in heavy traffic and then somebody does something foolish up ahead of you and it can cost lives. And we, I think we're both kind of hyper-sensitized now. We see people coming after us in traffic and that's probably a good way to look at it. To keep your eyes all the time scanning cars around you because they might be coming after you and not even know it. Romans 13 verse 1. Romans 13 verse 1 speaks of obeying the laws of the land, that there are powers that be that do have authority over us within the law of God. Not in place of the law of God, but along with it. Romans 13 verse 1, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. You know, there are speed limits out here on highways.

I admit when we were in South Dakota, it was neat to look and see speed limit 80.

But there's almost no traffic out there. It would not be very nice to see speed limit 80 around here with the traffic that oftentimes the Chattanooga 500 has.

There is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will have him praise. You will have praise from the same. So there are laws of the land that govern traffic. Traffic flow. Red lights do mean stop. Even in Alabama, yet a lot of people don't seem to know that.

The yellow light means it's about to turn red, and that does mean something. The green light means you can go on through, but sometimes there's somebody that you need to be watching for and trying to dodge. So again, travel. Travel carefully. Check your automobile. Make certain it is safe and ready for the trip. When you drive, I hope everyone here uses seatbelts. We are even more so firm believers in seatbelts. They are there for a reason. There have been all kinds of tests. There are airbags that are there to save our lives, but hopefully we never know if our airbags work or not. You have to have an accident to find out. Insurance would be a part of this. Insurance. You know, there's a... Oh, what is the proverb? It says, the wise foresees the evil and hides himself. And that's the principle behind insurance. If you would have something happen, you might be the one responsible. You want to be able to remunerate for that other person to have their vehicle replaced or repaired. And so it's the principle of love, of having concern for others. Number five is family. We need to make it a family feast. We have read scriptures already. You go take your son, your daughter, your servants, and you go and rejoice before God. Spend time together there before God. And oftentimes the feast is spoken of in a family context. Let's look at Exodus 12 and this goes back to the Passover time. But again, the principle applies to the entirety of the Holy Day year. Exodus 12, beginning in verse 24.

Speaking of the Passover, choosing, selecting the lamb, the killing of the lamb, what you do with the blood. Verse 24, you shall observe this thing as an ordinance to you and your sons forever. And it shall come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised that you shall keep this service. And it shall be when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? That you shall say it is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households. And so the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Then the children of Israel went away and did so, just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

Now, instructions for Passover, but good for any Holy Day. We should prepare our families for going and keeping the feast, physically and spiritually. Young people need to be taught the meaning of the feast. They hopefully have seeds that are planted that will germinate in fertile soil later on. The time comes when they're of a point when they make their own choice to continue or to go out into the world. It is our job as parents to sow as many seeds of the truth as we possibly can within their minds. And then the time comes when they must choose to have a relationship with God or to seek to develop one or to put it out of sight, out of mind for now. Children are set apart. They are given access through the family. They need to be learning of their spiritual heritage. And I tried to cover some of that two weeks ago. They need to have a sense of destiny. They need to learn the difference in temporary and permanent. They need to learn respect and service and self-control and some of those basic values of life. Feast planning can be a time to explain to children about holy days, their meaning, our conduct, and that everyone benefits at the feast from cooperating together. It is a beautiful thing for the brethren to dwell together in unity. Find a way to make teens apart. Find a way to make singles. Or sometimes a single is someone who's the only one from their family who is attending. And involve them with the rest of the church family in your plans.

Set a goal every day to go and meet some more of the family, the spiritual family. Jesus, that Passover Knight, talked about the brethren being known by the love they have, one for another. And we need to get out there and get to know brethren and get to know them better and grow in that love. Perhaps we need a goal to go and meet one new person before and after every service and then try to remember their name. And reach out to elderly, reach out to handicapped, reach out to others who just seem that they maybe they feel out of place. Maybe they're a little shy and just need somebody to walk up to them and say, Hi, I'm so and so, and begin a conversation. Hebrews 13, Hebrews 13 verses 1 and 2.

Hebrews 13 verses 1 and 2. Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so, some have unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also. But it talks about entertaining strangers. People you don't know, you can go and have lunch together. You can go to one person's facility or the other and just sit and have time. It's a challenge to get to know anyone well, just coming here and getting here a bit before church and staying a bit after church. It's very difficult to get to know one or someone well just by coming here to church. 6. Balance You used to hear that word balance a lot when I was a teenager in the church. It seemed like a lot of messages were teaching us to be balanced. Take everything in balance. Let's go to Galatians 5 because a part of what we need to strive for balance is in serving. We want to serve, but like with anything in life, we can overdo it. We can underdo it. It's difficult for humans to find that balance that is out there.

Galatians 5, verse 13, For you, brethren, have been called to liberty. Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh. But through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. A command to love your neighbor as yourself. A command to love your neighbor as yourself.

Over in chapter 6, notice verses 9 and 10. Chapter 6, verse 9, Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. God wants us to do good to all human beings. We have a lot of relief organizations that are helping people recovering from Hurricane Harvey. And there will be a lot more that will appear with Hurricane Irma. And hopefully that one that's a little further out, they're still expecting it to turn and go up out into the Atlantic. But I don't know how they make all these projections, but sometimes they aren't even close, and sometimes they're right spot on. But there'll be a lot needing help. But as Paul said, especially those in the household of faith, we want to help our brethren. And when you look at the Feast of Terriban Achols, we have smaller fecites now. Once upon a time, we'd have 10,000 and 14,000 people there. I don't know how many there were in the late 60s when the first two years we were still in the tent at Big Sandy, but it was somewhere around 13 or 14,000, I think. And some 9,000 people were camped out on the grounds. I remember they announced that right at 9,000 people camped in Piney Woods, the main Piney Woods, and then the other one across Lake Loma. That's a lot of people. And it takes literally hundreds and hundreds of people to make it happen decently and in order. But even if you go to a fessite that has 500 or 800 or 300, it takes a lot of people to get in there and to serve. And we want to do that, but we want to do it within balance. I say that because there have been years I look back and I think I overextended myself. Tried to do too much at the expense of what the family needed. So that's why I use the word balance. We should not assume if there is an announcement, we should not assume there are enough volunteers once an announcement is made.

Volunteer if you are able. If you are not able, you know, there are plenty of people in the church who've reached a stage of life where they ought not be picking up stacks of chairs and hauling them around. But hopefully there are others who can do that. But as you're able, volunteer. And again, some of the more memorable and enjoyable feasts have been those where we serve with the proper balance. Hebrews chapter 6.

Hebrews 6. And let's read verses 9 and 10. And let's read verses 9 and 10. Hebrews 6 verses 9 and 10.

Verse 9, But beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust, God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister.

There's a place in Malachi where it talks about this book of remembrance. That God is moved by those who speak often one to another, those who serve one another. And God notices how when we're willing to share our own physical effort for the benefit of someone else, to serve as to work for the benefit of others with no expectation of receiving in return. Anyone can smile at others. Sometimes there are people there who just need a smile. In our years out in West Texas, up north, probably about halfway between Lubbock, where we lived, and Amarillo, that's where Rick and Angela Beeman family were. We've been in Carceray. I mean, we've been assigned close to each other before. But there was a town off the interstate on the old US 87, and the town was called Happy, Texas. That's the name of it. Happy. Happy, Texas. Coming into town from the south or coming in from the north, there's a big billboard, and it says, Welcome to Happy, Texas, home of, and I forget how many people live there, something like 3,000 happy people, and then in small letters, and a few old grouches. And a few old grouches. There may have been a few more grouches than they realized, but at any rate, I still remember that a lot of years later. Sometimes, somebody looks like they're just a bit grumpy this day. They just need somebody to go over and smile and say something positive to them. So anyone can comfort a child that panks because they can't see their parents right then. Anyone can pick up a scrap of paper. Anyone, usually you've got a row of chairs, and anyone can grab the hymnals from that row and put it on the end chair. Any of us can do things like that. Anyone can look and see a, maybe there's a single mother with a toddler and a baby in arms, and everything it takes to take care of them during church, and she could use somebody to come over and carry a bag for her, or a kid. So anyone can do that. Anyone can help another Christian have an enjoyable feast.

You remember the parable? Well, where Christ divided to the left and the right, and the ones on the right were welcome to the kingdom. They were the ones, I was in prison, you visited me. You gave me something to eat. You gave me a place to stay. You gave me some water. And that's what God wants to see in us as well. So as far as balance, I think we also should focus on our own health as a part of this. Have a healthy feast, and a lot of that has to do with maintaining our own schedule. A lot of times we go and we throw our bodies from a day's schedule until we're partying late in the night, and then we can barely be awake for church the next morning. Usually somewhere online it catches up to us. We may come down with a bad cold or worse. Second John, verse 2.

Excuse me, make it third John, verse 2. Notice what John wrote. Certainly his deepest desire was for them to be prospering and in health. And certainly this would apply at the feast. We save toward, we anticipate, we work toward this a long time throughout the year. And what a shame it is if we burn the candle at both ends and abuse our bodies, and then we can't be there to drink in and eat of the menu that God has prepared for us. Third John, verse 2. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers. So he wants us to prosper spiritually, and he also wants us to prosper physically.

Paul told Timothy that bodily exercise profits a little while, but it does profit. We need to get up, get the blood moving, eat and drink in moderation. We want to get enough sleep. Maybe that's one of the big challenges we have, is getting enough rest to maintain a schedule like we normally would have at home. Okay, number seven. The last one has to do with example. Number seven is example. We're going to set an example. There is a there is a fellow in the older gentleman up in the Kingsport, Tennessee church. He's kind of quite a card. You'd have to know him, but oftentimes he would say, well, if nothing else, we can always serve as bad examples. Well, hopefully we can serve as good examples and leave something good behind in our wake. We should never underestimate the power of a good example. The world cries out for good examples. I think the world especially notices good examples from children. Where you go into a restaurant and you'll have a family and you have respectful, controlled children who will use some of those magic words like please and thank you. People notice that. And when we go to the feast site, people notice us. We may be small now. Once upon a time, we might have 8,000 people in Tucson and people in motels far and wide and you had a lot of people noticing us. But I think mainly they liked the the business benefit that it gave to them. But also, you never know. There have been comments that have been made that, you know, well, your people, I know one restaurant owner said, your people coming in here is like all these points of light going off. I think that was after George H.W. Bush had given his speech about, you know, different points of light. He used that phrase. And the restaurant here referred to that as far as God's people coming in there. The world watches at the feast. Are we leaving behind a right example? Let's go to Deuteronomy 16 again. We read this already, but let's have an emphasis in another way.

Deuteronomy 16 verse 15. Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the Lord your God. So it is a sacred feast. It's holy because God says it's holy. And this feast is unto God. The world has this idea of going off on vacation. We're not trying to get as close to the old days of keeping Christmas as we possibly can. It's not a vacation. We're going there to keep the feast of God in the place which the Lord chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all your work of your hands so that you surely rejoice. So it's a sacred feast. It's a solemn feast. Are we living the kingdom of God day by day throughout the feast for others to see? We read earlier the sermon at later in Leviticus 23 about those seven days and now on the eighth day and what they did on those days and making that temporary dwelling place for them. But we are to rejoice all seven days, not just the first and the eighth day, the annual sambas, but to rejoice every day of the feast. In one sense, you could say that God is drawing a group of people together, a group of people together for a practice session of the kingdom of God. With the summer camp program, for years we've called it the zone, and the young people come there to have a little taste, a foretaste, of the kingdom of God.

Ecclesiastes again, chapter 9, verse 7. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 7.

9, verse 7. Go eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already accepted your works. So if we go through everything we need to go through in preparing and planning and anticipating, then we can go relax and enjoy, and yet seriously realizing we are there to appear before God to learn about the coming kingdom, to have a little taste of it once again. But when we do what we are to do, we can know that what we have done is pleasing to God. So the feast is to be the high point of the year. We want it to be as problem-free as possible within our control. There is a lot we can do. There are things we cannot do. But plan so this fall feast can be among your very best feasts ever. And to a degree, only we can answer that question as far as will it be the best ever. Wonderful Sabbath to all of you.