The Feast Of Tabernacles With Holy Communion 2014

[Pastor Josh]

TheFellowshipOfTheLivingWord.com
The Feast Of Tabernacles With Holy Communion 2014

Introduction:

The Feast Of Tabernacles is one of the 3 annual feasts that God had commanded the Israelite people to honor and to observe. This particular festival was probably the most celebrated, extravagant and most noticed Festival by the neighboring pagans and it lasted from the 15th till the 22nd of the seventh month of the sacred calendar known as Tisri.
The Feast was also known as The Feast of In-gathering according to The Book Of Exodus and among other places in scripture. The time of the festival fell in the season of fall when the corn, the wine and the oil were gathered in to harvest. The festival lasted a total of seven days, and was followed by an eighth day which was a day of holy convocation, distinguished by sacrifices of its own. Both the first day and the eighth day of the Festival we're to be considered Sabbaths where no servile work was to be done along with the giving of meat offerings by fire, drink offerings, vows, gifts, free will offerings as well as offering the first fruits of the ground like corn, wine and oil etc. On the eighth day the people were to dismantle their tents and take up living in their homes again.
During the seven days of The Feast Of Tabernacles the Israelites were to dwell in tents that they had made by hand from the bows of trees which had thick foliage. This ritual of living in tents for seven days was a means of reminding Israel that they had once dwelt in tents for 40 years in the wilderness when they were freed of the bondage of Egypt. It is a time to remember that God keeps his promises, he sets forth a veil of protection over His people when they are obedient and show that they Love Him. God will always provide you with what you need so long as you love him and have faith in him.
This week long Festival was set as an eternal statute that Israelite/Christians were to keep it as a Holy Convocation for all their generations and therefore applies to now and includes you, me and all those that believe in Christ which is why we are gonna honor our Lord and Savior today by making communion with Him on this holy occasion. The word Tabernacle comes from the Hebrew word H5521
סכּה
sûkkâh
sook-kaw'
which is the Feminine of the Hebrew word Soke' H5520; a hut or lair: - booth, cottage, covert, pavilion, tabernacle, tent. Basically a temporary handmade structure that could be dismantled and carried by hand from one location to another.

Prayer:

Let us go ahead and open up our KJV or our Companion Bibles to The Book of Leviticus Chapter 23 and we will begin about verse 34 but before we start let us go ahead and open up in prayer...

Bible Verses:

Lev 23:34 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.

Lev 23:35 On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.

Lev 23:36 Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn (meaning grave, important to invoke serious thought and reflection) assembly (a meeting); and ye shall do no servile work therein.

Lev 23:37 These are the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, every thing upon his day:

Lev 23:38 Beside the sabbaths of the LORD, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your freewill offerings, which ye give unto the LORD.

Lev 23:39 Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.

Lev 23:40 And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.

Lev 23:41 And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

Lev 23:42 Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:

Lev 23:43 That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Lev 23:44 And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the LORD.

We know by His words that Christ even celebrated this sacred festival and if Christ is our example then it just makes sense that we should follow him. Let us see what He says in John's account of the Gospel...

Joh 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

If you thirst for our Father's precious word which is what? We are talking about the His the word which is the Holy Bible. It is only our Father's Word which can quench your thirst for knowledge, wisdom and truth. His word tells us that it is a statute forever to observe The Feast of Tabernacles and that is exactly what we intend to do here at The Fellowship.

Joh 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

By having faith and believing on Him our thirst can be quenched eternally. Notice how He is using the ritual of pouring out the water from the spring of Siloam where one of the priests fetched some water in a golden ewer from the pool of Siloam, which he brought into the court through the water-gate. As he entered, the trumpets sounded, and he ascended the slope of the altar. At the top of this were fixed two silver basins with small openings at the bottom. Wine was poured into that on the eastern side, and the water into that on the western side, where, it was drained by pipes into the Cedron. In the evening, both men and women assembled in the court of the women, expressly to hold a rejoicing for the drawing of the water of Siloam. At the same time, there were set up in the court two lofty stands, each supporting four great lamps. These were lighted on each night of the festival. In verse 37 John is most likely referring to the 8th day of the Feast although the possibility of it referring to the 7th day cannot entirely be dismissed either.

Joh 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Christ is the light of the world because through Him and His Blood we are forgiven for our sins. Darkness symbolizes death and light symbolizes life for before Christ all we had to look forward to was death because the wages of sin is death. It is only through Christ that we can obtain eternal life with our Father in Heaven. The previous verse also refers to the lamps of the Festival and how they symbolize and represent a type would soon fulfill. God is Light, Love & Life remember that meditate on it and never forget it.

According to the modern calendar and by using the sacred calendar as a scale to determine the correct dates for the Feast of Tabernacles for The Year 2014 we know that The Feast Begins on September 15th which is the High Sabbath and continues until the 21st which is the last Feast Day. And then of course the 22nd is the 8th day which is also a Sabbath. The last day of the feast the 21st is also the most likely day that Christ was born which we know because in The first chapter of Luke it says that Zacharias the Levitcal Priest whom was the father of John The Baptist was serving the course of Abia in which he and his wife Elizabeth had conceived John The Baptist. Elizabeth and Mary The Virgin we're cousins and these we know because their mothers were sisters whom where of the Tribe of Levi. The same Angel Gabriel who told Zacharias that he would be blessed with child visited Mary 6 mos. Later and Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit in her womb and therefore was born 6 mos. After John The Baptist was Born. By an understanding of the Hebrew Calendar and knowing the times that the 24 courses were to be observed we know that Christ was not born December 25th, but rather He was conceived around December 21st and Born during the Feast of Tabernacles. If this seems like a foreign language to you then don't worry check out our study on Christmas which can be found on YouTube or our Websites will fully explain how we've come to determine these dates. Are these dates important not really but why not learn the truth which will only unlock other truths in your studies. I also promise that we will be doing a complete Sacred Calendar Study before the next spring equinox which is also the New Year according to the Sacred Calendar. It is important that we learn the proper feast days so that we can observe them and make our Father happy after all he made our observing the feasts a statute forever for His people. By knowing the Sacred Calendar which is simple to learn we can also properly honor the weekly Sabbaths, high Sabbaths as well as New Moon days which are a type of Sabbath that we are supposed to observe. Most Churches today don't even know what the Feast of Tabernacles is or that there are 3 annual feasts that we are to observe. So keep studying with us here at the Fellowship as well as on your own so that you can be a strong Christian.
Now we no longer sacrifice animals to atone for our sins because Christ is the Lamb slain He is the one and final Sacrifice. His blood is sufficient and to shed an animals blood for sin would be sacrilege and an abomination before our Father.

Right now is the time for us to step forward and take up Communion with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, so if you have the necessary items to partake in this precious ritual please gather them together right now...

Taking communion is a symbolic act where we recognize Jesus Christ for His sacrifices, for His suffering and for our sins which He had to take on and bare so it is very important that you take this very seriously. Imagine the weight of every sin that has ever been and will ever be committed by every living being that God has put or is going to put on this Earth. Imagine how it feels when your heart weighs heavy for the sins that you commit daily, some are worse than others, some we commit regularly, some of them we struggle with daily knowing that we have lost the fight with temptation and that we let our fleshly appetites run our lives when we should be trying to live in the spirit which rejects the things of flesh and of the world. The pain was so tremendous that Christ sweated blood and prayed to His Father that this burden was more than He could bare. We humans can't even wrap our mind around it...Christ lived a perfect life free of sin and he did so in a flesh body faced with the temptations that you and me face everyday. He did what no man could do before him, for there is not one man who could fulfill the law aside from our Lord and Savior. He took the stripes and we take the healing. So to honor Him we take this bread as a token of remembrance for His body was broken, beaten and bloody. He was mocked, spit on and treated like an ordinary criminal and yet he committed no crime. It was His body which was broken for you so let us take this Bread and remember the meaning of what we are doing today when we take this holy communion....

Then we take this cup to remind us that if it wasn't for His sacrifice that we would all die because of sin. The flesh brings lust, lust bringeth forth sin and sin bringeth death. Before Christ there was no exception or way out of this condition and it had been that way ever since the sin in the garden of Eden. We are talking thousands of years without the hope of eternal life. But there was hope even in the beginning in Genesis 3:15 where it says that there will be enmity that is, a great warfare between the woman's seed (The children of Eve) and the serpents seed (which is the children of Satan) it says that Christs heel's would be bruised when His feet were nailed to that cross, but Because of Christ's sacrifice Death had been defeated and therefore Satan would be defeated whom is death. Christ has the victory and we thank him today and honor him by drinking his blood to wash away our sins.

Well that about raps up our lesson for today we hope you enjoyed studying the Bible with us and taking communion today. Until next time I am Pastor Josh signing off may peace be with you always!

Copyright © 2014 Pastor Joshua Lewis