mind the unfailing mercy and goodness o f the Lord during Israel’s wilderness wanderings. Beware lest thou forget the Lord! We need more reunions for the express purpose of giving gratitude to God. Some brethren have seen in this Feast a slightly different application for the Christian. To them it points to that period in the Christian’s career which lies between conversion to God and his final inherit ance o f the promises. Joseph A. Seiss has said, “This world is not our dwelling place. We are pil grims and strangers here, tarrying for a little sea son in tents and booths, which we must soon vacate and leave to decay. ‘The earthly house of this tab ernacle’ must ‘be dissolved.’ The places that know us now shall soon know us no more. ‘Seven days’— a full period—were the people o f Israel to remain in these temporary tabernacles. And thus shall we be at the inconvenience o f a tent-life for the full period o f our earthly stay. But it was only once in a year that Israel kept the Feast o f Tabernacles. And so when we once leave the flesh, we shall never return to it again. Our future bodies shall be glori fied, celestial, spiritual bodies. ‘When the earthly house o f this tabernacle shall be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’ ‘In this tabernacle we do groan, being burdened, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.' Nevertheless, if we be the people of God — if we have listened to the call of the trumpets, and kept the day of atonement by a godly affliction of soul for our sins,—even our stay in these poor shelters is a joyous and a blessed estate. It is a continuous feast upon forgiveness and blessed hope.” Unquestionably the most literal and striking reference to the Feast o f Tabernacles in the pro phetic Scriptures will be found in the prophecies of Zechariah. They show us that the true celebra tion of this last Feast belongs to the glory o f the latter days when Israel’s restored tribes shall be gathered in rest and repose, rejoicing in both her redemption and Messiah. “ And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles” (Zech. 14:16). We believe this passage has a prophetic outlook in a literal fulfillment at Jerusalem. The Feast of tabernacles will yet be celebrated in the city of the great King. Swords will be turned unto plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks. Na tions from every part of the world will have their delegations present. “ . . . Men shall take hold out of all languages o f the nations, even shall take hold o f the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you” (Zech. 8:23). “ And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families o f the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of
hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast o f tabernacles. This shall be the pun ishment of Egypt, and the punishment o f all na tions that come not up to keep the feast of taber nacles” (Zech. 14:17-19). In that day Israel shall be owned as God’s earthly people, and the Gentile nations shall recognize this great fact. Israel’s present effort to produce a forced Feast o f Tabernacles is a futile one. The closing verse of this mighty chapter in Leviticus reads, “And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord” (Lev. 23:44). In like fashion the chapter commenced (Lev. 23:2). But, alas, when Christ was in their midst they rejected Him, hence the Feasts of the Lord had degenerated into the feast of the Jews. Jehovah’s Feast of Tabernacles will far outshine the Jews Feast of Tabernacles (John 7 :2 ). They were attempting to provide without their Messiah that which He alone can make possible, hence their religious festival was a counterfeit. When man attempts to take over a divinely-ordered institution and shuts out God Himself, there re mains merely a form of godliness that denies the power thereof (2 Tim. 3 :5). This Feast later became known in the Jewish liturgy as “ the season o f our joy,” because it was primarily, above all the other Feasts, a time of delight and thanksgiving. A joyous procession, at tended by music and headed by a priest, engaged the hearts o f the people while the morning sacri fice was being prepared. But since the day Israel rejected Christ, the Jew has been trying to cele brate this Feast, but this is a vain seeking of joy for he seeks it without his Messiah. Christ is not in their gatherings because He is not recognized nor wanted. It is in every sense o f the word “the Jews’ feast of tabernacles” and not “ the feast of Jehovah.” The Jew is not alone in his endeavor to substi tute a counterfeit religion for the real thing. Roman Catholicism and much o f Protestantism are no bet ter. The Lord Jesus Christ is shut out from this world’s vast religious systems. Were He on the earth today, He might say as He said when He was here, “My time is not yet come” (John 7 :6 ). But His time will have come when He returns. Just as “ there was very great gladness” when the Jews re sumed the Feast of Tabernacles after the Babylo nian captivity (Neh. 8:17), even so will the earth resound with real joy “ in the last day, that great day o f the Feast” (John 7:37). How blessed that day will be! God does have a plan and a goal. That plan is being effected, and to His divinely fixed goal He is most assuredly moving. The summation of all things is in His hands. Qi]
MARCH, 1969
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