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As we prepare to keep the Holy Days and all that it means and walk through the stories, the teaching, the instruction that will be given, let's keep some keys in mind and let's get our bearings and understand where we are in this journey. 

Transcript

 

In 1803 the United States, under President Thomas Jefferson, purchased from France what has been called, the Louisiana Purchase.  Not knowing what he had, he set out to put together a group of men to go out and to explore.  The core of discovery, other wise known as the Lewis and Clark expedition, began in 1804 and for a period of more than two years they made the trip to the West Coast, to the Pacific Ocean, and back up the Missouri river in what was one of the great expeditions of history and certainly as they mapped out what had now become American territory, exploring and dealing with Indian tribes and going through the entire area. It was a remarkable trip.  It was a trip a little bit different than the ones we take today.  Their trip makes what we will do with our two little grand kids look like, what it will be, and that is child's play. 

Travelling in the early 1800's out into undeveloped territory was tough. Those men had to get up each day and keep going, no matter what happened.  Without Tylenol, without Excedrin, without anything other than themselves and their determination and they did what they did.  Their journals tell the story.  It has been told in more recent years in film and otherwise, as we have gone through the celebration of that a few years ago, of the bicentennial, but it is a remarkable story in American history and what we know about it is because of the journals that those men wrote and kept, primarily Meriwether Lewis, during that time.  One of the phrases that comes out of that - Stephen Ambrose in his book Undaunted Courage brings this out – they had a phrase, Meriwether Lewis did as he recounted each days activities.  He said:  We proceeded on.  We proceeded on. Each day they had to get up, get on the boats, saddle the horses, mules – keep going. 

In August 1805, before they had reached the West Coast, Meriwether Lewis got up one morning and made his way up, I believe with one other member of the party, up to the top of the mountains at which point he expected and hoped that he would be able to look out and see a waterway that would lead them easily downhill to the Pacific Ocean.  He was going to the top of what we now know and call, the Continental Divide and that part of the American West. He expected, based on what he knew and what little he did understand and other stories, that he would be looking at some broad river that would then allow them easy sailing from that point forward because it had been tough; making the slog up the Missouri River, up over the mountains, up over the mountains through which they were going, and so thinking that they would find and see a great waterway leading them, he left the main group and with another member of the party, went up to the mountain, and what is today called Lemhi Pass.  He reached the summit and he looked down and what do you think he saw?  What he saw is what we see today.  What he saw is what we see today.

Now lets leave him there for a few minutes.  We will come back to him. Yes, you can go to that same spot and you can look out and you can see what he saw but there is more to what he saw. What he saw then is what we see today.

You know journeys and travels and expeditions are a part of history and they are always fascinating.  The Lewis and Clark expedition is one of so many that had taken place in many lands and cultures and histories of many nations.  Marco Polo made his; Magellan was the first to circumnavigate the globe; others went to the North Pole, to the South Pole; great trips and expeditions.  Journeys and travels such as that always capture our attention, our fascination and our imagination and they always will.  The men who went to the moon came back and what they told and what they learnt and the pictures that they transmitted back added a whole new dimension to exploration even in our own day.

Journeys, travels and expeditions really capture our imagination I think, because of one very important matter:  they mirror real life.  They mirror what life is really like because at the end of it all life is really a journey.  Shakespeare wrote about the stages of man and life is really that.  It is a journey.  We go through various stages. We grow up; we go through adolescence; we reach young adulthood, middle age, adulthood, old age and all it brings – independence, maturity, families, marriage, children and grandchildren, people leaving home and every stage brings something different to us.  It is truly like a journey.

God likens what we are involved with in our calling, and our calling us to the Kingdom of God, as a journey.  He uses a specific word and so turn over to Hebrews 11 and we will focus on exactly what that is.  God calls us and shows that we like many who went before us are like pilgrims.  Pilgrims are those who go on a journey too.  God likens us to pilgrims. In Hebrews 11, the faith chapter with so many examples of so many people, men and women, who demonstrated faith, confidence, going out such as Abraham did into the unknown to obey what God said to do, and Noah and all the others that are parts of the story here, Paul pauses in Hebrews 11:13 and he makes this point about them and it applies to all of them and it applies to many of us. 

Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

V.14 - For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

V.15And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. 

But they didn't. When they left they put their hand to the plough and they kept going. 

V.16but 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.

In this beautiful passage Paul sums up Abraham, Noah, Enoch, Abel, so many others, and he sums up for us today and allows us a scene if you will, a story which takes place in our lives and our calling and what we are a part of, as we journey through life to the Kingdom of God.  It is a spiritual journey.

We may never go outside of the hometown where we have been born and raised.  I know some of you from a young age live here in Cincinnati.  This is where you were born and raised – this area.  Others of us have come in from other areas.  I haven't lived in my hometown where I grew up in more than 43 years.  I have just gone back for occasional visits, very short usually, and I still have some family there and always look forward to visiting aunts and uncles and my brother but I have not lived there for over 43 years. I went off to Ambassador College and a different life and never looked back: speaking of just the calling in itself that is mine and yours and what we all share.

From time to time we are required to take stock of where we are and to stop and look and what it is that God has called us to and at such a time I think, God gives us markers on these Festivals, these Holy Days, this time. 

I'd like to spend a few minutes with you here this afternoon, looking at a few keys that we need, to get our bearings and to understand where we are in our journey.  As we prepare to keep the Day of Atonement and then to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, wherever we may go, whatever fashion we are going to observe at Feast this year, the Eighth Day and all that it means and walk through the stories, the teaching, the instruction that will be given, let's keep some keys in mind and let's get our bearings and understand where we are in this journey. 

Two days ago, it doesn't seem like that but just two days ago, we kept the Feast of Trumpets, on this past Thursday now.  We gathered, at least where I was  - Debbie and I were up in Ravenna, Ohio, meeting with the North Kenton and Cleveland, Ohio, congregations up there.  Two people came up just as the service in the morning was starting and one of them had a big long brass horn and the other had one of these Shofars and they blew the horn, symbolic of the Feast of Tabernacles for us now to remind us of the scriptural matter there.  They blew, and God bless them, they blew the best they could - but it was interesting.  

We walked through the scriptures, through the messages of the day, the sermonettes and the sermons on Trumpets.  I don't know exactly how it was presented to you here in the services but I am sure the same verses in many ways were covered, and we talked about the blowing of Trumpets.  Now that is passed and we look forward to Atonement but let's wait just a moment.

Is the blowing of the trumpet once, is it enough?  Actually when you look into it from the Old Testament, you know there were trumpets blown on a number of different occasions:  as the Israelites were to get up and move according to the blowing of a trumpet; or to be called to assembly by the blowing of a trumpet.  Is the blowing of the trumpet just once enough for us?  In other words, for you and I as we think about it, did we awaken?  Did it wake us up spiritually as we kept the Feast of Trumpets this past year?  What did you learn?  What points did you take from the messages you were given on the Feast of Trumpets this year?  It may be over as far as the day itself (is concerned) but we are still not far away from the important, urgent message that the feast of Trumpets has for each one of us as we move along. 

Let's consider:  The Feast of Trumpets, the sounding of the seventh trumpet, begins a period of judgment.  Revelation 11:15 describes the sounding of that seventh trumpet.

Revelation 11:15 Then the seventh angel sounded:  and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!"

And you read on through the accounts of that day and what, at least with that event, will happen, that sounding of the seventh trumpet.  This begins then to unfold events very, very rapidly from this point right up to the return of Jesus Christ.  I am not going to go into all of that but this is a time of judgment.

The nations are angry, as it says down in Revelation 11:18, because their rule is over.  Their time is up.  The greatest transfer of power in all of world history will occur when that trumpet sounds.  "The kingdoms of this world" will "(have) become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ."  

It's over.  They're done.  They will have been found wanting as they will have been weighed and tried and judgment will be upon them.  That is one of the major lessons and keys from the Day of Trumpets and brethren, look around your world today.  The nations of this world, they do need to be judged.  They do need the judgment of God.  It is not my judgment and it is not yours but it will be at one point in time the judgment of God and they need to be judged.

This present crisis in Syria that is dominating this week's headlines is pathetic.  It is sad to watch world leaders bicker and discuss and bargain and prevaricate and back away and posture as they have done and they will do.  And this is not necessarily the worst of atrocities that has ever been done, but it is a bad one.  There had been worse in history; there will be worse yet to occur but what a shamefulness to watch the lack of vision, the lack of leadership.  Yes, the nations of our world today are showing international incompetence and they do need to be judged by God and they will be at a time and at a place, as this scripture shows us. 

Let's look at Amos 1:3 – let's try to understand a little bit about that.  Turn back to Amos 1.  There is a reference to Damascus and Syria. The ancient city Damascus, is still there, still the capital of that area called Syria today.  Now, the lines have been redrawn through the centuries and people have been in and out but you know there is something about what is taking place there in Syria over the last two-and-a-half years and even before that.  President Assad's father was not a choirboy himself.  For all that President Basher Assad may have done, his father was not a choirboy.  It is a neighborhood that is pretty rough. 

In Amos 1:3 – as Amos begins this prophecy he does something here in verse 3.  He actually mentions Damascus.  He mentions other nations around the area and then he winds up on Judah and Israel in terms of God's word of warning and pronouncement of judgment upon these nations but it is interesting, the first of Amos' proclamations here is about Damascus, and here is what it says:

Amos 1:3 Thus says the Lord: "For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, (which is really meaning an intensified prolonged period of judgment) I will not turn away its punishment.  (God will, and He did in that day and it is a prophecy for our day - there will be a time of judgment there.)  Because they have threshed Gilead with implements of iron.

V.4but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad.

V.5I will also break the gate bar of Damascus and cut off the inhabitant from the Valley of Aven, and the one who holds the scepter from Beth Eden.  The people of Syria shall go captive to Kir," says the Lord.

Now those are ancient place names that are still there.  One of them is probably the Valley of Bekaa, which is partly even in Lebanon today.  Damascus, as I said, is still there but when it says that God says they have threshed Gilead with implements of iron, it is speaking about an actual event that took place prior to Amos, a period of the nations of Israel and Judah. The ruler of Damascus perpetrated an atrocity even in that day upon the people.  It is a tough neighborhood and whatever spirit is there, that can, in a sense may possess or control or influence even regions and countries, it is still there today. To gas one's own people is the depth of perversity but there is a cruelness about it that goes all the way back to the time of Amos and that is what Amos is talking about.

Damascus was judged then; Damascus will be judged now and whether someone does it, you know, their own people rise up, whatever the rebels do there or some other power does something, is yet to be determined.  That is not the point. Ultimately they will be judged and other nations will be judged as this and other prophecies show and the day of Trumpets shows us. 

The nations today will be like Babylon.  In Daniel 5, when the handwriting was on the wall and they were weighed in the balance and they were found wanting – that is the time in which we live today.  No matter where we live; Syria and beyond. And that is something for us to understand because the day of Trumpets tells us of a time of judgment, God's judgment that will be brought on all nations and now two days after the observance of Trumpets in 2013 we look forward to Atonement.

The Day of Atonement is another time of judgment.  In Revelation 20:1, we find that an angel with a key to the bottomless pit descends and lays hold on Satan and binds him for 1000 years in a bottomless pit.  Now if I thought in advance I could have brought down the picture that hangs in my office - it is done by one of our United members – that depicts the Day of Atonement and down in a corner of it is the bottomless pit with a chain and a hand reaching up.  A depiction of what Revelation 20:1 shows us.  That day is yet ahead.

That day will be a judgment upon Satan - God's judgment upon Satan for his role in the sins of mankind.  Christ has paid our penalty; He has paid our part through His sacrifice.  There is one yet to pay for his (part) and that is what the Day of Atonement teaches us.  We will go through that, no doubt, next week.  The serpent who deceives the entire world, Satan, will be bound for a 1000 years, bearing his responsibility for sin and what among many things that day shows us, the Day of Atonement, that is, that even spirit beings will be judged.  Even spirit beings, who have rebelled against God and defied God and His will, they too will meet a just and sure judgment.  God's judgment at His time and place.  That is what the Day of Atonement pictures to us. 

There's another aspect of judgment, though, that we should come back to because the blowing of the trumpet that begins the fall festival season on the day of Trumpets should also warn us.  This brethren, is our day of judgment.  This time and this period now is our day of judgment.  Back in:

1 Peter 4:17 Peter writes this:  For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God.

That's us, the house of God.  Judgment is not a one-time event. Judgment isn't something that we might come, and we think about it in terms of a court room setting and a sentence being put down, although that is the way laws work.  Justice is handed out in a court of law but, in terms of judgment as God describes in the Bible, (it) is a much, much bigger matter and it is not just one event at one time.

Judgment takes place over a period of time because when we come to the Eighth Day we'll see as we read in Revelation 20, that the books will be opened to those who come up in that Great White Throne judgment period and the books will be opened and they will be judged by the things that are written in those books.  That judgment for them will take place over a period of time just as your judgment and mine is taking place now.  I guess I've been undergoing my judgment for about 40 plus years, since the day I was baptized (if you want to mark that as the time of the beginning) and it is still being determined.  It is still being worked out.  How long has yours been going on – for all of us?  Judgment must begin, Peter says, at the house of God and he says: 

V.17 - …and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?

Well, his point is, judgment is upon us and so the blowing of a trumpet on the day of Trumpets should also remind us of that, because when that 7th trumpet does sound and the time of the first resurrection takes place, our judgment period will be over, for the firstfruits.  And what we will be and what we are going to do for eternity in the family of God, will be determined through that resurrection and through that period of time which makes what we do now all the more vital and important to us on this journey, on our journey to the Kingdom of God. 

You know the Jews call this period of time between Trumpets and the Day of Atonement, the ten-day period.  In seven more days it will be the Day of Atonement but this ten-day period between Trumpets and Atonement the Jews call "The days of awe". To them it is a period of judgment and they don't have the complete theology, I don't think, about judgment as they view it because they totally remove Jesus Christ and the New Testament and that understanding from their theology, but it is interesting, as they have lived with these Holy Days and how they developed their traditions about them that they call it and look upon it as a period of judgment. 

Well, judgment certainly is involved there and from where we stand today, in the midst of this Holy Day season, it is a remarkable period with high implications for the world.  We have begun this Fall Festival period and we will go through the festivals of Atonement now, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Eighth Day with the whole story of the Great White Throne judgment period and that time beyond the millennial reign of Jesus Christ, and all of it brings us down to the place in God's plan when ultimately the Kingdom will be offered up to the Father as it shows us. There is so much yet to happen and it is an incredible period of time. 

If you just stop and think about it: on this day, at this time, post Feast of Trumpets, where we are and the implications and we should do I think - and here is how I try to approach it every year because it is an awesome period of time. It's not days of awe, at least the meanings of each of these days and taken together, it is an incredible, awesome period to consider, to understand and to contemplate and to grow in understanding in grace and knowledge about.

We are in some very serious days spiritually, physically even in the world situation, and our lives should reflect that.  I think that is one of the things God wants us to learn: that our lives should reflect the urgency of our times and especially as these fall days come around and their deep spiritual meanings are impressed upon us, and invariably there is something that takes place on the world scene to remind us that the world we live in is pretty dangerous. 

In 1 Thessalonians 5:1 – just a few verses after what we normally will read on the Feast of Trumpets about the depiction of Christ descending and the saints rising and meeting Him in the air, Paul does go in to one of the deeper parts of prophecy that his writings do cover in talking about the end days and the last days and he says:

1 Thessalonians 5:1 but concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.

V.2 – For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

And so he brings in as others do, as even Christ did, the idea of a thief in the night.  The day of the Lord will come suddenly, unexpectedly.

V.3For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them.

But in I Thessalonians 5:1 he admonishes those he that had just talked to about the resurrection and the descent of Jesus Christ, His appearance, and rising to meet Him in the air and coming back with Him to this earth, he says:

V.1but concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.  

Times and seasons: this time, this season, this fall, this Holy Day period, the meaning of these Holydays – these are what we should be focusing on; this is what should be waking us up to the reality of the times in which we live and our own spiritual calling and the judgment upon which God has placed us and is dealing with us.  These are very way serious matters at times and I recognize that because you know, even as we talk about this, we are all thinking about Panama City Beach, Gatlinburg, Ocean City, Maryland, or yes, Jamaica and we are thinking about those things.  The sermonette was talking about those nicer things that we will partake of and should be thankful for and those are all part of what God's blessings and bounty and abundance give us to teach us that He gives us those things and is part of the whole package.  It is the joy, it is the hope, and it is the anticipation that the Feast of Tabernacles brings. 

I am so glad - someone on Trumpets, a brand new person from the Cleveland Church, just recently baptized, engaged me in conversation and he was talking about walking away from Christmas and Easter and he is still new to the Church and will not be able to keep the Feast of Tabernacles fully as we do at this point this year, but in time will, I am sure.  He was talking about how to deal with it in his family who are not quite sure what he has gotten himself in to and I said, you know, just take your time.  I recounted to him the story of my mother.  I am so glad that she had a bit of wisdom as she came into the church and as she learned and what she did with my sister and I, 9 and 11 years old at the time. 

She expressed some wisdom in showing us – because she took away Christmas.  That got taken away when I was 11 years old, about that time. Actually she began at about age 10 and the way she did it, she kind of weaned us off of it and then all of a sudden, boom, hammer down, cold turkey.  No more.  But she replaced it with the Holy Days and she was diligent that she was going to go and travel and keep the Feast of Tabernacles, where the people were gathered and where God had placed His name.  So we went to a place called Big Sandy. I thought: Where in the world are we going, Mom?  A Big what?  It was dry and hot and dusty and we lived in a tent and we had great fun.  We had great fun that first year and every year after.  We met new people, went to Church all day – great fun!  All day, every day and we liked it. 

God gives us things to be joyful about while at the same time we are dealing with very, very serious events - the spiritual meaning and the times and seasons in which we are and in the world in which we live.  The world that I will be keeping the Feast of Tabernacles in this year, 2013, is far more dangerous than it was in 1963; Far more dangerous.  Far closer to the time that Paul describes here as this day of the Lord coming as a thief in the night.  The events of our world and of our place show us. 

This world is not what it seems, as we look at this world.  This is one of the things we should understand.  This world is not what it seems on the surface.  What we see in Syria, Egypt, what we see taking place in our country and events shaping the world out of Europe and of Asia, the powers that are there in China and Russia and in Europe and the power that we are in America and the other English speaking countries – great powers contend and struggle. At summits on Television and in hearings and in meetings; and armies go back and forth and ships float on the seas and commerce and trade go back and forth and big power politics and actions are played out and bargains are made and people are killed as a result, as people are ignored and those who are the poor of the world suffer far beyond their measure.  And we see this and we try to understand it and we say, what does it mean?  And we need to understand that. 

Great spiritual powers contend and struggle behind the scenes of today's world events on the world scene.  We just see the headlines.  We might, if we choose, delve a little deeper into the background and understand really, what is Syria?  Why should that concern me?  Why should what is taking place with a million people on the streets of Egypt, what difference does that make to me?  Those are legitimate questions.  Most people don't even get to the question much less get to understanding about it.

Those of you that are here for ABC this year, we are going to try and help you understand what it all means by the time you are finished through all the courses of study that we have for you.  We hope that you will understand a little bit closer as to what does it really mean, why does it matter, because it does matter.  The world that we live in is not all that it seems on the surface.  There are huge events behind the scenes. 

In the book of Daniel 10 we have a glimpse of it where Daniel was waiting for some revelation and finally the angel came and said, I would have been here a little bit sooner but the prince of Persia delayed me.  What?  What is the prince of Persia?  And then he gave him (Daniel) some information and instruction and said, well, I've got to go. The prince of Persia waits and there is probably going to be the prince of Greece comes on the scene too, and then it ends.  You're thinking:  Wow, what does that mean? What that means is, that there are great spiritual powers behind the scenes of Persia and Greece and Europe and other nations, powerful spirit beings who control events.  That is what that is telling us and God just kind of lifts the blind, the shade, just a little bit to give us a little waif of understanding.  Hey, there is more in this world than what we really do understand and what we really see. 

The headlines - that is not the real story. CNN is not going to give it to you; Reuters isn't going to give it to you; Drudge isn't going to give it to you and for some of you, I know this is a big disappointment, not even Glen Beck is going to give it all to you.  No matter how close he gets to understanding.  He doesn't get it all either.  That's the world in which we live, and a battle rages. Paul says in:

Ephesians 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 

That's the real battle and it is a battle whether we look at it individually in our own life in overcoming, struggling against sin, struggling with this world, struggling against Satan and whatever attack he may engineer against us – there is a battle going on.  The world is not what it seems and there is a great battle going on and we are in the midst of it and we need to wake up to that.  That is what Paul says:

Ephesians 5:14 Therefore He says: "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

The world is not what it seems and we are in a battle.  We are in a spiritual battle and that is what Paul outlines here in Ephesians 6:12.  We wrestle against the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

And there is a way to understand that and there is far more to what Paul says here from the Bible to help us grasp that and most importantly to understand that God is with us and gives us the help to meet that battle and to contend with the world the way it really is.  We are on a different journey.  We are on a journey to the Kingdom of God and while we wait for the appearance of the King, before all the world, and when all the world will finally see Him and understand what happens in Revelation 11:15 or Revelation 19:1 or 1 Thessalonians 4:17 when Christ descends and is on that white horse and the angels of heaven are behind Him and the saints and all of that will be, and He appears in this great event, the greatest event of human history, the world for the first time in a sense, will see Him as He is.  And you know what?  So will we.  We will see Him as He is because we will be like Him through the transformation of the resurrection, we're told.

But He will appear and the world will understand that and we will too, because in a sense He has already appeared to us in that He lives in us by the Holy Spirit and as we are in this time of judgment as it begins at the house of God and because we have repented, or you and those of us who have and others like us who have repented of sin, accepted Christ's blood to that penalty, been baptized and received through the gift of laying on of hands the gift of the Holy Spirit, that life is in us and that life is what can help us then deal with the battle that we're in.  And that is what God gives to each one of us because Christ said that He would not leave us orphans.  He would come to us.  Remember those scriptures we read on the Passover, just a few months ago out of the book of John?  I will not leave you, I will come to you, and He has and will to those who repent, those who are called and who are His elect.

If we don't wrestle against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness then Romans 8:9 gives to us the hope of how it is that we deal with that battle.

Romans 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed - we are not spirit beings yet. 1 Corinthians 15 shows us when that will take place: at the sounding of the Trumpet and we will be changed.  We are not changed yet but Paul tells us:

V.9But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

V.10And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

V.11But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. 

God gives us the spiritual strength by the Spirit of God, Christ's life in us, to meet that battle and to continue on, to proceed on if you will, in that journey to which we have been called for the Kingdom of God.  That is the help that we have and that's how we live a spiritual life, spirit led life, in the midst of this present evil world and contend with all of these challenges and we keep moving on. 

We keep going to the Feast; we keep coming to Sabbath services; we keep fellowshipping with the brethren; we keep learning about God; we keep praying; we continue to persevere year after year after year, as pilgrims, because we haven't arrived.  A pilgrim is one who has not arrived.  He is always on a journey.  That is one of the hallmarks of a pilgrim and, brethren, we are pilgrims.  We haven't arrived.  We are always moving.  A pilgrim is always moving seeking that city as Hebrews 11:13 tells us, whose builder and maker is God.

The Holy Days that God has given us are occasions.  They are temples in time when we can come before God and focus on His plan, on our great God.  They are times for us to become centered. Passover comes around every year and we go through an examination of ourselves to prepare to come and take the symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in a manner that somehow resembles worthiness.  We are never completely worthy.  We are only worthy because of Christ's sacrifice but we think about that, we prepare for it, we repent, we pray and fast and reflect and study about our lives and we come to the Day of Pentecost and we come to Trumpets and we plan through the year to come before Him on the great Feast of Tabernacles, that great pilgrim Feast.  That is really what it was and continues to be. 

We center on those things and we have a chance to recalibrate, to pause, and it is a little nutty for people who look at us and think:  Why on Thursday are you going to be like a Jew?  That's what you were doing on Thursday you know.  Real Jews, they were down in their synagogues keeping Rosh Hosanna.  You and I were where ever we were. This year we were up in Dayton at a Hotel.  We were in at Elks Lodge in Ravenna and the world looks at us and they don't understand and they think, what are you doing, trying to be Jews?  If you want to be a Jew, go down to the synagogue.  But we didn't go to the synagogue because we are not Jews. 

We are far different but to the world that is what it looks like and it is confusing.  It is for us a time to recalibrate, to be renewed and brethren we should and I hope you all seek renewal when it comes to these Holy Days and especially to the great Feast of Tabernacles.  Great, being my word to add to it because it is great.  It is a great time; it is a great experience.  We plan all year for it and it is a focal point in our tradition within the church all these decades that we have been doing it, the way that we do it, and how its been done and what we have learnt about it.  But it becomes ultimately a time of spiritual renewal. 

As you think about where you are going, you got your ticket and you are getting your car ready and you are getting your plans and your itinerary and all your hopes and what you want to do.  If you are a young person you want to go off to where a lot of other young people will be and activities are planned and from my point, look, I am going to – I guess there will be some young people there.  I know some of you are younger than me and you are going to the same spot but I am going to the Feast this year – I am glad to go with my kids.  I have a few speaking opportunities but I am going to keep the Feast.  I don't care if it is in Jamaica or the Holiday Inn, Eastgate.  I can enjoy it there – in all of these places.  Keep the Feast and have some sermons, fellowship and be with my family.  That is all I need and all the rest of it, whatever else awaits is gravy, in that sense.  It is a great time but at the heart of it, it is a spiritual occasion.

Let me give you a challenge here today.  Let me give everyone of us, myself included, a challenge as we go off to keep the Feast of Tabernacles and yes, Atonement and yes, even the Eight Day.  Set yourself, set you heart, set your mind right now to prepare yourselves for a spiritual Feast of Tabernacles no matter how great the physical will be along with it.  Prepare for a spiritual Feast because that is what it is.  We come before God.  We come to revere, to fear, to learn.  It is all about coming before God.  Set yourself to prepare for a spiritual Feast and set yourself this: bring back something that changes your life. Bring back something this year that will change your life and the way you look at the Church, the way you look at God, the way you look at your life, the way you look at the person sitting next to you, whoever that may be, or in front of you.  Or that person that may not be here today that you don't like.  Bring back something that changes your life by what you do.

Let me give you three keys to renewal and to have a Feast of renewal and to hopefully as you use this and anything you may add to it will give you a Festival of renewal that hopefully will change your life for the good.  Let me give you three keys.

Number 1:  Put God and the things of God first during the Feast of Tabernacles.  Put God and the things of God first.  Again, no matter how nice the resort is and the condo and the house and whatever, put God first and recognize that you are going there because that is where God has placed His name at this time in the context of what we understand and He is there and you are there on that appointed occasion; put God and the things of God first.

Pray to God.  Let's beat it a little bit finer.  Let me ask you to do something, please.  Pray to God and ask Him to inspire the ministry, the deacons and the elders and any who may be speaking; A sermonette and a sermon and special music; and even just let's take it to the conversations in the isles before and after and around the tables wherever you are going to be.  Pray that God will inspire the teaching of His ministry, of His men who will be giving prepared messages, and the entire environment.

One of the things that I had been thinking about is that each of the men who will speak will be able to get a pulse of the Church this year and address the needs, the real needs.  Not just the pet-idea, not just a pet-teaching and a standard rote sermon that may be yellowed and frayed around the edges because it has been given 15 times, going back that many years or more.  Pray that each man will prepare a fresh, insightful sermon that is based upon his insight that God gives to him of the needs of the church, that we will have the pulse of the church this year.  That is always needed.  Perhaps it is a little bit more critical this year as I look at it but it is always needed and that the messages can address those (needs). 

Let me say something here, it will take a minute.  When you get to your Feast site and you get the list of who is giving the messages and you see there is a day there, and you see somebody's name and you say, oh no!  I don't like him.  He is boring or he's what ever or he's this and you are tempted to stay by the pool that day or the beach or to go to the mall.  It is not the Sabbath, it is just during the Feast, what is going to be missed? You are tempted to take a "pill" as we say and don't tell me that that doesn't happen because it has happened to me.  Let me ask you to do something:  don't skip. 

Stay and pray for that person.  Pray that God will inspire them and even more, pray that He will inspire you to listen a little bit more to what is being said and if you have to grit your teeth, go ahead and grit your teeth.  If your husband or your wife or your friend or your girlfriend has to chain you to the seat, tie you down with ropes, go ahead and let that happen too.  You can repent later. 

I am serious.  This is a real issue that you all need to think about at times because it is not just the person; it is not just you, it is not just me, it is God and it is the message and it is God's spirit working in us, imperfectly as we are.  God's spirit is always perfect and if we yield, even the speakers and men, with our flaws, if we yield to God, God can use us.  I know you are already thinking, that's right, He used an ass and a donkey, and He can use you.  That's right.

But if you also pray that you will be able to listen properly and listen for what you need during that message and every message.  Learn to listen during the Feast this year.  Just learning to listen can change your life because we don't listen.  We don't listen.  We don't listen to one another; we don't listen to our own hearts and sometimes sadly we don't listen to God and how and where He is teaching us and through whom He may be teaching us.  We don't listen enough. We need to listen and we need to encourage.  You can encourage through prayer, if by nothing else. 

You can encourage by being there; by being in the hall, by being in the isle, by singing a hymn, by getting acquainted with someone that you don't know, this time.  You move out of your little comfort group and comfort people, zone, and you listen to somebody else's life and you listen to their story. You quit looking over their shoulder and say I am going to listen what this person has to say.  I might learn something this time and you sit down and you listen to their story and you listen to what is being preached and you learn to listen to what God is doing in other people's lives.  And brethren, let met tell you, God is doing some great things in the lives of His people today.  He really is. 

I am amazed - just what I hear, what I see and just the little contact I get.  On the Feast of Trumpets where I was up in North East Ohio, the people who walked through the door that hadn't been there in 16, 17 years.  And there were some who hadn't been there in maybe 20 to 30 years and they chose that day, on the Feast of Trumpets, to come back and to be with God's people and yes, there were people there who were there for the first time too, brand new. 

God is doing some great things in the lives of His people.  He is working and His spirit he is moving and where there is the spirit of God in a person, although it may have been dormant for a period of time if bitterness and envy has not robbed it of its life and vitality, God can still work and by His spirit, in a sense, pour some water upon a parched seed and see it spring back to life.  Don't ever underestimate that.  And if you are there and you meet that person and you see that person, brand new, old, coming back, whatever, and you are there you are helping to make the United Church of God a success.  You are helping to make God's Kingdom a reality.  So, listen.

Second point:  Pray for a heart of understanding during the Feast this year.  As I said, listen to what God is saying. 

Hezekiah, the great king of Judah, at a time of revival and renewal of his own people did something that really just stands out for the time and place of the nation and the king and the people, and where they had been in apostasy and what he was trying to do to bring them back.

They weren't prepared and the Passover had come and they had not been prepared properly by the Levites and sanctified in that sense.  There were a number of people from the various tribes that were in this category. 

2 Chronicles 30:18yet they ate the Passover contrary to what was written.

But where as a strict penalty might have been enforced, do you know what Hezekiah did?  He prayed for them.

V.18 - … But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, "May the good Lord provide atonement (or forgiveness) for everyone.

May the grace of God be with you is another way to put what he said here. 

V.19 – (for everyone) who prepares his heart to seek God.

If you prepare your heart to seek God – this is a New Covenant teaching right here in the midst of blood and guts and animals and sacrifices and a temple and a priesthood and fire and brimstone.  This is a New Covenant statement here and Hezekiah got it.  He understood it.  He understood the heart of God and God's plan.  He said if you prepare your heart to seek Him, God's grace, His atonement, will be there.

V.19 - … though he is not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary."

V.20And the Lord listened to Hezekiah and healed the people.

Pray for a heart of understanding, that is my point, as you go to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.  Pray for a heart of understanding and ask that specifically of God as you work to put God first, wherever and in whatever you are going to do. 

I want to do something a little different.  I know some of you heard this sermon of parts of it last week and you think, oh, the same points.  No, I like to change things up.  I have a third point that is a little different. 

Let me give you a Psalm for the Feast that you might want to look at during the Feast.  Psalm 84 – I am not going to read it all. Write it down, put it on your 3x5, put it in your notes; make this maybe a theme Psalm for you during the Feast of Tabernacles because it is really a Pilgrim Psalm and it does fit the time.

Psalm 84:1 How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts!

Where God dwells – it is talking about the temple.  The pilgrims went up to the temple.  The great pilgrimage Feasts of the spring, summer and fall, the three seasons that Deuteronomy 16:16 tells us about.  They went up as pilgrims to the Feast.  Now this is what this Psalm is saying:

V.1How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts!

V.2My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

The author of this Psalm longed to just walk around through the courts of the temple and to look at the beauty of it and to think about what it all portrayed about God.  We don't go in to a temple; we don't go into any building, dedicated, consecrated, solely for that use but we are told that we are the temple.  God is putting together a spiritual temple and if we can long even to be together - and you get the point.  You fill in the details.  This Psalm is such a beautiful one to put our focus upon God and being before Him and with Him during the time.

V.5Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage.

A pilgrim moving; a pilgrim in the days of the Old Testament and Israel and Judah and up until the time of Christ; they moved toward the temple in Jerusalem during the High Festivals.  Jerusalem swelled by hundreds of thousands of people in population as they came there and he says:

V.5Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage.

Our heart is set on pilgrimage because we are pilgrims.  We are moving through our life and stages of our life on our continual journey to the Kingdom of God.  The Psalm goes on:

V.10For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand.  I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

To just have a job as a doorkeeper and to open the door for people and shut it and make sure that it was, you know, kept up and clean, whatever it is, instead of having something else that might be as a result of my prowess, my design, my skills, my abilities in this wicked world.  The great joy for this person was to be able to go to the presence of God and have a small role.

One of my friends was in town last week and he said he had decided where he was going to go for the Feast this year because the coordinator of the site said, Please come.  Please come.  You'll serve just by showing up.  He thought that was a great idea.  I can serve just by showing up.  I am sure he will be doing some other things but we do serve in small ways.  Being there, being at the Feast, being there at every service, being here every week.  It is a service.  It serves to build together the spiritual body of Jesus Christ and the great spiritual work that God is doing in each of us.

So, Psalm 84, let me just point you to that and encourage you to make this a Psalm that you will go back to and read and find it in other translations and study into what some of these things really do mean here.  Get those maps out at the back of your Bible or pull down a Commentary or Dictionary or something and look at what some of these places mean and ideas mean.  Think of this as something that you pray with God about and it can help.  It can help us change something about our life and have a deeper spiritual experience during the Feast of Tabernacles this year.

Remember Meriwether Lewis?  We left him scrambling up the mountain in the Continental Divide and he looked out thinking that he was going to see a great river way that would just help them float downhill to the Pacific Ocean.  They had been struggling for more than a year and it was tough and he saw something and I said, he saw the same thing that you and I see.  What did he see?  More mountains.  He didn't see a river way.  In fact there were just more mountains as far as he could see.  The Bitterroot Range of the Idaho's is what they call it today.  You must image that his heart kind of, oh no: Now we have to haul all this stuff up and down a few mountains to get where we are going.  We have to struggle some more.  Yes, he did.  You know what they did?  They proceeded on.

They proceeded on and they made it to the Pacific Ocean.  They wintered there and they turned around and they walked all the way back to St. Louis, Missouri, and ended their trip.  We know about it today because they wrote about it and it is a fantastic story of adventure and exploration because they proceeded on.

Well, we see mountains.  We get sometimes to a particular peak of our life and we might want it to be a little bit easier and somehow it just doesn't always get easier.  There is another mountain ahead.  Another year.  We need the Feasts.  We need particularly that time with God and with His people and we need the instruction that it will give us to help us in our pilgrimage; to help us keep our eyes on that city whose builder and maker is God.  And so brethren, enjoy the Feast, enjoy your time with each other and with God during the Feast and let's proceed on.