A Renewed Perspective on Rejoicing

Let's start the sermon today by going to Deuteronomy 16. These are instructions about the Feast of Tabernacles. I want to zero in on something very specific here, and then we're going to talk about this in a little different way. This is going to go a little different direction than you might think. Deuteronomy 16 and verse 13. You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress. Now, this was the Feast of In-Gathering because this was when the great fall harvest came. And you had all the food—you have a spring harvest, but of course the fall harvest is much greater. So they have all this food coming in. They're processing all this food. It's the time of year to take maybe some out of the herd and kill them and thin your herds out some so there's meat. It is the best time of year as far as just being able to eat, especially in that kind of agricultural society. And you shall rejoice in your feast. It's interesting. How many times do we just call it the Feast? In some Jewish communities, they call the Feast of Tabernacles the Feast because it this was the time when you ate. So it was the Feast. He says, you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates. This is the time of rejoicing for everyone. The widows, the strangers, the Levites who didn't own property, everybody, was to have this time in which the emphasis here is feasting. It is eating. It is enjoying. And once again, in many Jewish communities, it is considered a time of hospitality because you don't eat alone. Everybody eats together. Everybody's sharing meals together because you're rejoicing together for what God has given to you. Verse 15 says, seven days you shall keep a sacred feast. So this is a holy time. A sacred feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God chooses because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands so that you will surely rejoice. So God's going to pour out upon them. He promised these physical blessings which they were to celebrate. They were absolutely absolutely supposed to celebrate the whole community together, all the tribes together, this physical celebration of what God had done.

Now there's something else during this time of year that's so interesting in the Jewish community. You know, we're going to be keeping these days looking forward to the time Jesus Christ returns and does what? He brings all humanity into a relationship with God and He restores the earth to basically the Garden of Eden. So there's going to be great physical blessings, great physical blessings. So we'll hear about that at the feast and we'll be saying, wow, you know, because we'll be sharing life and having life at a little higher level for most of us than we normally get to do, simply because of our tithing and because we're in this special place. We're not going to be staying in Sukkot, the way they built Sukkot back then, which were really temporary dwellings. They couldn't last very long. So we're going to be celebrating that. But in many of the Jewish communities during that time period, they're going to be reading in the synagogues. They have various scriptures they have to read. In fact, in a lot of Jewish traditions, the entire Old Testament has to be read in a three-year period. So every Sabbath there's parts of the Bible read so that it's read throughout the whole year. So every day during the Feast of Tabernacles, there's some of the passages from the Torah and some from the prophets, and it's read. These passages are read. But in some communities, they also read Ecclesiastes. Now, Ecclesiastes must be a great book about rejoicing, right? We're commanded to rejoice, and yet they read Ecclesiastes every day. And there's a reason they do it. Now, not every Jewish community does this, but some do. Why would they do that? It must be encouraging. Well, let's go to Ecclesiastes chapter one, and let's see the encouragement in this book. I know some of you, the look on your face was they read Ecclesiastes.

And I think, I mean, there are no instructions in the scripture to do that, but I think it's one of those traditions that when you think about it, there's a very important reason why they do it. And there's something we need to consider about this. Verse one says, in the word of the preacher, the son of David King in Jerusalem, preacher's not exactly a good translation. There's no English word to match that. And this wasn't necessarily like a religious position. And now everybody agrees, almost everybody, this is Solomon, but whether it's Jewish or Christian commentators. But preachers, you know, sounds like a religious position. This is more like, I'm the speaker in the assembly telling what I've learned. I mean, this is a very personal thing that he goes through here. So this is a little different than they, like here, I've got the scripture, I'm opening up the scripture, I'm going to preach to you. That's not what that meant. That's not even what that name meant or that title. It's just, I'm here to give you a story. Okay. I'm here to tell you something important. Now he starts out with the real encouragement, the rejoicing, vanity of vanity, says the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. I feel encouraged. Now, the Hebrew word is remarkably broad here. It can mean, it can encompass the concept of absurd. It'd be absurd, absurd, everything is absurd or frustration. I'm just frustrated and I'm frustrated and I'm frustrated. It can mean futility. In fact, you'll find it translated futility in a number of English Bibles. Feudal, feudal, feudal is meaningless. In fact, it actually can translate to nonsense. Nonsense, nonsense, it's all nonsense. That's all this is.

Solomon had reached a point in life that he says, I am here to tell you all a message. It's feudal, it's nonsense, it's absurd, and it's meaningless. How did he get to this place?

The rest of this chapter, he expounds upon this. Look what he says in verse 2. What prophet has a man from all his labor, in which he toils under the sun? There's other places in Ecclesiastes he just says, I worked, I worked, I worked, and now I'm an old man, and I look back and I think, big deal, why did I work so hard? Why did I do all this? One generation passes away, another generation comes, but the earth abides forever. The sun also rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it arose. The wind goes towards the south and turns around to the north. The wind whirls continually. It just keeps going on its circuit. He's just saying, time just keeps going by. Sun sets, sun rise, seasons come and go, babies born, people die. He just looked at it and said, why, what importance is this? What importance is this? He says, the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.

Verse 8 says, all things are full of labor. He says, we work and we work and we work. Men cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor their ear filled with hearing.

He just says, there's nothing new under the sun. The next couple verses, he says, I kept looking for something new, but I can't find anything new, you know, totally new, because I've seen it all and I've done it all.

Why would this be read during the Feast of Tabernacles when we are commanded to rejoice? And there's a reason they tie it in. And as we go through this, I'll show you why they do it, and really what it means to us today. First of all, we have to look at how the Solomon get here. I mean, we know the story of Solomon. As a very young person, God gave the Solomon and said, I'll give you whatever you want. And he was going to be king. He knew he was going to be king. And he said, well, I want the wisdom to know how to be king. I don't know how to be king. He says, good, I'll give it to you. And he did give him something special. Through God's Spirit, he gave him an understanding and a wisdom that was unlike anybody else in the of the kings of Israel and Judah. He had the ability to rule, make decisions, do justice more than any other king. God gave that to him. God also gave him, he said, I'll give you all the wealth. I will make you a great king. And he did become a great king. He became very powerful. He became famous throughout the entire Middle East. He was famous for his wisdom. In fact, in 1 Kings, it states that he spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs were 1,005. 1,005 songs. He wrote song lyrics. We just don't have much of them. And we only have a very small amount of his proverbs. In other words, he would write down these these pithy statements. That's okay, this should teach people how to think. This should teach people how to live. And we only have a small collection of what he actually wrote. He became wealthy. In fact, he became probably the wealthiest man in the Middle East. He became a man of power. Because during his rule, Israel as a nation, because they were still together, Israel and Judah were together, this was their height of power. In all their history, this was their height of power. He had power. He had fame. He had everything. And God gave him permission to build a temple dedicated to God in Jerusalem. God would not give David permission to do that. God told David, because of the amount of men you've killed, the amount of fighting you've been involved in, because of your violent past, I will not let you build a temple to me, but your son will. And Solomon knew that. And Solomon was used by God to build the temple for the worship of Yahweh in Israel. And he dedicated that temple to God. And something very important happened. Let's go to 2 Chronicles 7. 2 Chronicles 7.

Okay, why is he going through this? What does this have to do with the Feast of Tabernacles? We have to understand why you would read Ecclesiastes during the time of rejoicing.

And you have to understand how Solomon got to where he literally, as an old man, sat down and said, It's all meaningless. It's all useless. It's nonsense.

The man who had been blessed by God with a remarkable mind, with all this wealth and all this power, sat down and said, It's all nonsense. Look what happened here when he dedicated the temple. He built the temple. They did the dedication ceremony.

And this is 2 Chronicles 7, verse 1. When Solomon had finished praying, he had given a prayer of dedication. Fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. This is the manifestation of God's Spirit, the Shekinah, as we say in English. That's not pronounced in Hebrew, but the Shekinah, the glory of God. They could see it. It would look like a cloud and it filled the temple. The priest couldn't even stay in there. They had to leave because of the energy and the power as the Spirit of God came into this temple. They could see it.

And the priest could not enter the house of the Lord because of the glory of the Lord, had filled the Lord's house. And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and praised the Lord, saying, He is good and His mercy endures forever. And the King and all the people have offered sacrifices before the Lord. Now, to give you an idea for the power of this small country, just a few million people, for this dedication, verse 5, King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 bulls and 120,000 sheep. And the King and all the people dedicated the house of God. That's quite an experience. I mean, God's talked to him when he was younger. God now has manifested. He's seen the glory of God. He and all the people. You talk about, I know we talk about if someone has the trust of everybody, you talk about a man everybody could trust at that moment. Solomon prays and God shows up. Everybody's behind him. He has everything. God has given him everything.

Let's skip down to verse 8.

And at that time Solomon kept the feast seven days. Now, there's only two seven-day feasts. So this is either the Days of Unleavened Bread or the Feast of Tabernacles. So let's look at what it says. And all Israel with him, a very great assembly from the entrance of Hamoth to the Brook of Egypt. And on the eighth day, oh, the eighth day, it's during the Feast of Tabernacles that this happened. It was during the Feast of Tabernacles that Solomon reached the zenith of what God had given him, where he had now dedicated this temple to God. And on the eighth day, they held a sacred assembly for the observance of the dedication of the altar seven days and the feast seven days. And on the 23rd day of the seventh month, now you see the Feast of Tabernacles starts on the 15th day of the seventh month. So we now know exactly when this is.

This has all happened during the Feast of Tabernacles. And on the 23rd day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their tents, joyful and glad of heart for the good that the Lord had done for David, for Solomon, and for his people Israel. They were rejoicing. And it says he sent them back to their tents. That is not a good expression of what the phraseology in Hebrew means. It's interesting that this is translated in the Jewish Publication Society. He dismissed them to their homes. The NIV says, sent the people to their homes. Okay, in other words, they went back to their other temporary dwellings, so to speak, because for seven days they were to be in temporary dwellings. And at the end of the eighth day, he sends them back to their temporary dwellings. I mean, their regular homes, their regular dwellings. He didn't send them back to their Sukkos. So they were staying in temporary dwellings. They were always people who were in Jerusalem. He dedicates the temple, and it's all during the Feast of Tabernacles. Here we have a link. We're going to talk about this link to this event and us keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. We still have an answer, though, what happened to Solomon. What happened to Solomon that he, at the zenith, we're seeing him at the zenith at the Feast of Tabernacles. And then years later, we see him down here saying it's all nonsense. What took him there? Well, let's go back to Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 1. I find Solomon both a remarkable person and one of the saddest situations in the Bible in terms of what he did to himself. Unlike Saul, who turned entirely against God, we can see in Ecclesiastes he did not. But he spent a chunk of his life away from God. He went from the zenith of dedicating the temple and the very presence of God being there and the entire nation standing behind him. His credibility, his wealth, his power. He had everything. But let's look at what he did with that. Verse 12. I, the preacher, was king over Israel and Jerusalem, and I set my heart to seek and search out my wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven. This burdensome task God has given to the sons of man by which they may be exercised. He said, so I decided to figure out everything. Now God had given him a mind of wisdom. He had a clarity of thought when it came to the Torah, when it came to the law, when it came to the Ten Commandments. He had a remarkable clarity of thought when it came how to lead people, how to make decisions, because God gave it to him. But he decides now, I am going to figure out everything. All human conditions, all human interactions. I'm going to figure it all out.

But we see that same depression that we see in the first part of this chapter in verse 14. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and indeed all is vanity and grasping for the wind. You see, you know what life is? It's like the holding onto the wind. You know, how do you hold the wind? You can't. So I communed with my heart, verse 16, saying, Look, I have attained greatness and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me under Islam. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge, and I set my heart to no wisdom and no madness and folly. I also perceive that after a while that this was like holding onto the wind. I want you to think about this. God gave him, through the power of his Spirit, this remarkable understanding. God gave him the ability to make decisions. God gave him wisdom, leadership, a way of understanding the law so that he could take the law of God and use it because he was the great judge. You know, all matters that couldn't get through the… You have your… The elders at the local level that make decisions, the elders of Levites, that goes up to the priest, and eventually, you know, the highest court in the land is Solomon.

So he's making these judgments. That's what he does much of the time. He's able to take God's law and use it. But where did it come from? I have attained… I have attained greatness. Now, we're sort of back into the sermon in a little bit.

He figured out, I'm smarter than everybody. So I'm going to figure out really how you can determine what's good and what's not good, what's smart and what's not smart, what's wise and unwise. Well, God already had given that to him, but it wasn't enough. I'm going to figure it out. So he says, hey, it's a great statement here, and I sent my heart to know wisdom and to know madness. I was going to find out what nonsense really was.

Verse 18, for much wisdom is much grief, and knowledge increases sorrow. He said, the more I understood, the more unhappy I became.

The more unhappy I became. Chapter 2, verse 1, and in my heart, come now and test with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure. He says, I decided to have everything a man could want. One woman, two women, three women, how about a thousand? Now, that doesn't mean he was with all those women. A lot of those would have been political marriages, because that's how they made treaties, was exchange family members. That's why in Europe, by the time you get to the First World War, you realize that the heads of state of over half of all the major powers of Europe were all cousins.

They're all related. That's why the King and Queen of England changed their name to Windsor, because they had a German name, and they were about to go to war with Germany, so they changed their name. And the reason why, Kaiser Wuhan was their cousin.

They all knew each other. They visited each other in the summertime. You know, who else was the cousin? Nicholas of Russia. They're all cousins. They're all—this is what happens when you keep trading everybody in marriages. They were all related. There are telegrams between Nicholas and Kaiser Wilhelm, begging each other not to go to war, and they call each other Nicky and Willie. So, it's odd that he would have women through—there were just trophy wives.

What's her name? Number 720. Who is she? Oh, yeah, she's the one you got from Edom when you made that treaty with Edom, and she's like the third cousin of the second cousin of the brother of the king. Oh, yeah, her. What's her name? Anyways, he did have lots of women. And he could be with different women every night if he wanted to.

So, he says, I'm going to find this all out. I'm going to figure it all out. And he says, and I figured out it's all futile. I said of laughter, madness. He didn't even like to laugh anymore. How depressed do you have to be? And of course, I've met people like that. They're just so down. Life has become so hard on them. They can't even laugh. Or if you've ever lost someone and you hear something funny in your grieving and you even feel guilty for laughing, he looked at laughter and said, madness.

You're like insane when you laugh. That's all it is, insanity. And of mirth, what does it accomplish? Why be happy? It doesn't accomplish anything. That's not wise, is it? What's happened to his mind? I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine while gutting my heart with wisdom, how to lay hold of folly, that I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.

I use my life to experiment. And you know what? This is what young people do all the time. And we keep telling you don't do it. How many young people between about 15 and about 25 damage themselves, their minds, their hearts, their emotions, their actual bodies, because they experiment?

Well, Solomon decided I have the power to experiment with everything. You're talking about booze. He says I could bring it in from all over the world and I could drink myself sick every night if I wanted to. He said, so I tried it. I tried to see how much you could drink and still be happy. Okay, well, okay, I passed out last night, so that's too much.

What's the... Okay, let's try it again and see. You see what I mean? He's experimenting with his life after God already gave him what he needed. And somehow it wasn't enough. He says I made my works great.

I built myself houses. In fact, he built one house, according to 1 Kings, took him 13 years to build. It was such an opulent palace. And I took him only took him seven years to build the temple to God. Took him 13 to build his own house. I planted gardens or vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards. And I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools which to water the growing trees of the grove. I acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were Jerusalem before me.

And I had more silver and gold and special treasures of kings and of the provinces. And I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the Son of Men, and musical instruments of all kinds.

You talk about music. You know, they didn't have the ability to hear music back then the way you and I do. I still have the old-fashioned CDs. I know there may even be some of you here that still have records. I don't know. I still like records. Do you? I still like records. Or on a computer, you know, if I want to hear a song I haven't heard for a long time, I'll be just pulling up on YouTube and see if I can find it and listen to it. But we get... I pull up music almost every day from someplace. You know, they couldn't do that back then. You got out your little stringed instrument that was sort of like a small harp and someone sang. You had some drums. You didn't even have a lot of instruments. He said, I can have music whatever I want. I can just say, for lunch, bring me in a band, you know. I want a band here for lunch. How big a band? How many people you want? How many singers you want? What kind of music do you want?

He specifically said, I tried to get all the music I could. So I actually had people brought into the palace from all over.

So I became great, verse 9, and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. And he says, my wisdom stayed with me. He says, I still remember I was making good decisions. He was making good decisions with everything but his life. He made good decisions as a king. He made good decisions as a judge. But when it came to his own personal life, he didn't live by the very wisdom he was teaching other people. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and this was reward for all my labor. Then I looked at all the works that my heads had done, and on the labor which I had toiled, and indeed it was few, and grasping for the wind, and there was no prophet under the sun.

He goes on and on through the rest of this chapter into the next one, into the next one.

And he says, I don't get any fun out of life. I get no enjoyment out of life. I have no purpose in life. What's interesting in the first part of chapter 4, he literally gets into, you know, then I started looking at the average person out there and how they're oppressed and how they have to work so hard just to put food on the table. And he said, I realized, well, their lives are worse than mine, and mine's meaningless. So what their life must be meaningless too. He didn't get it that a lot of them were happier than him. So he just looked at everybody and said, you know what? All of our lives are meaningless. We work to eat, we eat to live, and then we die. What purpose is there in anything? Wow! Reading this during the date or Feast of Tabernacles is going to really make you feel good, isn't it? I feel like rejoicing now. But there's a point here. There's an important point.

Throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon looks at his life, then he looks at the world around him, and he says, if I'm the smartest, if I'm the wisest, if I know more than anybody, this is all absolutely nothing. He had everything a man, a God can give a man. Everything that, you know, if you think what could make me happy? Well, if I had the best food every day, he had it. Best clothes every day, he had it. All the money that I couldn't even spend at all, he had it. Women's song, wine, he had it.

And he says, I abused it all. I abused it. There's one point where he talks about, if I could have just found one good woman, if I could have just had one good woman. And he comes up with, I can't rejoice. I have nothing to be happy about. Okay, remember this. We'll go back down and look at the Feast of Tabernacles. Let's go to Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23.

And verse 39.

Verse 39 of Leviticus 23, also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord for seven days. And on the first day, there shall be a Sabbath rest. And on the eighth day, a Sabbath rest. And you shall take for yourself on the first day the fruit of the beautiful trees and branches and palm trees. And he tells them they have to build a temporary dwelling. And it's still, some Jewish communities still do this. You can see one out in their backyard. And it depends on the Jewish tradition they come from. I mean, you go back far enough, and they used to live in them for eight, or seven days. They used to live in them for seven days. Then it was, well, you only have to eat meals in them. Or you can sleep in them, but you can leave them. I mean, what do you do in them? Okay. And modern times, they don't, most people don't actually stay in them. They build them. They might eat some meals in there. They go out with their family and have instructions in it, or whatever. But there was a time when they actually lived in them. And if you read through here, these aren't condos. These aren't cabins. These even aren't nice, calm, and tense. Now, they're made nice. But here you are in a time when you are, hospitality is everything. Everybody's sharing fun. Everybody's, it's like a party for seven days. You eat, and you're allowed to drink wine. You're not allowed to get drunk. You're even allowed to have strong drink. It's the only time where it says, it's okay to have a little nip.

So it's a time of joy. It's a time of rejoicing. It's a time of togetherness. And it's a time of family. Remember, your children are commanded to rejoice. Everybody's to be gathered in to do this. And then let's go on here to verse 42. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths. And here's why. That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths. When I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I am the Lord their God. Oh, I thought you were supposed to stay in the temporary dwelling so that we could be reminded, so that we could have a good time. No, that's not why we stay in temporary dwellings. They were told to do it to be reminded that it was God who took them out of Egypt. And their forefathers had no place. Their forefathers wandered the desert. And now they were in that promised land, but they were never to forget how they got to the promised land. And they did that as a reminder of how they got to the promised land.

I'm going to read this. Well, no, let me go on here. I'm going to go on because I'm going to break up another point. I'm going to skip something here. Because I want to go to look at something David did.

David was not allowed to build the temple, but you know what God let him do? He let David be in charge of gathering all the wealth it would take to build the temple. It would take a huge amount of money and resources. I mean, the resources they use there, they would have to bring in these resources. And just the cost of the stones and so forth would be just enormous. And so David was put in charge of gathering all those things. He didn't get to build it. Solomon was. But the last part of his life was spent preparing for the temple to God that he wanted so much to build. But God said you can't. When David had finished gathering in all the resources they would need to build the temple, he had a dedication ceremony for the resources. Let's go to 1 Chronicles 29. Because here we see something that was about one of the qualities of David.

That God could still always say, I can work with that man. 1 Chronicles 29. Let's pick it up in verse 10.

Therefore, David blessed the Lord before all the assembly, and David said, so this is the dedication of the resources that he wasn't going to be able to use. Blessed are you, Lord God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, and the glory, the victory, and the majesty. For all that is in heaven and in earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom.

Spiritually and in Israel at the time, he said, this is your kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head over all. David realizes everything comes from God. Everything that happened in David's life that was worth anything was because God did it, helped him, guided him, gave it to him.

Both riches and honor come from you. David was quite wealthy. David was honored. Now, there were times because of his sins that the people did not honor him. But at the end of his life, he was greatly honored in Israel. Both riches and honor come from you, and you reign over all. God's sovereignty was everything to David. God was in charge of his kingdom, and God was in charge of his life. And your hand is power and might, and your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.

His greatness as king did not come from him. His greatness as king, he realized, came from God. Now, therefore, our God, we thank you and praise your glorious name. But who am I? See a slight difference here? Solomon forgot to ask that after a while. I looked at my wisdom and said, man, I'm smart.

Everybody says I'm smart. Everybody says I know more than anybody else, and I do. Hey, I wonder how much wine a man can drink. I wonder how many women a man can actually have.

David says, but who am I? And who are my people?

That we should be able to offer willingly as this. He didn't say, oh Lord, look at the majesty of our offering. Because if you read the verses before this, it's a huge amount of wealth. He doesn't come and say, look at us, God. We brought before you a huge part of the gross national product of Israel. And here it is. And it's for you to have a temple. That's not what he said at all. David says, who am I, and who are we to bring this little bit to you? Who are we? For all things come from you, and of your own we have given you. He said, this all belongs to you anyways. Here we bring all this, and we're all proud to look what we've done. It's like, well, it's yours to begin with. It's yours to begin with.

Solomon thought it was his and realized he was going to die, and none of it was going to be his anymore. He talks about that in Ecclesiastes. When I die, who gets my kingdom? When I die, who gets my stuff? When I die, who gets my wives?

Who gets everything of mine? I lose everything. I lose all my stuff. I lose who I am. I lose what I have. David simply says it wasn't ours to begin with. In the next verse, we'll see the difference between David and Solomon, at least when he writes the first part of Ecclesiastes. And when we do, you'll understand why it has to do with the Feast of Tabernacles. Verse 15, for we, he's talking about himself, he's talking about all these relates, we are aliens and pilgrims before you, as were our fathers, our days on earth as a shadow without hope. He goes on to talk about, but you're God, we're focused on you. What David realized was something that Solomon never got as he dedicated the temple just a few years later during the Feast of Tabernacles. They stayed in temporary dwellings to be remembered, to remember. Everybody's that's following God is an alien and a pilgrim.

No matter what we have here, we're an alien and a pilgrim. The king of Israel said, we're just aliens and pilgrims before God. We come and we go. And if that's all there is, then vanity and vanity is all is vanity. Now, you notice he didn't say that he says we're without hope, but then he says some really positive things about how God is going to be with those who are right with him. God's going to take care of those who are right with him.

And he goes on and he talks about the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Notice verse 18. O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our fathers keep this forever in the intent of the thoughts of the heart of your people and fix their heart toward you. All Solomon kept saying, my heart was based on all this stuff and I have no heart left. David says, we know who we are. We know who we are before you.

And because of that, we understand this life seems hopeless, but it's not. He doesn't see it only. He says we're without hope, but we're not without hope.

It's interesting, verse 19. And give my son Solomon a loyal heart to keep your commandments and your testimonies and your statutes and do all these things and to build the temple for which I have made provision. He didn't say, why don't you let me build it? It wasn't his.

David understood it wasn't his. It was God's. And it was God who said, no, your son's going to build it. So he prays for his son to do the great work that he had wanted to do. Now, he thought that would be the crowning achievement of his life and he gave it up willingly because it wasn't his anyways. It was God's achievement because he understood I'm just a pilgrim. I'm a pilgrim on this earth. That's all I am. This is what this has to do with the East Tabernacles. This is why this is read in some Jewish communities, not this particular passage, but Ecclesiastes, because they want, as everybody's rejoicing, as everybody's having a feast. There's a party feeling. I don't mean a wrong party. There's a good party feeling to the Feast of Tabernacles. There's a hospitality feeling. I mean, I've already, I was driving today over here in my not so cool car. I said to my wife, you know, I'm looking forward to the feast. I've been looking online at Panama City Beach and there is two kinds of Indian restaurants, one that serves food from, I think, it's southern or southern and one from northern India. I said, I want to take a night and we order about five or six things from each of those and we have an Indian night where we try foods from all over India. She said, to my surprise, okay.

Well, okay. I said, we'll just bring it. We'll go get it. We'll bring it in and, you know, we have people over. I want to have a giant, well, let's try this from northern India. This is from southern India. This is goat. This is this. We'll just try all these different things. You know, we wouldn't normally do that. For one thing, I couldn't justify spending that much money, right? We are to rejoice, but unlike Solomon, we must never forget we're pilgrims. We're pilgrims. Look what Paul says in 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 4. And if you really understand the Feast of Tabernacles, pictures Christ's return to set up God's kingdom on this earth, and you will probably hear. There's almost always during the feast some sermon or sermon that talks about us being pilgrims. You know, some, there's a passage in Hebrews that's read almost every Feast of Tabernacles I've been at for 50 years.

We're pilgrims. If we forget that, the feast becomes just a party, and it's a waste of our time, because God isn't involved. If that's all it is, it's a good time. God isn't involved. 2 Corinthians 4. And let's start here in verse 16. Therefore we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Yeah, that's right. It's wonderful this life is, and I think it's great. It has its opposite and downs, right? And there is a point where you start to realize, I can't live forever like this. My body won't let me.

We're not designed to live forever like this, especially in Satan's world. And that's what we have to realize. We go back to remembering, I'm just a pilgrim here. The earlier in life you realize that, the better your life is, because you don't make the same mistakes that David did and Solomon did before they both figured it out at the end of their lives. He says, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

That's what we're to remember at the Feast of Tabernacles. Have a good time! But remember, there's something more than this. There's something a whole lot more than this that God is preparing to give you when the Feast of Tabernacles is fulfilled, when Christ stands on the earth and sets up God's kingdom on this earth. Verse 1 of chapter 5, for we know that if our earthly house, this tent, this temporary dwelling, we need an upgraded model, this temporary dwelling that we're in, this tent is destroyed. We have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. There is a promise that there will come a time when we will no longer live in temporary dwellings. We will have a spiritual body, and we will live in the dwellings of God. We will live in the spirit dwellings of God. Solomon sort of figured this out at the end. How do we know that? Well, let's go to Ecclesiastes 12.

And this verse is read many times as an admonishment for young people, but you know, it really, the power of it is if you understand how he got there. I mean, he went from this pinnacle during the Feast of Tabernacles one year of building the temple dedicated to God, to being the most powerful monarch in the history of Israel, and probably one of the most powerful kings in all of the Middle East, of being the wisest man in the world, for being one of the wealthiest men in the world, for being a powerful man with a nation of economic power and military power, and years later, he ended up writing a book saying, you know, when you get down to it, it's all meaningless. And then maybe his greatest point of wisdom finally happens as an old man, when he realizes, God gave it to me at the very beginning. And then I spent all this time trying to find the answer that I already had. Verse 13, Ecclesiastes 12. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. He says, when you sum it all up, here's what the conclusion I've come to. Fear God. Be right with God. That's what it comes down to. Fear God. Keep his commandments. For this is man's all. In the end, this is what counts. This is everything. Everything else along the way is just good times and bad times. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. It's almost like at the end, he was back to that young man who God said, what do you want?

I want to fear you and keep your commandments. I want wisdom. The first wisdom he would have probably received was, be right with me and simply do what I say. And all these years later, he's saying, just be right with God and do what he says. That's part of the lesson of the Feast of Tabernacles. I mean, he became a workaholic. You look at his life. He did amazing things. He achieved everything that you think a human being could achieve. And yet he realized it wasn't what God had given him. God has given all of us here something amazing. He has called us into his truth and he has either given us his spirit already in dwelling or you're being guided by his spirit. You're here being guided by his spirit or it's already in you. But God is bringing you where he wants you to go if you will go.

And if he's a tabernacle, he says, all of us, go have fun.

But when you read through Ecclesiastes, here's what you learn. And I'm just going to quickly go through this list and you could actually add to this list because I encourage all of you to read Ecclesiastes either before or during the piece of tabernacle. He found out the true happiness comes from a life dedicated to loving and serving others and obeying God, not what he thought would make him happy. He found out that it's useless just to acquire knowledge, but a person must also grow in wisdom. He must know how to use that knowledge, not only in helping other people, but in his own life. He was an expert at giving knowledge to others, and he failed miserably at living by the same knowledge that he had.

His wisdom was given, but not applied to himself. He found out that pleasure is a blessing from God, but if it's misused, it's a curse. It's not a blessing at all. He found out that the accumulation of things can't bring lasting happiness. He found out that man was made to work, but if all you do is work, in the end your life is empty.

He found that a person can't become overwhelmed with the evil in this world, because he kept saying, it's so evil, it's so evil. But we must keep sight of God's sovereignty and God's ultimate plan. That's what you see in David's dedication. I know who you are. I know what you're going to do. And we've gathered this together. It belongs to you anyways, but we want to give it.

We're here to give it to you.

And then last, the simplicity of, he learned, that the Creator has given instructions on how to live life to its fullest and how to be prepared for the judgment to come. He found it out. It's all there. It all had been given to him as a young man. He had it. Before he had the wealth, before he had the women, before he had all these experiences with music and booze, and before he had all this amazing thing where people came from all over the world and bowed down to him. He was famous. He was the rock star of his day. Before he had all that, he actually had all he needed. And that's when he finally found out. He finally found it out.

During the Feast of Tabernacles, you're going to be living in temporary housing. There's a great physical blessing, but there's a reason it's temporary.

Because you come back to a temporary housing, too.

You leave your temporary housing and you come back to temporary housing.

Because I don't care how long you've lived someplace, it's temporary.

We're looking forward to the time when we live in permanent housing. Have a wonderful Feast of Tabernacles. We're going to talk about this more as we get closer and we'll go through the Feast of Trumpets and David told me. Have a wonderful Feast of Tabernacles and enjoy all those physical blessings. Plan for them now. If you're in Panama City Beach, look me up. You'll be invited to our Indian festival, okay? You'll smell like curry for three days. Have good meals. Have good family time. But remember that the tabernacle, the tent in which you live in, which you take with you every place you go, that is temporary. And these holy days are to remind us of that and to remind us of God's future. And then, when you really understand that and these holy days have their deep spiritual meaning, only then can you really do what the Bible says and rejoice in the Lord.