A Spiritual Feast

Thank you again, Mr. Shoemaker. The Bible up and the notes down. I was thinking of saying another reason we might have shorter services is that Mr. Warren and I's messages overlap considerably. As a matter of fact, I thought I could just take his first 15 minutes out of my introduction. It's not that much of an overlap, but it's interesting how things work out. Of course, what else would you speak about on the day before the feast? Well, to be honest, I was thinking about speaking about something completely different. I'd been working on notes and had more of a typical Christian living subject prepared. And as I was driving home Wednesday, it just actually might have been as I was driving up from Prestonburg. I thought, do I really want to do that? How can you not talk about the feast when it's the day before the feast? So I ended up revamping, and you'll get the sermon I had planned later. And I wanted to cover some meet and do season. And actually, this one's pretty focused, although go on some various different things. You hear sermons sometimes with so many points. I don't know why in the church it's usually seven. And actually, I've been working on a sermon. I don't do that very often, maybe because I've heard them so many times. But I've got one where I've got seven points. And originally, when I laid it out, I had eight points. And it ended up that two of them overlapped so much. I didn't purposely look for seven. Now I'm not even giving you the sermon I'm planning on today. I should work. But today, I've got one main point, and that's what I want to get to. The real theme for this message is to have a spiritual feast. The Feast of Tabernacles is going to be here very soon. We want to have a spiritual feast.

Now, that can mean different things at different times. And when I was a teenager, it's funny, we used to... It became sort of a joking matter. And so, okay to joke if you know the real... If you have the truth, then you joke about it a little. As I mentioned to some of the fellows downstairs, I spent several feasts in Dayton, which is not a bad thing. We had good feasts there. But as you're planning, people talk, where are you going to the feast? Well, we're going to Hawaii, or we're going to Mexico, or all these exotic sites. So, where are you going? Well, I'm going to have a spiritual feast. I'm going to Dayton.

You know, and we kind of joked. Of course, when you live in Columbus, we always said going to Dayton is like being at home, only 60 or 70 miles down the road. But it wasn't really as bad as we might have said. We had a good time. Although, it gave us good opportunity to joke about it. We used to say, well, we're going to a resort site. Now, Dayton was the last resort.

You know, it's amazing how you hang on to those things. You can bring them out and joke about them later.

But we want to think about this feast. A logical question might be, what is the spiritual feast? If it's not just a feast where you don't have any fun, and that's not at all what I mean, what is a spiritual feast and what makes for a spiritual feast? Well, for one thing, I think we'll have a good spiritual feast when we fulfill the purpose for which God designed His Feast of Tabernacles. When we're focusing on God's reason for giving us the feast, then we will have a spiritual feast. Let's turn back to Leviticus chapter 23.

I do want to emphasize that, the fact that it's not our feast, and it's not just the Feast of the Jews. I was going to read most of the scriptures that Mr. Warren already read, but let's, instead of repeating those, read the top of the chapter. Leviticus 23, we'll look at the first couple of verses. The Eternal spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, The Feast of the Lord. Does anybody have the Old King James? Is that where it says, Proclaim to them, the Feast of the Lord? I don't see anybody. My memory. Okay, it is. That's what I was thinking. I kind of like that, Proclaim, because they're like, Let them know these are the feasts of the Lord, to which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations. And then he says clearly, These are my feasts. They're not Frank Dunkel's feasts. They're not the United Church of God feasts. They said they don't belong specifically to the nation of Israel, even. They're God's feasts. And then, of course, he goes on and describes the Sabbath. He goes through all the annual Holy Days. And he goes to look at, lines up with the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles, followed by the eighth day. That's a separate convocation. If we will, let's drop down into verse 41. Because then again, there again, he says, You shall keep it as a feast to the eternal for seven days in the years. It shall be a statute forever. So it doesn't go away. It didn't stop when Christ was sacrificed. And you shall celebrate in the seventh month. Celebrate the feast. So having a spiritual feast, we still do celebrate. Well, actually, let's go ahead and read the next. And your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out to the land of Egypt. I am the eternal your God. I find it interesting. And I don't know if you're like me. Sometimes you ever read something and your imagination just goes off somewhere? Because the scripture above, which Mr. Warren read, talks about when the feast comes, go and get these leafy branches and these boughs of the trees. And it doesn't specifically tell you what to do with them. It sort of implied. But when I was young and I didn't know, I thought, well, they're just going to get them and wave them around and celebrate. But of course, the point was they were going to get those branches and make booths, make temporary dwellings. And he says here, so that you'll remember when I brought you out of Egypt, I brought you from where you'd been for the nation, had been for a couple hundred years, and you wandered in the desert and lived in temporary dwellings. And that's important. God wanted the children of Israel to never forget that He brought them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. And that was a type. It was a representation of the Christian's journey. We were called out of a way of life of sin, which Egypt sometimes is used to represent sin, and we're on a journey through this present evil world to the Kingdom of God. God wanted Israel back then, and He wants us today to deeply understand and think about how temporary this physical life is. And that we are merely pilgrims, as the term says, sojourners in this life and in this place. And you can find references to that throughout the Bible. I'm not going to give the scriptural references, because I've got several here, but it's interesting how many times God's servants, in writing the scripture, referred to how this life was temporary.

This is one I did find interesting in Genesis 47, if you want to look this up later. But remember when Joseph had been down in Egypt for a while, and God brought him out of prison and used him to save Egypt by storing up the grain during the seven plentiful years, and then they had food during the seven years of famine. Joseph discovered his brothers when they came to buy food, and the second trip down, he revealed himself and said, Okay, go get Dad or go get Jacob, and bring all the rest of the family down, because we've got five more years of famine.

I'm giving a longer version of this than I wanted, but what I'm getting is, when they did come down, Joseph chose a couple of his brothers and his father to go meet Pharaoh face-to-face. My suspicion is that Pharaoh was probably young at that time, because he met Jacob, and he looked at him and said, How old are you?

You know, if you just read in the scripture, it could be kind of bland, but I had just envisioned this kid looking at this wrinkled old fellow who's been in the desert, and he said, How old are you? And Jacob said, Few and Evil have been the days of my life. And at that point, I think he was about 130 years old, but even at 130, he said, Few and Evil have been the days of my life, and haven't lived as long as my father's. There's a section in 1 Chronicles 29, a reverse, where life is described as a short pilgrimage, and 2 Samuel 14 verse 14, life is described as like water spilled on the ground.

It's just, psh, and it's gone. And the book of Job is the champion for references to how short life is. As I said, I'm just going to give references here. It could make an interesting study to just look them up. And chapter 7, he says, Our days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. And chapter 8, our days are like a shadow. And chapter 9, our days are swifter than a runner. And 14, man is few of days and full of trouble. That same chapter also describes life as a fading flower, a fleeting shadow. Psalm 78 includes the lines, We are like a breath that passes away.

Psalm 89, remember how short my time is. Isaiah says, we all fade like a leaf. And one more, if this isn't enough. James chapter 4, he wrote, What is your life? It's even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. God wants us to always remember that we're mortal. Because when we've been living, well, actually, I think it's when you're younger, it seems like life goes on forever.

It seemed like when I was 20, I thought, man, I've been around a long time, and I've got a long time left. When you get into your 60s or 70s, I'm guessing, you think, where did it go? I'm starting to feel that way now, and I'm still not to 60 yet. But God wants us to know this life is temporary. It's transitory. Death will sweep it all away. All of our accomplishments, all of our joys. And we'll see, you know, the book of Ecclesiastes says, well, it was just vanity. And the book of Ecclesiastes repeats that over and over again. So this lesson is reinforced in our minds when we travel to the Feast of Tabernacles and we live in temporary dwellings.

Once a year for a week, we live in a temporary place to remind us that our life is temporary. And we actually, you know, that portrays the temporary nature. And after living in temporary dwellings for eight days, we can understand more that we're merely pilgrims, preparing for something more permanent. Because I don't want to build this all up and say, well, we're all going to die. It's all gone. No, it's that we're looking this forward to something so much better.

And I wanted to give some encouragement. I know, and I don't know, I think most of us here are traveling to Cincinnati or other places. Some will be staying behind. And I know some of our brethren watching in Prestonsburg won't be able to travel for the Feast. But I want to encourage you to try to do, to have some type of temporariness to your dwelling during those seven days, just to help reinforce that lesson.

I learned this partly when I was an Ambassador College student. What they would do is ask us every other year to stay on campus, because the campuses were fee sites back then, and they needed workers. And Big Sandy, they needed somebody to stay and operate the campus, Moselawn. My job in Big Sandy was to drive the garbage truck. I think I've mentioned that here in a sermon before, haven't I? Okay. So I won't go in and tell you all about that.

So what we would often do, while I was going to say the year that I stayed in Pasadena, I was working in the Watts office. So they needed a crew of people there to answer the phones. But many of us would switch dorms with someone. Say, okay, I'm not going to stay in my same bed, even though I'm not going. I'm going to go switch, and I'll sleep in somebody else's dorm. I'm in a temporary dwelling. And we'd switch over. Do you know the Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, I understand they still do this, they literally go, they get branches of trees and build a little hut out in their courtyard, or in some cases they have a flat roof, and they'll make a habit of eating their meals out there. So I thought, you know, you could do it, you know, you could pitch a tent in your living room if you wanted. You could say, well, I'm going to sleep on the couch. Or if you have a guest bedroom in your house, sleep there. Or make sure you eat your meals in a different place. It's worth doing something to remind yourself of that it's the feast of tabernacles, of temporary dwellings.

So, you know, if you normally eat your meals on the couch, go sit at the kitchen table. Or if you normally sit at the kitchen table, maybe get one of those TV trays, and there are ways to do it. But that helps us to come to understand, as I said, that we're merely pilgrims. We're preparing, though, for an eternal inheritance. We're looking forward to something that's going to be permanent, just like our forefathers. Let's turn to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11, we read some of this on atonement, but it bears reading again to remind us that we didn't just come to this understanding. It's been part of God's plan and part of what He revealed to His people long ago. Hebrews 11 will start in verse 8.

God made Abraham's entire life, well, the entire second half of his life, represent the same lesson that we have just during the Feast of Tabernacles. By faith He dwelt in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with Him of the same promise. For He waited for a city which has foundations, and whose builder and maker is God. So the emphasis wasn't just being on tents, but that He was looking forward to a permanent dwelling. He was looking forward to the city that God would build. Go to verse 13, if you will. This refers to some others where He says, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. In their vision, they saw those promises out there and were assured of them. They embraced them, but confessed that for the meantime, I'm adding these words here, but confessed that they were strangers in pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things, as you say, I'm a stranger in a pilgrim, declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And that's all of us. We're still looking forward to that homeland that God is going to build. That's why I say our citizenship is in heaven. And we're citizens of the kingdom of God, waiting for that kingdom to be established on this earth. It says in verse 15, of course, Truly, if they had called to mind the country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. You know, Abraham could have said, I'm sick of this. I'm going to go back to Hurran, where it was nice. And likewise, some of us, we could go to the feast and say, well, I don't like living in a hotel. You know, you could pack up and go home, but then you're losing sight of what's ahead. In verse 16, now they desire better. They desire a better. That is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He's prepared a city for them.

And I said, we want to focus on this meaning of the feast.

Now, these spiritual promises weren't available to most of the ancient Israelites. You know, God didn't put His spirit in most of them, but He still had them act out. He commanded them to keep this festival as a representation, as a lesson for all of us.

Just like us, they were pilgrims and sojourners. And we are, too, in a sense.

I've got it underlined in red ink. We are temporary. This world is temporary. And I think all the stuff we take for granted, our clothes will wear out. You know, our houses are going to deteriorate. You know, human beings get old and die. And even the Feast of Tabernacles is temporary. And that's why it makes it a perfect example of the Millennium.

And it's interesting. In some ways, we remember the Millennium is also a temporary thing. That's going to be one of the points in the sermon, because I'm speaking on the 7th day down in Gatlinburg. The Millennium will come to an end, but then something else comes after it that's even more permanent. So we celebrate the Feast of this Temperariness. But when human beings are born into the kingdom and family of God, they'll have an eternal home. Or I should say, we'll have an eternal home when we're born into the kingdom and family of God. That'll be the ultimate fulfillment in the new heaven coming to earth. As it says in the Book of Revelation, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. God makes all things new. Let's go to 2 Corinthians. If you will, 2 Corinthians 5. And we'll begin verse 1.

Paul, I think, makes a lesson of this imagery very clear here. He says, We know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed. Now, he says, earthly house and tent. He's talking about our physical bodies. We're living in what he calls an earthly house. We're made out of the dust of the ground. Or a tent, like a temporary dwelling. If it's destroyed, we have a building from God. A house not made with hands. Eternal in the heavens. And for in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation, which is from heaven. So we're looking forward to the time when God will give us spirit bodies. If indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. Interesting analogy. For we who are in this tent, in the flesh, groan, being burdened. Not because we want to be unclothed. None of us wants really to...we don't want to die. That's...God built into us a survival mechanism. We want to live. So it's not that we're just desiring to end our life, but as it says here, to be further clothed. That immor...further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. And that's what we're looking forward to. Not that we hate our physical bodies or want our life to end, but we want the thing that's even better. And that's something exciting when we go to the Feast of Tabernacles. You know, we're going to rejoice and have the best of things, but we're looking forward to something even better than that.

And we're reminded, speaking of tabernacling, that temporary dwelling. The first chapter of John, remember, starts off in the beginning with the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And it says, later on, it says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So Jesus Christ left being God and became flesh and dwelt. The same word for dwell is the word that's often translated tabernacled. He came and tabernacled with human beings. And just as Jesus Christ is the Creator God of the Old Testament, came and tabernacled within the nation of Judah, at His second coming, He'll again tabernacle or dwell with His people for that thousand years, and then completing what the Feast of Tabernacles symbols. Jesus Christ will return as we know He'll come on that white horse, and He'll dwell with all mankind, those who are left.

So the Feast of Tabernacles is an annual reminder of our temporary state, a reminder that we're seeking a homeland, just as those who have gone before have.

This Feast will be celebrating that this short human pilgrimage, this fleeting life, is not all there is. And it can be pretty good at times, but it's not all there is. We can indeed receive God's precious gift of eternal life in a permanent home.

Of course, we know that even though we know it's a gift from God, as Romans 6, 23, yeah, 6, 23, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, He does have requirements. He wants us to learn to live His way that have to be met. So we should also, during the Feast, it's good to take time to think about what we should be accomplishing in our lives.

How are we measuring up to living by God's way? That's part of having a spiritual feast. We're not having to be going to our jobs and working just to keep up. We don't even have to clean the house. As Mr. Warren said, you're busy with so many things. When you put all that away because you're in a temporary dwelling, you have more time to think about where we've been, where we're going, and how am I doing on the journey.

We want to make the most progress we can because we don't know how long we have. It's funny, I've heard several people mention the same thing as Mr. Warren, that how many more feasts are we going to have in this earth? Events seem to be speeding up. We're on the verge of war in the Middle East. We're on the verge of catastrophe in other ways. Each one of us knows how far we've traveled on our pilgrimage so far, but we don't know how long we have left. I jotted down notes for an analogy I heard a minister make this year before. I don't remember who I first heard said it, but he said our life is sort of like an hourglass. Remember the old Days of Our Lives TV show? Not that I watch soap operas very often, but didn't it used to actually show an hourglass and a sand through the hourglass? So something, the days of our lives. But our lives are like an hourglass where the top part is blacked out. So we can look and we can see how much has already gone through, but we don't know how much sand has left. And you know, maybe we're down to the last few grains, and I don't mean to be morbid and scary. Just thinking, if you knew you were down to the end, you'd straighten up your life in some ways. Or another analogy came to mind is, I like this one too, the ink pen. Most of you have a pen there. How many times it, usually when you're using one of these, it's got some mileage on it. You've been using it a while. This is one I really like, which scares me because as soon as I decide I really like one, I'll be going along and suddenly it's out of ink. And you never know. Don't you think they would have come up with a way to put a meter or something so you know when your pen's going to run out? But in that way, it is kind of like life. You don't know when you're going to run out of ink. Maybe that's not the best analogy. I don't know. It's a little less elaborate than the hourglass one. But we can be assured, no matter how much time we have left, if we allow God to lead us and empower us, help us to grow and overcome, then He'll be leading us towards that permanent home that we're focusing on. He's getting us ready. He puts us through trials and tests and we often don't understand them at the time. As I was talking to Mr. Shoemaker before, he's going through some horrible thing. And then years later, he might look back and say, that was getting me ready for this, or getting me ready to help teach this for... Or I was doing a service to someone that I didn't even realize at the time. And we want to focus on what we know we're going to inherit. Let's turn to Romans 8, if you will.

Romans 8 will begin in verse 18. For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation, that is, the physical creation, was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope. This is a way of saying, God made all these things physical. And if you understand the physics concept of entropy, things are running down. It's decaying. And it said it wasn't willing. Of course, the creation, most things don't have a mind. Physical objects don't have a mind, but nothing that's physical wants to run down. But it's all built up waiting for sons of God to be born in His kingdom. That's the purpose for all of that.

In verse 22, we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs. Not only that, but we also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, eagerly awaiting the adoption, or that word could be translated, sonship, or becoming a son of God. The redemption of our body. That's what we're looking for.

And when we're groaning, and sometimes literally, we're going through a difficult trial. We're in pain, or we're suffering. And it doesn't have to be physical pain. Sometimes emotional hurting can be there too. But it's good if we keep sight of what we're looking forward to. Paul makes the analogy of a woman in labor, where it's pretty painful, but you're looking forward to what's going to happen afterwards.

It's good to keep sight of that. We can think of some who used to keep the feast with us, who have gone away and left, left this way of life. And we're disappointed at that. And people, they get blinded. You know, it's not the first time in our era. I think back, if you studied the history in the early centuries of the first... How did I want to say that?

Early centuries after Christ died, in the beginning of the church. I'm still not saying it very well, but so many people had been brought into the church and were living this way of life, and they kept the feast days. They were all excited. But somehow, over time, the church became infiltrated, and false teachers arose. And over time, they didn't want to look Jewish and keep the Saturday Sabbath, because the Romans were persecuting them for that. And so they adopted Sunday.

Hey, we won't be persecuted if we come to church on Sunday. And they dropped the Holy Days, including the Feast of Tabernacles, and adopted the holidays that most of the world keeps today. You know, the Saturnalia became Christmas, and they're trying to remember what they called Easter before. But, you know, those holidays were substituted, and they don't have the deep meaning. They don't reveal God's plan the way the true Holy Days do.

So it's important for us to keep these days and keep in mind the purpose. Why did God give them to us? That's part of how we'll have a spiritual feast. And that's not to say that we don't rejoice in the physical things. We still do.

One way—yeah.

One—and in fact, one important way to keep the feast is to rejoice. As we read earlier, we're commanded to rejoice. We don't have to go and sit in our rooms and just think about how temporary life is.

Yeah, that just reminded me of a story of my first feast. I don't have that in my notes, but— I was 11 years old when I first kept the Feast of Tabernacles. And my grandmother had been in the church for two or three years before that, but her first husband wasn't in the church and didn't let her travel—go to the feast. And so after he passed away, which was an unfortunate event, but it freed her up. She could travel to the feast, and my mother started attending during that time. So we were going to go to our first feast. We went down to the Lake of the Ozarks, in a big metal tabernacle building. And building up to it, my grandmother, she'd read the articles and talked about how wonderful the feast is. Can you imagine a 10 and 11 year old boy? I was thinking, how are we going to get to go ride go-karts? I saw the brochures from the Ozarks. They had go-karts and arcades, and we're going to eat in restaurants and all this stuff. But that year at the feast was one of those years where you had the first Holy Day, and then a day off, and then the next day is a Sabbath. And so we had church, church, church. Now I'm 11 years old. I'm saying, I thought we were going to come and have fun. All we're going to do is go on to church. As a matter of fact, one of the ways I finally realized I was growing up, and I don't remember which year it was, but it was, I'm trying to think if I was already in college, I was, this should have happened to me younger, but, you know, some of this takes a while, but I was looking forward to the feast, and I was thinking, wow, we're going to hear some really good messages. And I stopped them. What? I'm looking forward to the messages more than, you know, or as much as the other stuff. I must be growing up. But, you know, we want to have that, God gives us a mix. He tells us to keep that second tithe, and go and spend it on the things we really want. Only a relatively few people who've lived on this earth have had this knowledge of what it's really all about. They've come and gone without realizing why they were born. But this feast picture is a time when everybody's going to have that. When everyone will understand God's purpose and plan. And, of course, everyone will be keeping the feast. Let's turn to Zechariah, Chapter 14. Because what I want to say is, there's two ways to rejoice. As I became mature, I said I was going to rejoice in the eating and drinking and riding, I still will ride go-karts.

As a matter of fact, that's one of the things Sue likes about Gatlinburg. I think we missed it last year because we didn't get a chance when we could get away. But this year, I think we're probably going to go ride go-karts. But in Zechariah 14, we're looking for the time when everybody's going to be enjoying this. And we can have what I was leading to is the mental joy that comes from understanding. We're going to rejoice in the happiness of sharing this knowledge. Zechariah 14, beginning in verse 16, It will come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, and keep the Feast of Tabernacles. That's every nation. They're all going to go up and keep the Feast. It'll be whichever the families of the earth don't come to Jerusalem to worship the king and the Lord of hosts. On them, there will be no rain. So God says, eventually they're all going to, but if some of them are hesitant at first, I'll close the tap and they won't get any rain. And it goes on picking out Egypt because apparently they'll be particularly stubborn about it. But they won't have any rain, but eventually they will show up and they'll keep it. And this knowledge that we're going to be keeping it and knowing that everybody else is going to get to join in this great destiny can help us to rejoice.

Let's go back to Deuteronomy 16, if you will. Deuteronomy 16. Now, we go there every holy day, and we often start in verse 16, but let's go back to verse 13. Here's where some of my message overlaps a little with Mr. Warren's, but I don't have a problem with that. Deuteronomy 16 and verse 13.

You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles, seven days, when you've gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress, and you shall rejoice in your feast. You and your son and your daughter and your male servant, your female servant, the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless, and the widow who was in your gates. Everybody gets to rejoice. I said we're looking forward to the time when everybody in the planet, here at least, he says, make sure everybody in your family comes and rejoices. Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Eternal chooses, because the Eternal your God will bless you. He will bless you. And all your produce and all the work of your hands so that you surely rejoice. Sorry, I was looking for a will in there. Translation struck me as awkward, but God's going to give us blessings. He said you're going to surely rejoice. That's his command to us. And the word rejoice means to be filled with joy. Now, we can be joyful over physical things, and I'm anticipating that sometimes when you're looking forward to something new or exciting, like I said, if you go to Outback and you're looking at the menu, and of course if you go into Outback and not only look at the menu, but you're smelling what's coming out of the kitchen, and you're rejoicing even before you take that first bite. Now, that's a physical level of rejoicing, and God wants us to do that.

But he also wants us to have the godly joy that comes in our hearts through his Holy Spirit. Let's go back to Romans. Romans 14. While you're turning there, I'll just mention, of course, Galatians 5, verse 22, lists the fruits of the Spirit, and the second one on the list is joy. When God gives you a Spirit, you have love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, meekness, temperance, goodness, faith. What am I missing? I'm looking at Stephen because he was going along with me. I'm supposed to have those memorized, but I forget. But the number two on the list right after love is joy. And then let's read Romans 14, beginning in verse 17.

He's saying, the kingdom of God is not just about eating and drinking. Not that there's anything wrong with eating and drinking. I think it struck me once, I'd never thought of it this way until I heard a minister. It might have been Mr. Don Hooser pointed this out, that God could have made food that keeps us alive but doesn't taste like anything. He could have made food just not have taste, or it all tastes the same.

But he didn't. He made it wonderful. He made spicy chilies, and he made sweet stuff, and just all the stuff that we really like. I'm looking forward to it. One of the things I never get except that the feast is I'll usually buy a bottle of single malt scotch. Because I developed a taste, and then when I went to Scotland, I discovered there's like 2,000 different varieties.

I thought maybe I'd get to try them all, but I don't think I'll live that long. Except in the kingdom of God, maybe. But God wants us to rejoice at both levels, on the physical and the spiritual. And rejoice in the spiritual food that we're going to be getting. And that's another thing Mr. Warren brought out. We're going to be going to services every day and being taught, and we can take that in. And we should, as they say, sometimes drink in the deep meaning, like a cow when it goes to the trough. It's amazing how much water they can drink. I've never been around cows a lot, but when I worked in Big Sandy for the water plant, I learned how much water they drink because we had to make sure the water was running to fill up the troughs.

We're going to get a lot of detail and instruction about the kingdom of God from men who've spent a lot of time thinking about it and planning their messages. And we can rejoice over what's coming. Think about what a world it's going to be when we'll be delivered from all the evils that air today. There's going to be freedom. Freedom is a wonderful concept. I know Mr. Bumgardner, I think, spoke on freedom recently in Prestonsburg. It's a topic you could go on and on about.

But freedom from fear, from worry, reminds me of the paintings that Norman Rockwell painted for World War II. He called it the Four Freedoms. We're going to have a time when no more war, no war, no disease, no more starvation. It's going to be a time of great peace and prosperity. And you and I will have a chance to help bring that about. Talk about being filled with joy. I mean, when you're able to do something for someone that they really appreciate, you know, it makes you feel good.

Think when you get to help Jesus Christ bring an end to war and bring plenty and peace to everyone. That's going to be fabulous. It's also going to be a time of good, loving relationships. And it's worth thinking about. I heard this pointed out recently that to a large degree, our happiness in life depends on our relationships with other people. And I guess if you just think about it, that becomes obvious, but I'm not one of those that gets that very much.

But, yeah, how good our relationships with other people are determines a lot of how happy we are. And in the world tomorrow, we're going to have good, fulfilling relationships because there won't be distrust. There won't be lying or stealing. People will care about each other, treat each other properly. And, of course, Satan the devil, who is the instigator of all the sins, who puts bad thoughts in our mind and lies to people, he'll be taken out of the way.

Let's read some of the traditional scriptures that remind us of how good this life is going to be. If you go to Isaiah, as I said, Isaiah is sometimes referred to as the Shakespeare of the Bible because he worded things so well. They're so poetic and beautiful. Isaiah 11, I'm sorry, I should have given you a chapter. Isaiah 11, I want to go to several of the very well-known Feast of Tabernacle Scriptures or Millennium, Kingdom of God Scriptures, we could call them.

And remind ourselves of why we can rejoice. And these are spiritual things. None of this has to do with us eating a steak or drinking a good scotch, but it still is a joyful thing. We'll start in verse 6.

How wonderful is that? Let's go to chapter 25.

Chapter 25, and we'll begin in verse 6.

And this mountain, and in this mountain, that is, in this kingdom, this mountain usually represents the Lord of Hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the leaves, of fat things full of morrow and of well-refined wines on the leaves.

What I wanted to point out there, we're looking forward next week to having all this, but it says here, He'll make this for all people. The best that we're going to enjoy at the Feast of Tabernacles, God's planning to give that to everyone that's alive. And He will destroy on this mountain the surface of the covering cast over the people, the veil that's spread over all the nations. That's symbolic of ignorance. People have like a veil in front of them. And they can pick up this book and read it, and they just don't get it. Because Mr. Armstrong used to say, the world is held captive. Satan has blinded people so they don't understand. But God's going to take away those blinders. How exciting is that to think everybody's going to know and understand? And you won't have to try to explain to someone what you believe and then look at you like you're crazy. Or explain to a boss why you need time off or a teacher. In verse 8, he'll swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. I often like to turn to Revelation 21 where it says that, but John wasn't the first one to write that. Isaiah talked about God wiping away all tears. The rebuke of His people He'll take away from all the earth, for the eternal has spoken. Let's go to chapter 35. Chapter 35 will begin at the start.

And when I was reviewing that this morning, I thought of Naomi Ruggles. She's had three knee replacement surgeries and one or two of her hips. But she reads this and thinks of strengthening the feeble knees. How great it will be to be able to stand and walk and not have any pain. Say to those who are fearful hearted, be strong. Don't fear. And fear is a big thing in this world today. There are a lot of people that have anxiety attacks or have legitimate fears because they live in unsafe places. Behold, your God will come with a vengeance. With the recompense of God, He'll come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened. What a wonderful thing. And when I read that, I thought of Mrs. Huckel. She had cataract surgery recently. She's telling me how slowly it was taking some time to get back to sea. When God's kingdom is established, nobody's going to be blind or have trouble seeing, which I'm looking forward to. I had the LASIK surgery several years ago, but I find that I need reading glasses all the time now, and even stuff at a distance is getting rough. The ears of the deaf will be unstopped. The lame shall leap like a deer. The tongue of the dumb shall sing. And waters will burst forth in the wilderness. Streams in the desert. The parched ground will become like a pool in the thirsty land springs of water, and the habitation of jackals where each lay. There shall be grass with reeds and rushes. A highway will be there on a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks on this road, I love this, although a fool shall not go astray. God's going to make it so even an idiot can't get lost or get in trouble when you're traveling. I'm wondering if that's what he meant. It says even a fool won't go astray. It could mean, well, I know it says a fool. I better watch what I was going to say. I was just thinking of my wife can't read a map. Some people have that spatial thinking. So she's not a fool, but she can get lost because she just can't read a map. I thought it's going to be, when God wants to give you directions somewhere, nobody's going to get lost. Nobody will miss out.

Let's go to one more section, Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61, and we'll read starting in verse 4.

I mentioned, interesting, we're looking forward to this, and we're filled with joy. As I said, I got the speaking assignment on the seventh day of the feast, and I've got a particular angle I want to bring out, but I thought, I'm going to read several of these verses then and talk about how we'll be giving them in past tense. Now we're looking about saying, this will happen, this will happen. Think, when we get to year 900 of the millennium, we'll be saying, well, that's been taken care of, and it's been that way for a long time, and people will just grow up, and their lives will be that way. Isaiah 61, verse 4. They shall rebuild the old ruins. They'll raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. So the wreck of this world today is going to be fixed. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the forerunners shall be your plowmen and your vine dressers. But you shall be named priests of the eternal. And priests then, we won't have to, I don't imagine, we'll have to worry about physical sacrifice. There's some discussion of that, but remember, one of the roles of priests is to educate. How much we're going to have to be, or we're going to get to be, teaching people. That's an exciting thought. They shall call you the servants of our God, and you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, in their glory you shall boast. Instead of your name, instead of your shame, sorry, you shall have double honor. Instead of confusion, they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore, in their land, they shall possess double. Everyone's going to have double. You're going to have more than enough of whatever you need. Everlasting joy. We're talking about rejoicing. Everlasting joy shall be theirs. Wow. When we're at the feast, we want to remember that. We're picturing a time of joyfulness and happiness. When we enjoy fine meals, when we enjoy the activities, when we engage in loving relationships with everyone, when we can spend time with people and our families that we don't have time to, we're picturing a time when the world is going to be that way. We want to rejoice in that moment, in the promise of that future. And God has given us, there's a place in the New Testament, now the Scripture escapes me, where it calls the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, an earnest or a deposit. He's given us a taste of that now. But after the devastation of this age that's coming, there's going to be all this devastation and then things are going to be rebuilt and it will get so much better. And we'll get to watch. And I think it's exciting to think we're going to see people whose lives were ruined. And just think, if there's nuclear war, if there's famine, pestilence and disease, those who live in the millennium, we'll get to watch them come out of the fear and leave those things behind and rebuild a new life. And we'll get to help them do it. What a happy thing! All of God's Holy Days are filled with meaning. And they portray His plan and they reveal His great purpose. I'm not going to turn there, but in Exodus chapter 34, one of the names that's given for the Feast of Tabernacles is the Feast of In-Gathering. And that section talks about the early harvest at the Feast of Pentecost. And then it says the Feast of In-Gathering at the end of the year. Now, just as in ancient Israel, He used the harvest to portray... He borrowed from their agricultural cycle to explain His plan. So we can look and say, well, God is harvesting a few of us now. And that's easy to picture when so few of us are here at church today. But the Feast of In-Gathering was when everybody that's alive is going to be involved. God is going to open their minds and fill them with His Holy Spirit. That's what this Feast pictures.

Time to pause them. I'm getting ready to shift gears.

I want to say, in addition to keeping this clearly in mind... Remember, our theme is talking about having a spiritual feast. If we keep those things in mind, that'll help us. But we can also make sure to have a more spiritual feast... If we make it a time when we give... We give of ourselves... Not necessarily give stuff, although we can do that... But give of ourselves to God and to others. I want to make that point.

Keeping this feast gives us an opportunity to come together with a lot of people. And we're going to learn about how we'll live in the world tomorrow.

We'll see and experience how a godly society can operate. And with all of us close together, it'll give us certainly an opportunity to give of ourselves to others... To serve others. But before I talk about that, I think it's important to talk about giving ourselves to God.

And I say, well, how do you do that? God already owns us, which He does. But so how can we give of ourselves to God?

Well, the most important thing I want to mention is maintaining close contact with Him. Stay in close contact with God.

The Feast of Tabernacles is not a time to let down on your prayer and Bible study habits. And nobody ever plans to do that. I don't want to impugn anybody or insinuate something. But, you know, you get so busy and caught up, it can be easy to not do your normal habits. And I know, especially if I'm in a hotel, it's difficult for me. My normal habit is I'm usually the first one up in the house, and I go and the coffee pot's on, and I drink my coffee and I read my Bible for a half hour or so. And so it's such a habit that it just happens without me thinking about it. But if I'm in a different place and location, it can be easy to get out of that habit. And unless I make time, I might not read my Bible the same way.

It's also a time when we can study more, or we should study more. That's another thing it's hard to make time for, but we want to do that. And we want to make time to pray more. Make sure that we are taking that time to pray. And you might say there's more things to think about to pray for. You know, you'll see people around us, and of course, we know people are traveling. So even now, I hope all of us are praying for the safety and protection of the families traveling. Praying for the feast sites, you know, the locations to be set up properly, and for the sound systems to work properly. Certainly pray for the ministers who are preparing their messages. I've got an appreciation for that that I never had several years ago. You know, we don't get this stuff on our own, and I think it makes a difference when members are praying for us. And of course, you're going to meet people, and you find out about things going on. So you get more things, as I said, that you can think to pray for. And also, in some ways at the feast, you can be given food for thought, for meditation.

I mentioned Bible study. One of the things I know some people do, and I haven't always had a good habit of it at the feast, and I want to start doing it more, is taking notes during the sermon and then going back and reviewing. But along with that, thinking about it. What did he have to say? How does that work? You can spend a little time turning it over in your head. Now, that's not to say, only do that, and don't go ride go-karts.

Go ride the go-karts, but spend some time with prayer, Bible study, and meditation. Those are important things, and you don't want to get them backwards. And I'll tell on myself, I remember one feast in particular where I learned that lesson. It was my first feast overseas. So you might think, you know, it's exciting, a different place. I got to go to Italy. We were in Sabaudia that year, and several of my friends that I usually volunteered with at summer camp were there.

I think it was only about the second or third year of camp heritage. So this is going back a few years. And like I said, several of us went there to Sabaudia, Italy. And you're there in one hotel, and we wanted to spend as much time together as possible. And we got on the veranda in the evening, and we could order drinks and watch the surf on the beach and go play. And, you know, we just spent a lot of time doing things like that. Later on, I realized, boy, I was burning the candle at both ends.

I was going to say, if you want to be able to pray and study and meditate, you have to be getting enough sleep. I guess the thing that brought this to mind is because I shared a room with three other fellas. You know, I was still single, as before I'd even met Sue. But I think I might have met her. Anyways, what I was getting at is I didn't know them ahead of time. Since I was a single guy and I applied to go there late, they just put me in a room with these other fellas. Well, the way it turned out, towards the end of the feast, I happened to come in the room to change clothes, and I bumped into one of them and the fella said, oh, you're here! We've been taking bets on whether you actually were here at the feast. Because we go to bed and your bed is empty. And one thing I'll say, I volunteered to be in the choir that year. So no matter how late I stayed up with my friends, I still had to get up early and go to choir rehearsal before church. So I'd get a little longer to go off. I'd be bleary-eyed and I'd go down. Of course, doing that instead of taking time to study and such. But I said the fellas would see my empty bed when they went to bed. When they woke up, my bed was empty again. I said, is this guy really here? It wasn't my most spiritual feast. It wasn't a disaster. I mean, it wasn't a non-spiritual feast, but I've tried to be more balanced since then. And so, when I encourage all of you, I can say I'm speaking to myself as well.

And the people of God need to maintain daily contact with God, for our own sake. And also to remember for the people in the communities who will be watching us. People notice when that group of people comes in. And when there's a large group of people who are practicing humility and patience and kindness, it stands out. People notice. I heard a minister once talk about, say that there was a waitress at a feast site who served so many church members and saw how different they were. She said, I want to find out about this. And so she asked and got some of the literature and eventually was baptized into the church. God used members attending the feast as a means to call this woman. I was sharing with Sue, I think we were talking about the old days and why are you at the feast. I guess we were talking about planning the teen activity. That's one of my duties down in Gatlinburg. And I actually got a group reservation at the Golf and Games place. Oh, I think I talked to the blood sows. They're going there with us. But you know, you sometimes think, what's it going to be like taking a bunch of teenagers to this place? Well, we shouldn't be worried. I don't remember which year it was, but it was the feast in Norfolk. And I was a teenager. The teen activity that year was they reserved a skating rink just for our group. And we probably had two or three hundred teens. We filled the place up. You know, skating rinks can be... well, doesn't anybody go to skating rinks anymore? Before I talk about you know what they're like. Well anyways, we had a good activity. What we were surprised by was... I'm not sure if it was the next day or the day after we had an announcement in services. So and so the owner of the skating rink contacted the festival coordinator. And he said, he wanted to compliment him on the conduct of our teens. He said, I'm so impressed with this group that from now on, any teen that comes and shows a Y.O.U. card... This is back when we had... Y.O.U. was our teen group and we had actually identification cards. I still wonder about that, but... He said, anybody that comes and shows this card will get into my skating rink free. Not only during the feast, but anytime through the rest of the year. He said, for the rest of your lives, you show that card you're in free. He was that impressed. So that's something it shows. People are watching. They notice. If we're setting the right example. Now they'll notice if we're setting the wrong example. Say, well, this is supposed to be a church group. I don't hear stories of that very often, thankfully. But the impact we can have as a group can be greater than any number of magazines we publish, perhaps. Or than having a TV program on the air or the websites, because it's personal. People meet you and they experience what it's like. That's worthwhile. It's a living testimony to God's way.

So the other thing we want to do, we want to give of ourselves to God by these things. But we do want to give to others. And first and foremost, we want to give to the others in our families. The Feast of the Tabernacles is a time when families can be together. And you don't have to clean the house. You don't have to go to your job. A lot of those tensions are off so you can make time for special activities. It's great. You get to do those things. But also our brothers and sisters in Christ. In that sense, we're all families. We're all spiritual family. And so we want to give to each other in that way.

Now, it helps. Matter of fact, I've heard as long as I can remember, they say you'll have a better feast if you volunteer and serve. And I think people going to Jekyll Island, I remember we got that long list. They need the people to volunteer for everything at Jekyll and in Panama City. So volunteering where there's a listed need is a good thing. But it's also not bad to just find a way to serve.

In some ways, I think that can be more fulfilling because you instigated it yourself. You just find something and say, oh, here's a way I can serve. And as we've heard before, some of the small things can make a difference. If you see, like we used to have a disabled section when we had large auditoriums where the people with wheelchairs could go. And I was, to be honest, this wasn't my thing, but I'd noticed some people who would go over and sit down and talk to people. Because they said, well, they can't go mingle in the crowd, so I'm going to go talk to them. That was a way of serving. You know, just giving a smile for someone, of course, and those who travel sending postcards to those back home. I didn't know how big a deal that was until my grandmother got aged enough that she couldn't even come to weekly services. She would get those postcards during the week. Well, usually I wouldn't be there because I'd be at the feast, but I'd come back and she'd go, look at all the postcards I got, and she was excited about it. So it makes a difference for people, and I know that firsthand. I'm reminded of that. It's interesting how I'm looking at it now. It's a couple of years. It's only been two years. It seems like it's been forever. Sue and I had our feast site in Grove City. I say, Sue and I, it wasn't just the two of us, but she was due right at feast time. And the doctor told her, I don't want you going anywhere. And she said, I don't want to go anywhere. Not that she was in danger, but when you're nine months pregnant, you don't necessarily want to travel. Beforehand, I was really debating, should I travel? Should I stay here? Can I go someplace where I could get home in a moment's notice if she calls me and says I'm going into labor? And I'm glad one of the elders in Columbus said, if you stay here, there are so many brethren. And actually, there's nearly 20 brethren who couldn't travel that year, either because they'd been out of work and had no money, or more often for health reasons. He said, you could serve them. I said, oh, that's not a bad idea. And so that's what we did. I think you've heard me tell the story before. We rearranged the furniture in our house and hooked up the computer to our new TV, and we telecast services. And we took everyone out to eat the first... Matter of fact, we took people out a couple of times, because we had all the normal second tithes. We just had a baby coming. So we were able to serve people, but it felt really good because nobody told us to do it. There wasn't a sign-up list for having services in your house. And we've been looking back, saying, you know, that was one of our best feasts. We really enjoyed that. And as I said, I think largely because of the chance to serve others.

We're going to have material prosperity. There are other ways, of course, you can serve by giving gifts to people. But spending time with people is one of the best things you can do. Inviting people to come to dinner or just sitting and talking.

But of course, as I said, don't make service something... We never want to make our service something so great that we start neglecting our families and spending the time with them. Because that's one of the most important things.

And our service to others when we're at the feast is a perfect way to practice what we're going to be doing during the millennium.

Funny when it's written down, you think it'll be easy to say, but... During the millennium, we're going to be in positions to serve. We'll be the ones making up the sign-up list. Of course, we'll be spirit beings, then, working to help people. But now is a good time to practice. When we give to others, then we're practicing what we want to do, and that'll fill us with joy. We're going to really enjoy that feast. So I want to remind us, we want to keep sight of our goal, our purpose in the feast. The feast pictures us as temporary sojourners. We're awaiting that kingdom. We want to keep our eyes fixed on the goal. Seeking God's kingdom first. Remember, you know, John... not John 3, 16, Matthew 6, 33. Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. He'll take care of everything else. So we're looking forward to being in God's family. The kingdom of God we're seeking is going to feature so many wonderful things. Now, no more bodies, subject to injury, no aging, disease, or death, no more weariness or tiredness. Probably by the time I get to the hotel tonight, I'm going to be thankful for that. We won't be limited to our five senses. Think of the mind we're going to have. And God is able to open up and let us understand things that we just can't. I mean, I can't remember... I'm getting worse and worse about not remembering things. But won't it be great when that's not a problem because we won't have a physical brain to deal with? And God will open up understanding of the universe, how physics works. I'm looking forward to that, but also to history. You know, how much do you want to talk to people and find out what was it like back then? But you know what I'm really looking forward to also is talking to God and asking about my own life. Why did you let me go through that? Or, you know, what happened? What was going on when these things happened? As I said, learning how many times an angel stepped in and saved you that you didn't know about. I'm looking forward... the millennium is going to be a chance when we can do that. I think... I don't know... Jesus is going to be really busy, but hopefully we get some time with Him.

Of course, I also mentioned, as I said earlier, our happiness as human beings tends to depend a lot on the quality of our relationships with other people. That'll probably be true when we're spirits also. You know, our happiness will be dependent on our relationships with other people then, but we'll probably have good relationships. Have you ever asked yourself, how am I going to stay happy forever? The eternity is a long time. Well, we'll probably do it the same way God does. By having fulfilling relationships and enjoyable fun activities. We'll be doing stuff. We'll have opportunities to learn, to create. And that is to sit and talk with people. Let's go to Psalm 16. I haven't turned to a scripture in a little while. So we think about living forever and being in God's kingdom.

There was a time when I was a teenager when boredom actually was something I started to fear. Because you get bored easy when you're a teenager. It's funny. I don't know. It just goes away when you get older because there's no end of stuff you got to do. But I stopped fearing that because for one thing I looked, well, God's been around forever and He doesn't get bored. And I know He's got good things in store for us. Psalm 16 verse 11. It says, you will show me the path of life and your presence is fullness of joy. So being with God can make us full of joy. And we're talking about having joy and rejoicing the feast. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. So God's got things planned for us probably that we can't understand. That's what it says in 1 Corinthians where it says, I haven't seen or ear heard the things that God has in store for us. So we can trust that God's going to make it interesting and fun forever. We can really take joy in looking forward to that. We don't ever want to turn away from it. That's what the feast pictures. That's why God tells us to rejoice in it. It pictures our own joy in the kingdom. It pictures the human joy of those who will be alive then. And it reminds us that we're still, though, in perishable clay. Our bodies are physical. We'll go back to that talk about how this is temporary. Our existence is temporary.

But I want to say, as it's going to start sundown tomorrow, we should never approach any of God's feasts with an attitude of it just being, well, one more feast. We want to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. We want to keep this feast focused mainly on the spiritual aspect. But we do want to enjoy the physical. We want to get a good blending of the two. And then think, what will we have when it's done? We might have a few extra pounds. Hopefully not too much. I like to mix a little of activity with the extra food that I get. But we want to remember that the main way to have a spiritual feast is to give a spiritual feast. To give of ourselves, to God and to others. That way, we'll return home or we'll be home when it's over, but we'll still be in a different mindset, knowing that we've fulfilled God's purpose for us in it. The whole world desperately needs what this feast pictures. The world is hurtling towards destruction. And as I said earlier, we could be right on the brink. We don't know when war might break out. We don't know when pestilence or disease is going to spread across the world. And living in this world runs us down. I heard a minister once make the analogy that we're kind of like a plant. That we're out in this beating heat of this world and we're getting dried up. But when we go to the feast, it's like the watering can comes and starts to refresh us and moisten us and we start getting reinvigorated. We need that. We need to be watered, refreshed and recharged. We need the Feast of Tabernacles, which is a good thing because it's almost here. Sorry, I said I had one point. You're probably getting tired of me making that one point over and over again. But we don't know how many feasts we have left. Although I wonder, if we all go to a place of safety, the Feast of Tabernacles will be really interesting there. And then we'll have the millennium, which will be one long feast. But we do know we have this one. And through this feast, God can refresh us. And He can help us to be filled with joy from the realization of His plan and purpose. We can think about His soon-coming Kingdom of God. So as we do that, we want to have the anticipation build. Let's get excited about this feast. Let our fears and worries be put away. And let's all go and let's have a spiritual feast.