Spiritual Harvests

Happy Sabbath! I want to thank all of you. Here we are in the third day of the feast for the attitude of cooperation and the giving and just what's been happening. God's Spirit obviously working with each other and with people. It's been very interesting to me. I measure sometimes what's happening in a feast by conversations. There have been so many conversations about what God is doing, about what God is doing in people's lives, understanding and seeing the plan and what God is accomplishing, understanding and seeing what these holy days mean.

That's good because that's what we're here for. At the beginning of the feast, I asked how many people had been keeping the feast for 50 years or more. Let me ask this. How many people here have been keeping the Feast of Tabernacles for five years or less?

This would be your first, second, third, fourth or fifth. Raise your hand. I want you to look around because you may be surprised at the numbers of hands. Keep your hands up. Keep them up a little bit. They're all sitting at the back because they're afraid to sit up front. There's probably 20, 30 people here at least. 30 people. And of course, there were little kids in some of those families.

You couldn't see their hands. There's a couple of reasons I wanted to do that. There's one that I wanted to show you that God is still calling people. God is still doing his work. He's still bringing people into what he's doing. Sometimes we forget that. We get caught up in our own little lives and what we're doing, in our own little congregations. We forget there's something bigger than us going on. But I also want to talk to you today. So far during the feast here, the sermons and the sermonettes have been about some pretty deep subjects.

Now from the opening night, what we covered yesterday, I thought Mr. Faye, Mr. Thompson just gave excellent messages yesterday. Tying into the feast and tying in from the book of Job, tying in his said. We all had a discussion last night how you actually pronounce his said in Hebrew. But none of us have enough phlegm to get the f*** out. So it said as close as we're going to get. But I want to talk to the maybe 30 people here, 40 people here, who you've been doing this for a short period of time.

Because I want to take you back to something you learned that is one of the reasons why you're here. One day, sometime in your life, and for those of you who are here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years, it wasn't that long ago, you realized that there was some really bad news and there was some really good news. And the problem is the good news has no importance or meaning unless you understand the bad news. We have a problem in preaching the gospel. There are very successful ministries that get up and tell people that, you know, God doesn't really care much as long as you just love others.

He loves you the way you are, and it doesn't matter what you do, what you say, as long as you just accept Jesus in your heart. And there's the good news. Well, that's not the message of the real gospel. That's a fake gospel.

The opening line of the real gospel is, boy, are you messed up! We talked about that the other day. Well, no one wants to hear that unless their mind's opened a little bit, God's working with them. There's some really bad news and there's some really good news. I'm going to talk just for a minute about the bad news because I want to talk about the Holy Days. The Holy Days and the gospel. How they meld together. A lot of things what we do is we study the Bible by doctrine.

And if we're not careful, we separate the Bible into doctrines so much that we lose the continuity of how all these doctrines fit together. Every teaching of the Bible fits with the other teachings. There's a huge, amazing continuity in this book. And the Holy Days and the gospel are tied together. Here's the bad news. Genesis 1, 26. Genesis 1, 26.

I wondered, you know, I thought about six or eight people that I know personally just from San Antonio or Austin that this is your first feast. And I'm thinking, boy, this must be a little overwhelming as we turn from Scripture to Scripture and we talk about different things and we translate Greek words and Hebrew words and we do all these things. Let's go back. And this is a reminder for all of us about this message that's contained in the Holy Days. Genesis 1, 26. Then God said, Let us make man an hour image according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. Human beings are created in the image of God to be the children of God. That's the purpose of humanity. But because of free will, God gave us a choice. And the result is Genesis 3, 17. Genesis 3, 17. Because Adam and Eve gave up their dominion, they gave the rule that God had given to them to Satan. And Satan became the God of this world. And humanity has been under his thumb ever since.

Verse 17 of Genesis 3. Then to Adam he said, Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree which I have commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of, Curses the ground for your sake, and toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, With thorns and thistles that shall bring forth you, and you shall eat the herb of the field, In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, Till you return to the ground, for out of it were taken, For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.

And from that point on, human beings' lives have been thorns, and thistles, and struggle, and pain, and death. Generation after generation. And each generation says, Ours is going to be different. We figured out the solutions. We have this all down. If we can just get rid of the old people, we'll fix it. Till they get all about 30, 35.

Then there's a whole new generation coming along saying, We can fix this. If we can just get rid of everybody over 35. And one day you wake up and you're 35, and there's people wanting to get rid of you. Because you don't know what you're doing. The truth is, nobody knows what they're doing. It's like I said last night, some of you were here last night, I said, this will get a whole lot easier when you realize something. First of all, the world is insane, and the church is an insane asylum. It's a place where God takes crazy people and makes them better. And that's why the church isn't very functional sometimes.

It's a hospital. It's a hospital for those who Satan has driven insane. This is the place where we get better. So this is the bad news. Now this is all there is. Adam and Eve, remember, didn't walk out of Eden. Heads held high. Look, God has given us dominion over the earth, and here we are. We're the king and queen of the earth. They were thrown out of Eden. They were kicked out of Eden. God said, you want to do it your way? Go ahead. But I'll save you from it. Now, the Holy Days are given. We find them outlined and given in an understanding to the children of Israel many, many centuries later.

And they kept these days with a limited understanding. In fact, the Holy Days to them were a great play that they were carrying out. There was a tabernacle, and there were priests, and there were sacrifices, and there were ceremonies. And they never fully understood what those things meant. The truth is that the Holy Days are object lessons. The truth of God is contained in this book and revealed to people through His Spirit. Now, some of you are teachers. You know that you can teach children. You can give them a book, and they can learn, and they can read, and you can teach them.

But to reinforce teaching, the best thing you can do is an object lesson. One of my favorite object lessons I've ever seen was an explanation to children about how God can take something bad and turn it into something good.

And the person told about how in the late 1800s there was this horrible drought in California in the area where they grow grapes, and all the grapes shriveled up. And the person had as the object lesson a big cluster of grapes. They said, wow, this is what we like. Good, sweet grapes. See that? All children love grapes. That's wonderful. But they all shriveled up, and nobody knew what to do. And it looked like they were going to have just a crop failure, and everybody was going to go bankrupt. And then one man went to a grocer and said, here's boxes, shriveled up grapes, sell them for whatever you can, maybe fertilizer. And on a whim, he laid them all out and dried them out. That's why when you notice, the box usually says, California raisins. And so he had a box of raisins. He poured them out, and he showed them to the children. And he said, this is what God does. When something bad happens and your grapes get all shriveled, he creates raisins. And I thought, oh man, that's good. I even get that. That's what an object lesson does. It takes the material and it brings it down into something you can see. We talked about visualization a couple of days ago. It narrows it down into something you can see. But the Israelites carried out all these activities as object lessons they never learned. I'm going to talk about what the feast days, all of them, starting with Passover, are the object lessons that we learn that God is teaching us through the Holy Days. The first one, of course, is the Passover. It works! That was sweating bullets hoping that would work. And it did. I pushed the button and it worked. Every one of the Holy Days, by the way, has a past application, a present application, and a future application. When people say the Holy Days are done away with because they have no present and future application, they don't understand the object lessons. When people say the Holy Days are done away with because they're just shadows, well, something has to be casting the shadow. The shadow is the object lesson. It teaches what the object is. This is why the Holy Days are so important for Christians to observe today. Now, let's talk about the Passover for a minute. Because I want to show you as we go through each of these Holy Days in a very simple way. The problem, of course, with a sermon like this is it's eight sermons. Because it takes an hour to explain even in brevity each Holy Day. But I want to break this down into simple concepts that we need to think about. How each of these Holy Days means something in the past, it means something right now, and they all mean something in the future. And that's what we're learning while we're here. But this, the Feast of Tabernacles doesn't exist by itself in a bubble. The Feast of Tabernacles in Last Great Day are the end of a plan that starts clear back with the Passover.

So if we look at the Passover, we understand that when you keep the Passover, you always hear sermons and sermonettes about how the ancient Israelites were what? Hopelessly trapped in slavery. They could not get out. There was nothing they could do themselves. Unless God did something for them, unless God has said, which was talked about yesterday, which is such a huge word, His justice, His love, His mercy, His grace, all these things, who He is. Unless He does something, they could not get out. In fact, what's amazing, if you look at what He told Abraham, He put them there, so they could not get out. This is the object lesson. And what they went through was for us that we can look back at their lesson. They could not free themselves. So what happened? They were told to take the blood of a lamb and put it on their doorpost, and the death angel, or actually it doesn't say death angel, but the angel or the death angel will pass over them, the messenger of death, and they would be saved. That's the past. That's what we understand. We study that every year in the springtime. But that's not all there is to the Passover. Now, in an Orthodox Jewish environment, that's what they see as the Passover. We understand there's a present application to the Passover. When God kicked Adam and Eve out of Edom, God also showed something about Himself. He is a God of justice, and He is a God of love, and He combines both of those into a perfect character that is so amazing, that is very difficult for us to grasp.

Humanity was now trapped in sin, in slavery, and could not get out of it. No human being can save himself or herself from the bad news, and no message to people can be the true gospel until it tells them the bad news, until it tells them the law of God still exists, and if you break the law of God, you are in slavery to sin. That has to be part of the message. We heard that even yesterday with the talk of the covenant. The covenant is relationships, but there's also an aspect that has to do with legality in the covenant. But it's a difference between a covenant contract. I thought that was explained very well yesterday. God is the perfect combination of these things. He pronounced human beings guilty. When you come to God, you're already guilty. That's the problem with the law. You've already broken it. You're already guilty. Okay, God, if I keep the law from now on and I add up enough good points, will that erase my bad points? And God says no. So the law can't save you. It can only show you good and bad behavior. And so we understand what must happen for me. And so we go to 1 Corinthians 5.7, and this is the present. Jesus Christ already came for us. He already died. And in doing so, 1 Corinthians 5.7, this simple statement is made. Therefore, Paul is talking to a Gentile church in the spring of the year about the days of 11 bread and the Passover. So when people say, well, the early church didn't teach Gentiles to keep the Holy Days. They've never read 1 Corinthians. Therefore, purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. Since you are truly a leaven for indeed Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. We live in a present reality that what they did when they killed a little lamb as the Passover lamb was just a play.

It was an object lesson. Jesus Christ did not come as an object lesson. He was the real thing. That's the reality that their little object lesson was teaching. You and I live in the presence of the Passover lamb. You and I live in the present day in which the Passover lamb died for us. He died for us. But you know, that application is not complete yet because the entire world has not been brought back to the Passover. No one will enter into the kingdom of God until they accept the reality of the Passover. You want to see an interesting prophecy? Go to Isaiah 42. Leave a marker here, by the way. We're going to come back to 1 Corinthians 5. But Isaiah 42. Because there's a future application of the Passover. This is a prophecy about when the Messiah reigns on earth. That's a very long prophecy. I'm going to read a couple of verses. 1. Behold my servant. This is the Messiah. It's a Messianic prophecy. All Christians believe this, or almost all. All Jews believe this. They see Isaiah 42 as a Messianic prophecy. 2. My servant, whom I uphold, my elect one, and whom my soul delights. This is God the Father talking about the Christ. 3. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. The whole world is bringing forth justice. Now if it stops there, it's like, oh no, we must be coming back to punish. Well, punishment is part of what he does. Actually, as we go through the Holy Days, we'll find that out. But aren't you glad that isn't the only reason the Messiah comes? I'm glad there's two comings of the Messiah, by the way. I'm really glad. I'd hate to think he came back, or he comes only once as King of Kings. I'm really glad he came the first time as the Passover. Because that makes the King of Kings something that is joyful, not just something we dread. He says in verse 2, he will not cry out nor raise his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. He's coming back as King of Kings, but he's going to be gentle about this. Let's skip down to verse 6, because I find this an amazing statement that God tells Isaiah to make, because he's quoting God here. "'I the Lord have called you in righteousness,' and remember he's talking about the Messiah, "'and will hold your hand, and I will keep you,' and then he makes this remarkable statement, "'and give you as a covenant to the people as a light to the Gentiles.'" This prophecy isn't just to Israel. This is to everybody. This hasn't happened yet. This fulfillment of the Passover, he said, well, how do you tie this into the Passover? What did Jesus say when He sat down with His disciples? And He said, eat this bread and drink this wine. This is what? The new covenant. We heard about that yesterday. The new covenant was made through the Messiah. "'I will give you as the covenant.'" That's a remarkable statement. We talk about the personal side of the covenant. It wasn't just a matter of God says, let's make an agreement here. No, no, no. The great God makes an agreement with sinning chemical beings, and in order to do so, sacrifices His own eternal Son as the covenant, as the relationship, so it can take place.

You see, the Passover isn't complete yet. He has a lot more people to bring into the Passover relationship. There's a lot more people that have to understand that Jesus Christ is the covenant and accept Him as their Passover. Well, after that, we start to keep, of course, the days of Unleavened Bread. The days of Unleavened Bread have a past and present, a future application. For the ancient Israelites, they ate Unleavened Bread to remind them that God had brought them out of the slavery of Egypt because they had to leave in haste. Now, as you see the development of this, especially in the New Testament, there is actually an expanded meaning of the days of Unleavened Bread into the New Testament. We come into the present time, the present time. Jesus died as our Passover, but there's something else that must happen, too. Sin must be removed from us. If that's all there was, we would simply be, for a short period of time, sinless people, and then we would return to sin. Something has to fundamentally change in us. And so in the present we begin to understand this isn't just about the past. It is about right now. It is about having sin removed from us. Look at Romans 6.10, and this ties into, once again, this is a whole hour of explanation, but this ties into the days of Unleavened Bread, Romans 6.10. I remember learning this as a child, and it was amazing to me, but it was confusing at the same time. I mean, I'm a teenager. I began to realize the importance of, why is there this wave sheep offering in the middle of the days of Unleavened Bread? Why is there so much emphasis about this? I don't get this. Romans 6.10, For the death that he died, speaking about Jesus Christ, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. There's another place that Paul talks about how you are redeemed through his blood and saved through his life. When he died as the Passover, he then presented himself in that wave sheep offering to God and was accepted. And because of that, something happens to you and me. We're not just forgiven, but we have the opportunity to learn to be like Jesus Christ. We take Christ into us. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians. I said we would go back there, put a marker there. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 5. 1 Corinthians 5. I think it's so important that we understand the Feast of Tabernacles in the context of all the Holy Days. 1 Corinthians 5. My problem is I do not know how to do this in an hour. So at the end of an hour, I just have to go sit down. 1 Corinthians 5. We read verse 7 now. Let's read verse 8. The end of verse 7 says, our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the Feast. Now, if he only looked at the past, he'd be saying, well, okay, let's keep the Feast remembering ancient Israel coming out of Egypt. They couldn't do it themselves. They had to make their bread and haste. He said, wow, this has a profound meaning to us who accept Jesus as the Passover. Therefore, let us keep the Feast not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We must take the leaven out, but we must take unleavened into us. Righteousness must come into us, and we start to learn that. That's called discipleship. We must learn how Jesus lived. We must imitate how Christ lived. We must learn God's way. And so we go to the Sermon on the Mount, and we say, thou shalt not kill, that ten commandments exist. And he says, but that's not enough. You have to learn how not to hate. And we start to learn, and we start to follow. And then, as you do, something becomes apparent to you. I can't do that on my own.

Before we go to the next Holy Day, I want to talk about the days of the unleavened bread in the future. Isaiah, chapter 2. What is Christ going to do when He comes back? Isaiah, chapter 2 is read, I think, at every Feast of Tabernacles I've ever attended for 51 years. I can't remember when I was 7, so I can't say for sure, but I probably was. Isaiah, chapter 2, verse 2.

The Messiah is where Christ is. The house of the God of Jacob. And He will teach us His ways. And we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He will be making disciples. He will be teaching them how to have sin come out. And righteousness come in. Remember, we've talked about it. You've heard this statement a couple of times throughout the Feast already. How can we teach what we do not learn, that we do not know now? We must be disciples now, so we can teach disciples then. And that's why your relationship with God and with Christ as your father, as your older brother, as your disciple by Him, it must be what you live for every day. Because we have to help Him disciple the world. You see, the days of the love and bread aren't done yet. They're not done yet. But when you start to figure out what Passover days of love and bread is all about, you get into a problem. And you say, you know what? I can't do this. Ah! Pentecost.

You realize you need the Spirit of God. If God is going to recreate you to your original purpose, you don't have the power. I don't have the power to recreate ourselves into the children of God. Our nature was corrupted somewhere in our early being. We were corrupted. And we hold on to that corruption as if it's, well, this is the way I am. This is just the way I am. And God says, yeah, but I don't accept that. You have to be changed. If the leavening is really going to come out and the unleavening is going to come in, and you're going to become Christ-like, then you're going to have to have help.

Pentecost, for ancient Israel, the past, was the day of the firstfruits. It was the celebration of the spring harvest when the very first of the firstfruits came out. It had a very immediate physical meaning. The Old Testament also contains numerous promises of a time when God would give His Spirit to human beings.

Jeremiah 31 has been read already. As I said, as we began to put together, discuss when we had our meeting what we were all going to talk about, it was so amazing how there are all these threads that are running through this year that God wants us to know. He wants you to know.

We've already read Jeremiah 31. We've read other scriptures. He said, I will put this new covenant and I will put my Spirit in their heart because they can't do this. I will write my laws in their innermost being because we can only do it in a surface way. In fact, you know what we do when we obey God's laws and we do them without His Spirit? We have to rely more and more and more on object lessons that get us through the day because the reality doesn't happen.

You and I have to live in the reality. The object lessons are still there for us. We're still commanded to keep these days. They are holy. But we are to be living in the reality of them. Acts 2, we see the Holy Spirit poured out on the church. There is a present application. You live in the results of Pentecost. In fact, you still live in Pentecost. You and I still live in Pentecost.

The present application, as God gives His Spirit to individuals, preparing them. They've accepted Jesus Christ as Passover. They are being de-leavened. The unleavened character of Jesus Christ is being put into them through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Days are alive in your life every day. And that's why we should love these Holy Days.

We shouldn't keep them through restraint. We should keep them because we love them. This is what the Almighty God is doing. And we get to tag along. There are times I just, I'm amazed. I don't even know what to say to Him. You let me tag along with this? You know, I look at, there's like a little kid.

You see the adults doing something, little kids tag along behind you. And I get to tag along as you do this great work. But you know, Pentecost hasn't been totally fulfilled, has it? Almost every Pentecost you will hear the book of Joel quoted, also on the Feast of Trumpets. Joel 2, the minor prophet of Joel. Joel 2. Joel is one of my favorite minor prophets because so much of Joel hasn't taken place yet. It has to do with the Day of the Lord.

But I just want to read two verses here because it's interesting Peter quotes these two verses in Acts 2. And yet he knew most of Joel hadn't taken place yet, but he said, whoa, it's starting. When God's Holy Spirit was poured out in that Pentecost, he said, this is it. It's starting. It wasn't completed yet by any means. You and I live in Pentecost. Just like you and I still live in the Passover, it's still going on.

That's why we still keep it. The Days of Unleavened Bread are still going on. That's why we still observe them. Pentecost is still going on. That's why we keep it. It's still happening. Joel 2, 28, and it shall come to pass afterward, after the Day of the Lord. I will pour out my Spirit in all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

And also my man servants and my maid servants, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. That hasn't happened yet. It's only begun. It's begun with the firstfruits. This is the Feast of the Firstfruits. The rest of this prophecy happens in the future. Pentecost isn't complete yet. And so we get to the Feast of Trumpets.

We just kept the Feast of Trumpets not too long ago. Feast of Trumpets is very interesting in the Jewish world. They understand it has a past application, but they actually understand it has a future application, too. Because they understand that in the past, ancient Israel kept the Feast of Trumpets to remind them of God's judgment. It is a time to remember that God is judged. Because when they blew those trumpets, it was a sound of war. It was a sound of warning. And they know this has to do with God's judgment. So it has always been understood that way, to a certain extent, even in the past. In the present, we commemorate, or we keep the Feast of Trumpets, to commemorate the future day of the Lord.

When the resurrection takes place, Jesus Christ comes back. But it's just not about the future, is it? Because if we really understand what the Feast of Trumpets is about, it better motivate us right now. It better motivate us right now. Because you have been called to be part of those who are in that resurrection. That resurrection becomes a goal of life. It becomes what you look forward to. As we talked about on the first day, it's what you anticipate.

When you anticipate something, it motivates you. We anticipate this day. We look forward to this day. We know the future. The future application of the Feast of Trumpets is, it happens. There are seven trumpets. And Christ returns. And there is a resurrection. So we understand the future of it. The past, it has to do with judgment. The present, we're being prepared for that resurrection. The future is when it happens.

Next comes the Day of Atonement. I think the Day of Atonement is the most complex of all the Holy Days. It is so complex because the play was so big that day. There were more things that went on on the Day of Atonement than any of the other Holy Days. And the complexity of the object lessons can never be covered even in one sermon. I get frustrated every Day of Atonement because I want three hours to speak. Because you can't cover it all, so you can only cover part of it. The complexity of what goes on and what is being taught. You know, the ceremonies were so complex back in the day of the Tabernacle.

The high priest would have to have a special garment he would put on, a special washing he would go through. There would be the slaying of a bull. There would be the separating of two goats. One for the Atonement. One for the Azazel. He would enter the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle.

And he would present that blood before the throne of God, for the sins of the people. By the time of Jesus, they would tie a little rope around the ankle of the high priest when he went in. Because if God didn't accept the sacrifice, they knew God would kill him. And they wanted to be able to pull him out because nobody wanted to go in there. Now can you imagine the fear when he walked in, you know, that...

pulled back that curtain, walked in there and it closed among the people. Because if he did not, if God did not accept that sacrifice for sin, then they were a doomed people. And every year they went through that. Today, today there is a high priest. We have a high priest also. But what we understand is that we don't have a physical high priest, but we have a spiritual high priest. And that spiritual high priest did two things that this day represents. And this is what I find so amazing. Let's go to Hebrews 2, then I'll make this comment.

I want to read Hebrews 2 first. Because there's a couple of things about atonement that I find overwhelming every year when I study it. Hebrews 2, verse 14. Remember, the high priest had to be one of the people. The high priest who appears before God today was one of the people. But he was perfect as one of the people. But by the way, that shows something. Atonement is happening right now. It has a past, it has a future. But it's happening right now.

Because you are reconciled to God because the high priest presented himself to God, who was both the Passover and the wave sheaf, and said, except me for them. And he said, yes, it's enough. You and I have the privilege to go before the Almighty God because the high priest stood before him and said, I am offering you the perfect sin sacrifice. And the great almighty Father said, yes. Jesus Christ was a high priest offering Himself.

I find that amazing. Let's go to verse 14. It is much as the children, that's us, by the way, the children have foretaken of flesh and blood. He Himself likewise, Christ, shared in the same, that through death He might destroy Him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham, which was prophesied to be the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest, and things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. He was our propitiation. He was our atonement. He made it right with God. But the idea of a person offering Himself, I find that amazing.

He had to be two things on this day, the sin offering and the high priest. And of course, part of what happens here is Satan is defeated in this. You and I, through the power of God, Satan can be defeated in our lives, and we let him win way too much. Christ already beat him. He just hasn't come back and taken his kingdom away yet. He's already defeated him. And He's called you to let your life shine and let Satan be defeated in your life so that we are not slaves to sin.

We're not slaves to our carnal human nature, and we're not slaves to the darkness of the world. You see, atonement is going on right now. You are reconciled to God. You have a relationship with God right now. When you get on your knees, the Almighty God says, yes, child, come here. And the reason He says, yes, child, come here is because Thy priest who stands beside Him says, beside Him says, let this child come.

Do you get that? Are these holy days nothing more than weak object lessons? Because that's all it was to the ancient Israelites, and it's got to be more than that to us. Yes, child, come here. And you and I go because the high priest says, let Him come. Let her come. That's reality. Atonement is happening right now. But now there's a future to the day of Atonement. We know in Revelation 20, after the Feast of Trumpets, we have the day of judgment. Christ comes back. Saints are raised. What happens? Reconciliation with God. The first fruits from Pentecost are reconciled to God.

And what happens to Satan? He's the Azazel goat. He's put into prison. There's a future we look forward to this day when the first human beings become totally reconciled to God. Just the first. And that's why there's another set of Holy Days. And so we finally come to the Feast of Tabernacles. In the past, the ancient Israelites observed the Feast of Tabernacles as a reminder that they were sojourners in Egypt. That they lived in tents. And that before God gave them the Promised Land, they wandered around in the wilderness. You know who we are now as we become called by God? We go through this process.

There's a point where we become what it says in Hebrews 11. Let's go to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11. Verse 13. Talking about all the great people in the Scripture that followed God. And specifically, Paul is talking about the people of the Old Testament. Hebrews 11. Verse 13. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off or assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. And those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

The present application of the Feast of Tabernacles is, you and I are sojourners on the face of the earth. We are sojourners living in a world that is no longer ours. To be a true Christian is to be always out of step with society. I know that's uncomfortable. And we keep thinking, if we could just fix this, we could just fix that. Our country could be fixed, or this could be happened. This country isn't going to repent. It's going to turn to God. Individuals will.

Look, there was what? 30 or 40 people raised their hand, that they'd been coming to the Feast of Tabernacles now for less than five years or less. Those are individuals who repented. Satan and humanity dragged the world to the brink of destruction, and God says, okay, I'll stop it. It's enough. I'll stop it. It goes to that point, and then He stops it. And you and I can't stop it. But we're part of something else. We're part of the solution, if we want to be. Look what He says in verse 15.

If they had called to mind the country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. If you want to go back into the world, you can. You have opportunity to do that. But now they desire a better that is a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. God has prepared something for you. Do you think God, He's called you, He's chosen you, He's working with you, God has something very specific. If He's training you, as we talked about last night, if He's training you for His kingdom in His family, you think in the resurrection He's going to show up and say, you know, I'm not sure what to do with you. I haven't thought this through. I guess I should have figured a little bit. I knew I was sending Christ back, and Christ says, what am I supposed to do with Him, Father? I don't know. You don't think God's going to call you by name? I think the first thing Christ is going to do is give a big hug. After you fall down, scared to death and worship, right? After you fall down, in absolute gratitude and worship, I think He's going to be a big hug and say, hug and then say, I have a job for you to do, I have something for you to do. Your talent, your abilities. You say, yeah, but I was weak, I was nobody. And He says, ah, ah, ah, you're God's child. We've trained you for this. We have something we want you to do. I've often said, you know what I'd like to be? I want to be Jesus' valet. You know, I say, Kiri, give me a cup of coffee. Yeah. And you get to hear all the things that's going on, right? So you're in the background, hiding out, and just get to serving. That wouldn't be a bad job. Think about it. First of all, you don't have to make any decisions. I would love that. You know, you just take care of what He needs. That wouldn't be a bad job. We're being prepared for this. What I find also amazing about this is a statement I want you to really look at.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God. I worry sometimes that we bring shame on Christ and on the Father because of who we are. Mr. Hennaker was talking about love. Our love for the truth, our love for God, our love for each other. By this all men will know you are my disciples because you love one another. What will we do and allow to divide us that cause us to hate each other, despise each other, hurt each other? I find that that statement by Christ bothers me a lot. There's a lot of things in the Bible that bother me a lot, and that's one of them. By this all men will know you are my disciples. They will see something in your character so different that they will say, that person is different. Yes, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.

The Feast of Tabernacles, of course, has a great future application. But it has a present application. It's not just about the future.

When you go home, you're going to be reminded about 10 minutes after you get home.

I'm a stranger in a strange land.

I really don't belong here, do I? But I must function in this world. But I'm waiting for a different kingdom. I'm part of a different kingdom. I'm a citizen of a different kingdom. So there is a present application and a future application of this day, of this time. Then we have, of course, the eighth day, sometimes called the last great day. This is very interesting because in the past, the Israelites just saw this as part of the harvest festival. They didn't understand what it really meant in terms of, it's part of the harvest festival. What does it mean? It's only, I believe, in this day that we have a clear understanding of a certain passage of Paul, Romans 5. I'm not saying Paul was thinking of this day, but he was thinking of what God is doing to make this statement true. So the past is just somehow part of the harvest festival. What does it mean in the present? Romans 5, verse 8, I quoted this earlier.

What does that mean? Sin is the breaking of the law. There was sin before the law. How can it be sin before the law? What he means here is before people know the law, they still break the law. But it says it's not imputed. Two things to understand. All sin has two penalties. One is the present penalty, sort of the natural consequences. You know, when you sin, something bad happens. People say, well, I got away with it. It didn't in your mind. Emotionally, mentally, physically, emotionally, we're all damaged by every sin we commit. And there's terrible consequences to all sin. But those are temporary consequences.

There are eternal consequences to sin. Now God never promised to keep any of us from the temporary consequences of sin. Sometimes He does, which is nice, but you know there's no promise of that. You go out here and you get drunk, and you wreck your car, and you go to jail. And God says, eh, that's the temporary consequence of your sin. You say, Father, will you forgive me and restore me into a relationship so that I may have eternal life? And He says, oh yeah. And He brings you back into a relationship, and the eternal consequence of the sin is gone. But you're sitting in jail. You see what I mean? The temporary consequences happen. I wish they didn't. I hear a lot of scars from sins over the years.

But the eternal consequences say, no, we're gone. If I stay right with God, He's going to get me where He wants me to go. Not imputed. Very interesting. In the Greek, that literally means, not put to their account.

In other words, God says, I'm not judging the world yet. I'm not judging the world yet.

Peter there wants to remind us in 1 Peter 4.17. Now, that's what he's saying. I'm not passing eternal judgment yet. It's not being imputed. They don't know my way. They don't know me. I'm not imputing it to them.

That doesn't mean they're getting away with it. They're suffering.

And they all die. Everybody dies, which is the result of sin. Right? So it's not like they're not getting away or they're somehow getting away with their sins. What he's saying is, you're going to suffer the temporary, but I'm not putting it on your eternal account yet.

They're listed. They're there. But your final judgment hasn't been made yet. Look what it says in 1 Peter 4.17, because this is the present application of this day. See, we only think of the 8th day, the last great day, many times in the context of the future. There is a present application of this time.

Because what this day teaches us is there's more than one day of judgment.

That for most of the people who have lived throughout history, their day of judgment is not yet. And that's wonderful. It tells us that the little children that were born in Mongolia 2,000 years ago, who never heard of Jesus and died at 3 months old, didn't go to hell forever.

We know they have a future. We know that they can be resurrected. We understand the future of this day. But do you know what the present application of this day is?

1 Peter 4, 17. For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God, and if it begins with us first, what shall it be, the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? See, there's a present application because this day is about judgment. And it's like, okay, we're looking to the future world judgment, but you and I are being judged now. This is our day of salvation.

You know, nobody gets two chances. We say, well, everybody gets a second chance. No, everybody gets one chance. It's just most of the world has never had their chance. This is your chance. This is my chance.

God's given us a privilege through His grace.

God has given us a privilege to throw this privilege away. He says He's offered us a better resurrection. And to throw this away, you and I can throw away salvation. And I hope that scares you just a little because it scares me a lot.

You and I can throw away salvation. God won't throw us away.

He won't throw us away. He'll hang on to us screaming and hollering, no matter what we're doing, He hangs on to us. We're sitting where He's hanging on to us. But you throw this away, and you will never return to God. You will refuse to repent.

Don't throw this away.

That's the present application. It is now our day of salvation.

But the great application of this day is in the future, when all of humanity gets their day. Their day to turn to God, their day to repent. And that's the future of this day.

The future of this day is the great white throne judgment of Revelation, chapter 20.

And we'll hear about that on the eighth day. There's two sermons planned, and between the two of them, they're going to cover a lot of aspects of this day.

And the applications today.

When ancient Israel kept these days, they carried out a play. You and I, on the other hand, we live in the reality of the Gospel.

You know, if you were going to explain the Gospel in a very few sentences, what would it be?

Well, let's look at the Gospel stripped down to its very essence.

Let's go back one.

There we go.

That's supposed to be Adam with the animals. God created human beings in the image of God.

It was a picture. I was there. I took that.

God created human beings in His image, and human beings lived in a perfect relationship with God.

And human beings were deceived by Satan, and human beings rebelled, and they were kicked out of Eden.

That's the first statement of the Gospel. That's how it starts.

And then God sent His Son to be sacrificed as the Passover, the perfect substitute for you and me.

Jesus Christ then, and there we have a drawing of what would happen in ancient Israel, as the High Priest would have gone before the Holy of Holies.

Jesus Christ came as the Passover, but He also modeled for us. He's the model.

This is how human beings are supposed to live.

So God had to come as a man and show us. This is how it works.

He modeled that behavior for us.

Also, He is now acting as High Priest, making it possible for God's Spirit to be poured out into us, so that we can be changed and de-leavened.

Have you noticed any similarities to Passover, unleavened bread, and Pentecost? The last few statements, if I had to summarize the Gospel into shortness, into a very short way.

Christ is coming back to remove Satan and to set up God's kingdom on His earth with Jesus Christ as King of Kings.

He's going to begin to change this world into what God originally intended for humanity.

Then, at the end of that thousand year reign, there's the great white throne judgment, where all humanity gets an opportunity to know their Creator, not intellectually, but to enter into a covenant with their Creator.

There's the Gospel. Any similarities to the Feast of Trumpets Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, last great day?

So you can't separate these two ideas.

We keep these days as object lessons of what the Almighty God is actually doing in the past, in the present, in your life, and in your future.

This is what He's doing. And you and I have been invited to tag along.

You and I have been invited to participate.

You and I have been invited to become children now.

And boy, that is stressed in the New Testament over and over and over again.

You have been invited to be children now in relationship, reconciled to God now, anticipating and growing towards the future.

And we have been given a commission as His people to preach it to whoever will hear.

And we begin with a commission of these people to take in all whom He calls.

And you know what He was calling a call? Weak and small people just like us.

There's going to be help and guidance and love and gentleness and some correction along the way.

There's going to be no different than us.

And we're the ones who will disciple them. And guess what happens if we do our job right?

They'll disciple others.

Because God will continue to do His work.

Seek God's purpose. Seek God's righteousness.

And God will be reflected in your life every day.

And when Jesus Christ returns, you can be in that resurrection.

You can be there. And you can serve Him in bringing about the kingdom of God on this earth.