11/1/2008 9:53 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Tabernacles: the joy of the Lord
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Leviticus 23:33-44
Message of the verses: “33 ¶
Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 34 "Speak to the sons of Israel
39 ‘On exactly the fifteenth day of the seventh
month, when you have gathered in the crops of the land, you shall celebrate the
feast of the LORD for seven days, with a rest on the first day and a rest on
the eighth day. 40 ‘Now on the first day you shall take for
yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and boughs of leafy
trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God
for seven days. 41 ‘You shall thus celebrate it as a feast to
the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout
your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42
‘You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel
shall live in booths, 43 so that your
generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I
brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’" 44 So Moses declared to the sons of Israel
This
was one of the best chapters that I have studied for a very long time as I have
always wanted to understand the different feast that the Jewish people had to
go to and what they meant and not I have learned the prophetic meaning of these
feasts and that is icing on the cake to me.
These
last verses of chapter describe the Feast of Tabernacles, which was a feast
that happened soon after the Day of Atonement.
There were 199 animals that were offered during this lengthy feast of
eight days and these can be seen in Numbers. 29. “This reminds us that there can be no
blessing apart from the grace of God and the sacrifice of His Son for us on the
cross.” The feast was to remember how God took care of the nation of Israel Israel
Dr.
Wiersbe points out that because this feast came shortly after the Day of
Atonement we must remember that joy always follows cleansing.
Now
I come to the prophetic part of this feast, and that is that this feast is a
picture of the Kingdom Age that will happen after the Tribulation Period and
has been promised to the Nation of Israel for a very long time. As I stated before this feast can also be
called the Feast of Gatherings, and the harvest will be complete after the
Tribulation period. (I realize that
there will be some in the Kingdom Age that will not accept the Lord as their
Savior, and that there will be children of those who go into the Kingdom age
who will need to be saved, but I think it is safe to say that the Kingdom Age
will be a new dispensation). The Kingdom
Age will be a joyous age, as sin will be dealt with immediately and the best
part of it will be that King Jesus will be sitting on His Throne in Jerusalem
Dr.
Wiersbe points out that there were two more rituals that were added to this
feast later on and Jesus Christ, while on earth related both of these tradition
to Himself. The first one was the
pouring of water during this feast that came from the pool of Siloam, and Jesus
fulfilled this in John 7:37 when He cried out, “If any man thirst let him come
unto me and drink.” The second ritual
was the lighting of candles which represented the fire that protected the
Israelites on their way through the wilderness.
Jesus said in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. By the way the pouring of the water
represented the rock that the children of Israel
One
more point that Dr. Wiersbe points out that is very interesting, and that is
all the males were required to go to three feasts in Jerusalem
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I know that I am in the age of the harvest
which is between feasts and that it is part of my job to bring in the harvest
and that is what I would like to do, to tell people the old, old story of Jesus
and His love. I pray that God will lead
those to me who need to hear this story and are ready to receive it. This has been a wonderful study and I have
truly learned a lot by studying it.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
- Trust that the Lord will give me the opportunity to tell someone today about His love and need for salvation.
Memory verses for the week: Exodus 20:17
& Romans 6:1-2
17.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you
shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant
or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
- What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
- May it never be! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
11/1/2008 11:15 AM
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