There is therefore a quick transition from the high holidays, with their somber mood of repentance and judgment, to a holiday of rejoicing and celebration, for which the people are commanded to build a hut and make it their home. The Torah identifies the sukkah with the temporary dwellings in which the Israelites lived in the wilderness after they left Egypt on their way to the Promised Land.
The Feast of Tabernacles represents this coming to full and complete maturity. It was also called the Feast of Booths. It was kept in commemoration of their wilderness journey when they had no permanent land or dwelling place and lived in tents. Paul called this mortal earthly body a “tent”. Abraham knew that in this earth realm he had no permanent or continuing city. He looked for the city “whose builder and maker is God.
Symbolically, that’s us, New Jerusalem as a Bride coming down adorned for her husband.
Rev. 21:2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
The Hebrew word for booth is “ sukkot or succoth”. It means a “wedding canopy”. It speaks of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, the New Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ, being joined to her husband. One is not ready to be married until one becomes “mature”. When God presented Eve to Adam, this is what Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
The Sukkah and the Clouds of Glory-The Sukkah reminds us of the clouds of glory that surrounded Israel during their wandering through the desert on the way to the Promised Land.
Everybody then saw the special Divine protection that God bestowed upon Israel during those difficult years. As it is written in Exodus 13:21, "And the Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night" (NAS).
Sukkot: Names, 1. The Season of Our Joy 2. The Festival of Ingathering 3. The Feast of the Nations 4. The Festival of Dedication 5. The Festival of Lights
Sukkot is called the "Season of Our Joy."
Fulfillment in Christ: His Bride
Each day of the feast of Tabernacles, the priests would divide into three groups. Two groups would take palm braches and at an appointed signal, would walk from the gates of Jerusalem toward the temple, swishing the willows back and forth. This is a picture of the wind of the Spirit entering the temple. The third group would go to the pool of Siloam, where a gold vase would be filled with living water and a silver vessel with wine. Then with the sound of the shofar resounding and being led by a flute-player, this group would enter the temple, circle the altar and pour out the water and wine on the altar.
However, on the seventh day of Tabernacles, the priests would circle the altar seven times and the willows would be laid against the altar, forming a chuppah or wedding canopy.
Then the high priest would pour out the living water and the wine would also be poured out.
Here on the seventh day, we see a depiction of the wedding of the Lamb of God. The Bridegroom, Jesus, is represented by the golden vessel, full of living water. The Bride is represented by the silver (pure) vessel, full of wine. This is a reference to the first miracle Jesus wrought when He turned the water into wine and the remark was made that the best wine had been kept until the end of the feast. God turns the water of the Word within us into wine, and then, in the pattern of our Bridegroom we pour our lives out on the altar of sacrifice. Jesus has saved the best wine for the last day of the feast, this third day - which is also the seventh day from creation.
In a Jewish wedding the Bride circles the groom seven times when she reaches the wedding canopy. By this we understand that what is being prophetically depicted by the Jews on the last and greatest day of the Feast, is the wedding of Jesus and His Bride. Beloved, we are living in the days of the wedding of the Lamb.
Jesus is calling His Bride to come to Him and drink. He is wanting to pour rivers of living water out of your innermost being and as you surrender yourself and say, “here am I, Lord, send me” You and your Bridegroom will serve the nations of the earth with living water and the best wine out of a pure vessel.
Our Heavenly Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, can only be joined to that which was created out of His Spirit. Paul proclaimed in I Cor. 6:17 that “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.”
What we have entered into is an engagement or betrothal period. Paul expresses this.
1 Corinthians 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
The words espouse or betroth have the same meaning. According to Webster’s dictionary betrothal means: “a mutual promise or contract for a future marriage, also called espousal.” When Adam looked upon Eve he knew immediately that she was “like” him. So we be “like” our Heavenly Bridegroom.
This is why the Holy Spirit instructed the children of Israel to build “succoths” or “wedding canopies” during the Feast of Tabernacles --- to prophesy of what our God’s ultimate purpose was in “tabernacling” with man.
The fulfillment of the Feats of Tabernacles is coming to the knowledge of this and walking in it, fulfilling your God given Destiny.
We are His habitation and He is ours.
FEAST OF TABERNACLES Part 2
Leviticus 23: 33-34
The Seventh Feast of Jehovah is Tabernacles. 7 is the number of perfection and rest. "Jesus Christ is revealed in the fullness of the Godhead bodily, the Lord of this feast, the Booth in whom the Father lived, moved and had His being...
Applied to the Christian, we receive the full adoption and redemption of our bodies, becoming a tabernacle for the fullness of God."
The Seventh Feast, Tabernacles, is figurative of the Shekinah Glory, the offerings were all washed and burnt by fire; the rest of God; Jesus tabernacles in a people; the Appearing (Coming, Parousia) of the Lord whether in visitation; or His Second Advent.
At Jesus’ first advent, He proclaimed the Jubilee principle on the “Sabbath-(7th day), at the beginning of His ministry. Luke 4: 16-21:”…he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day…he opened the Book of Isaiah where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Jesus is the Liberator and Deliverer!
Jubilee is fulfilled in Him. By and through Him there is coming forth a new creation man (Eph. 4: 13-24) with His same anointing. When we compare this passage in Luke, it is to be noted that Jesus stopped reading at Isa. 61:2a. “The day of Vengeance of our God…” was not read by the Lord.
1. Isa. 61: 1-2a, points to His first advent.
2. Isa. 61:2b, “The day of Vengeance of our God", was fulfilled at the Cross through Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. Jesus has already dealt with sin and Satan.
3. Isa. 61: 2b-11, points to the time of His Second Advent; and Jesus fulfilled in his brethren, a ministry created in His image.
Isa. 61: 10-11: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels. For as the earth brings forth her bud, and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
God’s people become the nation of priests He always intended them to be. He who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood has made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve God the Father. Israel in the wilderness, after the experience of redemption from Egypt was called to be a kingdom of priests to God.
The New Testament people of God, having been freed from their sins are similarly designated as a kingdom and priests. Rev. 5:
“The church has still not become that vital, living manifestation of Christ in the earth that she should be or has fully projected her light. The institutional church or the religious consumed church unless it changes will no longer be a light; But the new thing shall come forth, the fullness of the kingdom.
The full implication of Tabernacles is that the Body of the believer will be changed to become the tabernacle of God and a manifestation of His Glory. 11 Cor. 5: 1-5: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven; if so be that ‘being clothed we shall not be found naked…”
In Deut. 16:16, Feast of Tabernacles is the third meeting with God.
Heb. 9:11: 'but Christ being come "an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building."
Feast of Tabernacles: “…the Lord’s coming is a spiritual visitation in the midst of His people, as well as a literal and bodily visitation.
James therefore associates the bestowal of the latter rain with the ‘coming of the Lord’. “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; establish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draws near.’ (James 5: 7, 8) The truth concerning the latter rain is sandwiched between these two statements concerning the ‘coming of the Lord’.
The word commonly translated ‘coming’ in the new Testament is ‘Parousia’, which signifies ‘presence’, or being along side…that the word signifies ‘presence’ more than the act of one’s arrival, is evident from 2 Pet. 1: 16,17. In this passage Peter describes the glorious visitation of God on the mount of transfiguration as the ‘coming’, the ‘Parousia’ the ‘presence’ of Christ. Now Christ had already come in the flesh; the four men had walked together up the mountain; but here was a ‘coming’ of the Lord not previously known. And so he says, ‘for we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’.
The apostle associates the power and coming of Christ with the glory of God that appeared in the hour of Christ’s transfiguration. In fact, the Lord Himself explains that this visitation of the Glory was in reality the very Kingdom of God. (Lk. 9:27.)
I find it worthy to note that after Jesus, proclaimed to the disciples that they would see the Kingdom of God in their lifetime: (Lk. 9: 28) “and it came to pass about eight days after these sayings that he took Peter, John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray....they saw His Glory and the two men (Elias and Moses) who stood with Him.
The former rain and the latter rain in the first month (Joel 2:23) have come together.
The Feast of Tabernacles was a Feast of:
1. Unity – Israel left all and came together (one, yet individual). (Eph. 4:13)
2. Joy –for the harvest. (Rom. 14:17)
3. Ingathering – final harvest. (Rev. 14:15)
4. Rest – enter the land. (Heb. 3:18)
5. Glory – of the new order. (Rev. 21:23)
6. Restoration – as in the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah. (Joel 2:25)
7. Appearing of the Lord –In the his people and then in the air. (1 Thess. 3:13)
We are His habitation and He is ours.
Prophecy:
In the last days it will become obvious of whether you are a lover of the truth or of your own truth. You are the temple of God. Do you not hear the trumpets I am sounding today? You are filled with the Spirit of God and you know who I say you are. You are MY dwelling place, my anointed cherubims. I do not want to miss out on what I am doing today. You must look for Me to come out upon you, so My glory can be seen by all. I am coming for a glorified bride. The marriage supper of the Lamb is what is about to take place. Some are slumbering. The man-child, manifested sons are coming forth in this hour. Their heads are crowning right now as we speak, in many people. Your eyes are to be open more to present truth. You are a never- ending story, and you are to grow greater and greater in the understanding of the Truth. You are to take over this planet by taking dominion over all it is inhabitants and elements.
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