The Feast of Tabernacles

 After Satan is put away, the next stage of God’s Plan is the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ as King of kings. This involves Christ and the resurrected saints teaching ALL of humanity the ways of God. It involves the MASSIVE “fall harvest” of saints—the time when everyone then living will finally learn the ways of God and have full opportunity—without Satan’s deceptions—to serve and obey the Creator.
     In Leviticus 23:34, God commanded this Festival to ancient Israel, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord.’” So the Feast of Tabernacles was to last seven days. It pictures the seventh millennial day or 1,000-year period of human history—coming just ahead of us. In Leviticus 23, it is called the Feast of Tabernacles or “booths”—to remind Israel that they were “sojourners” in the land. Spiritually it reminds Christians that we are—as our father Abraham—”strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13) looking forward to the Kingdom of God.
     But in Exodus 23 we find an autumn Festival described as “the Feast of INGATHERING, which is at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field” (v. 16). So it also pictures and celebrates the great fall harvest in Israel—picturing for Christians the great spiritual harvest of souls to be reaped during the one thousand year reign of Christ!
     As we have already seen, at that time the earth will become “full of the knowledge of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:9). And “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain.” There will be an outpouring of peace and JOY such as the world has never experienced: “No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain JOY and GLADNESS, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (35:9–10).
     The inspired Peter called this period the “times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of ALL His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). Indeed, literally scores of prophecies throughout the Old and New Testaments speak of the time of Christ’s return, of all the world coming to understand, and of genuine peace and safety permeating the earth because humanity will be learning God’s righteous LAWS and practicing His entire way of life:
     ”Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the LAW, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:2–4).
     When the modern Israelites return from their end-time captivity: “They shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations…. Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; EVERLASTING JOY shall be theirs” (Isaiah 61:4, 7).
     The millennial reign of Christ is definitely the time prophesied by Jeremiah: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put MY LAW in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:31–33).
     For God’s magnificent spiritual law, the Ten Commandments, has NEVER been done away! But they have been “magnified” by Jesus Christ and made even more binding, so that we are to keep, not only the letter but the spiritual intent of God’s law. So we do not merely refrain from murder, we refrain from enmity and hate and the attitude of murder (Matthew 5:21–22). We are taught not only to forsake adultery, but not even to “look on” a woman to lust after her! (vv. 27–28).
     During the Millennium, God’s laws are to be written in the hearts and minds of His people all over the earth. For God’s laws expresses His very CHARACTER—the character He demands that we develop in order to be kings and priests forever in His Kingdom! This blessing will be afforded ALL MANKIND during the wonderful “Feast of Ingathering,” the 1,000-year reign of Christ here on this earth. Revelation 20 tells us: “Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years” (v. 6).
     So all true Christians should be preparing NOW to learn and PRACTICE God’s laws and His way of life so that they will be able to TEACH these things to others in Christ’s soon-coming world government. The inspired Apostle Paul admonishes true Christians: “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?” (1 Corinthians 6:2–3).
     Will just the “true Christians” or the Israelites observe the Feast of Tabernacles? Notice Zechariah 14:1–4: “Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.” Then read verse 9, “And the Lord shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be—‘The Lord is one,’ and His name one.” And read verses 16–19, “And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of ALL the nations that do not come up to KEEP THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.”
     The above verses should make it very clear that ALL nations will learn to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in a very few years under the immediate direction of Jesus Christ. Even the Egyptians, who may at first have resentments against anything “Jewish,” will, learn to OBSERVE the Feast of Tabernacles—and ALL of God’s commanded Festivals.