Feast of Tabernacles

This feast has a great deal of significance.  The relevance has been written about before on this website but with the additional events which are taking place during September - The 4th Blood Moon and the 70th Year of Jubilee. We will be giving a little bit of understanding and extra focus on why this great feast has added purpose.

The full representation is that the people celebrate the feast by building booths or shelters to recall the days in the wilderness, the 40 year isolation.  The celebration is that God the Father has taken them them out of slavery and set them free.  Jesus did the same for us, setting us free from our wilderness experience.  As you can see, there are a number of different names, they are all significant to the Jewish community.  Firstly, we need to look at the roots and they have extra special importance when we see the direction of the Lord in Exodus 23 v 14-17.    The summary of these verses is to command the Jewish man to make 3 pilgrimages to Jerusalem each year.  As this has been spoken about before, we know that the first is  Pesach (Passover), the second, Shavuot (Pentecost) and, the third, Sukkot (Tabernacles).

From a physical perspective, the first 2 have been fulfilled and are written about either both physically and spiritually, through Jesus becoming our Passover Lamb or through the arrival of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. Tabernacles has not yet been fulfilled and there is a great deal of evidence which directs us to believe that Jesus will return during the period of the Feast of Tabernacles.  Which one?  No idea!  and unless we believe that the Lord only speaks to a few people and not to all of His children, no-one else has either.  

Do we believe that He will return? - absolutely! There is, also, evidence which directs us to understand that Jesus was born during the Feast Of Tabernacles and not December 25th!!  

There are too many leaders/speakers who are indicating that Jesus will be returning on the date of the Jubilee, September 23rd.  Apparently, we wont be seeing the 4th Blood Moon or that the 4th moon will be the start or end (or the middle part?) of the Tribulation.  Which is it?  Of course, there are signs that we are in the latter days but are we in the last days?  If you go back 20 years, some of the evil and tragic events (e.g. 9/11) were considered the final and worst events imaginable.  Look back 10 years and the events in the Balkans with the Srebrenica genocide, considered the most inhumane since WWII.  The events of today and climate fluctuations would make us think that we have hit the bottom.  Only the Lord knows.  Amen?

In fact, many other significant events took place during this Fall feast, namely - 

• 4 Blood Moons (see website for more details) only 4 occasions  AD162-63, 1949-50, 1967-68 and this year on September 28th.
  
• Re-dedication of the Temple in Ezra in time to celebrate the feast in 458BC.
  
• Nehemiah completed the rebuilding of the walls in 52 days on October 2nd, 445BC.
  
• Jesus was challenged in the temple in John 7 because he healed the cripple at Bethesda.
  

The possible significance of why the disciple asked Jesus if they could build 3 booths on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17.

Finally, the names of the feast are interesting - 

Tabernacles - Refers to the time in the wilderness, a temporary shelter, modeled for Heaven.

Sukkot - The Hebrew name.  It represents Joy, yes, a celebration.  This is why there are 2 other names Season of our Joy and the Season of our Rejoicing.

Booths - Reference to the disciples comments also in Luke 9 when they believed that they saw Moses and Elijah.  They were celebrating the feast.

Ingathering - This is harvest time, the end of the year signifies reaping what we have sown - physically and spiritually.  It is an ingathering of souls.

Feast of the Nations -  In Zechariah 14 v 16, the Lord invites the nations to share in the Celebration .  This is the unique thing about this feast, it will be the result of Jesus returning and bringing all nations to Him.

Blessings,
Pastor David

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