Exodus 23:14-17
You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor.
Sermon Transcript:
This morning at both of our campuses.
I want to preach a sermon on a special event that occurred once a year for the people of Ancient Israel, the people of God. It’s found here. It’s one of the items that is listed in Exodus 23, and I’d like to read this passage for you. Exodus 23, 14 through 17, three times in the year, you shall keep a feast to me.
You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread as I commanded you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of a aib. For in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. You shall keep the feast of harvest of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field.
You shall keep the feast of in gathering at the end of the year when you gather in from the field, the fruit of your labor three times in the year. Shall all males appear before the Lord your God. Let’s pray together. Lord, we come to you this morning. God, we do celebrate the ladies seminar yesterday, the incredible response and the incredible movement of your spirit and individual’s lives.
We also celebrate this morning, Lord, we celebrate the way that you have led in our ministry and even the. The direction you’ve given at our two campuses to better equip ourselves for ministry for the future. Lord, we celebrate the truth that this passage reminds us of, that ultimately our joy as we sang just a moment ago about finding our joy in the Lord, that ultimately our joy is in you and God, this passage, this.
Reminds us of that in such a beautiful way. So direct us, guide us as we look to these words together. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen. The exodus passages, we just, we just read, refers to three different annual pilgrimages to go to a festival or feast. Um, Three times a year, two of them were eight day festivals required.
Were all males, men to be at the festivals. But for the two eight day feast, typically the entire family would go along. The first was the unleavened bread and Passover, which lasted eight days. That was at the beginning of planting time. It was a time to focus on God and to seek his face. There was the festival of first fruits, also called Pentecost, where they would, at the first harvest, would bring the, at the initial harvest, they would bring the first fruits of their crop, and then at the end of the harvest, at the main harvest time, they had this thing called in gathering.
And also it was associated with Tabernacles. The in gathering celebration. A part of the Feast of Tabernacles was a time to celebrate the overall harvest that God had brought. Now, this is an agrarian culture, so farmers were, were prominent, but it wasn’t only farmers that would come to this festival. It was everybody, shopkeepers, fishermen, uh, merchants, priests, homemakers, carpenters.
They would all come to this celebration to celebrate. What God had done and was doing in their midst. I’d like to look at this in gathering, celebration, this annual event, to just see some parallels to our own experience. Today in our own lives, and I want to ask three questions and I’m gonna try to answer them.
The first question is, what did God’s people celebrate at the festival of in gathering and Tabernacles? Well, first they celebrated God’s past provision was the time to look back. This is the end of the harvest, right? I mean, this is a time when they’re looking back and seeing how God has miraculously beautifully cared for his people.
In Leviticus 23, verse 42 to 43, it says this, Live in temporary shelters for seven days. All native born Israels are to live in such shelters. So your descendants will know that I had the, the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. The first thing they did was they were reminding themselves of God’s heritage of provision to them.
So they actually built these homemade. Uh, Tabernacles or, or structures, and they would live in them as they traveled to Jerusalem as families together for the seven days. And it was actually a total eight day feast. It was a time to remember the time in the wilderness where they lived in temporary structures.
It was a time to remember how God. Provided protection for them, the miraculous provision of water that he provided for them in the desert, the miraculous provision of food, the manna and, and, and the birds that were provided, that God gave them sustenance, the miraculous provision of guidance where God gave them theskin of glory.
All of that was revealed and actually practiced in a unique way, which I’ll highlight later on in this sermon in, in the city of Jerusalem through the Taber Temple structure. They celebrated their heritage as God’s blessed people. They also celebrated God’s present and future provisions. It was done at the end of the main harvest after they brought their crops was looking back, but it was also a time of looking around and seeing God’s present provision.
Listen to this passages in Exodus 34 23, 3 times a year, all your men are to appear before the sovereign Lord, the God of Israel. I’ll drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the Lord your God. There’s special provision.
No one will covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord. I mean, a typical dad, you can just picture him. Look, we’re gonna be gone for eight days. I gotta, I gotta hire some guards to watch the house. I’m gonna get some, some guard dogs and we’re gonna shame him here. The Lord says, no, I’m your guard.
I’m your watchdog. I will watch over your provision now. Now what’s happened? Basically, all the other parts of Israel have emptied out and God says, if you follow my way, if you go to do the festival, I will protect what you have responsibility for your household, your crops, your possessions. It’s a remarkable thing.
You see, every generation needs to see the fresh hand of God working among them to see that God is at work and God says, I want you to go and I want you to live in fest in in Tabernacles. I want you to celebrate. And while you’re there, you can say to your kids, while we are here, God is protecting all that we have.
God is caring for our current investments, if you will, our crops, our house, even as we’re here. God was providing present care. Every generation needs their own stories of God’s bigness, of God’s miraculous moments where God is moving in the present and we’re trusting him to be providing for the future.
Just in terms of these projects at both campuses, we are not borrowing money on this project at either campus. I don’t believe it’s wrong to do that. I don’t think it’s unbiblical to do that, but we have felt God clearly leading us to leave it in his hands to provide what he wanted to give us. It is to prepare us for future ministry, for future investment in people’s lives, more seating, more care for people with with disabilities and hearing issues.
And we’ve talked all about this over the last number of weeks and all the other things that is gonna go on with this project today. We are trusting God’s provision for future ministry, even as we trust him to meet our own, present personal. Financial needs. As we sacrificially give, we’re trusting God to watch over our lands as we generously contribute to the in gathering celebration of extending hope to others.
I see a, a perfect parallel in this. The second thing we, the second question is this. How did they celebrate the Feast of In Gathering and Tabernacles? They did it with joyful praise. Leviticus 23 verse 40 says this on the first day. You’re to take branches from luxurious trees, from palms, willows, and other leafy trees, and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.
Even modern Jews in our own country as this picture portrays, um, do this many ki many times in, in modern Israel, in downtown city areas. You see this picture, uh, reveals that they are, are practicing the feast of, of Tabernacles who bring that slide up, the one of downtown Israel. Years ago, it was 2008 when the Phillies won the World Series and hadn’t, hadn’t won for 25 years.
Um, baseball isn’t my number one, uh, sports love, although I’m interested in it. But when the Phillies won the World Series, I just didn’t want to miss the cultural experience. So I took my youngest son and John and I went down. We caught the train, we went into Philadelphia for the parade. We, we got downtown and we were right on Broad Street, and I mean, if you were there, you know what I’m talking about.
It was a mass of humanity, insane. And so the streets, which are usually that wide, were now this wide, just wide enough to let the, the parade of, of floats go by. You know, with the players on it. There were, there were people all the way out, way into the street just protected by, or, or restrained by barricades.
But from the barricades to the, to the high-rise buildings, There was a sea of people, tens of thousands, just where we were. It was just massive. And while we were there, just drinking in the vibe, excited, waiting for the floats to come. We happened to be in front of a hotel. And about the third or fourth story up this, a guy leans out somehow he got through the screen, leans out the window with his trumpet.
And he starts playing the rocky song. We lost our minds. It was so much fun. This is our song. This is our people. And there we were, that sense of joy, abandoned joy. This was this festival for, for eight days. They are in party mode, rejoicing and glorying in, in God’s provision to them as a people. You know, these are, you know, we read while they made these tents, what, you know, what happened with these tabernacles?
All the personalities came out. The artistic people had this magnificent structure. You know, the, the functional person thought, well, you know, in case it rains, we ought to have, you know, designed this way and this way. You have all these different things. You know, people, I’m sure there were little contests.
Just, it was fun, it was joyful, it was community, uh, celebration of God together. It was also a time of proportionate, generous giving. Deuteronomy 16 describes it this way in verse 16 and 17. No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed. Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed him.
They shared their joy in celebrating God, and part of that was in the joy of mutually giving. They shared their joy in being able to participate in the ongoing work of God in their midst and in what God was going to do to them. We look back to the festival of In Gathering and can mimic the experience of the Israelites, but there is actually a very personal connection in this event to us in our day as followers of Christ.
Because the third statement, actually I have it as a statement. How does Jesus fulfill the festival of in gathering in tabernacle? Well, here’s how, in John chapter seven and eight, those two chapters, Jesus actually was in Jerusalem for the celebration of the Festival of Tabernacles, and in gathering and on the final day.
Of the Feast of Tabernacles, this, this whole in-gathering celebration, they would do two particular things. One was they would celebrate God’s provision among them in providing water to them as people. And what it would happen, and we ha we know this from all the existing writings of the day. It was a practice that had gone on ever since the temple had been rebuilt.
Uh uh, a few decades before they would gather outside of the city at the pool, and there the priest would have in his hand two pictures. And one, he would dip in the pool and it would be filled with water. The other would be filled with wine and the priest would travel. The trumpet would be playing apparently, and he would lead this massive procession of Israelites back through the Watergate into the city.
That’s what it’s called, the Watergate. They would go in through the Watergate and he would go all the way into the temple and he would come before the altar. And again, there’s thousands of people that are gathering with him and watching. And as he would take these two pictures, he would come to two large basin basins in front of the altar, and as he came there, he would pour the water into one and he would pour the wine into the other as if it were an offering to God right before the altar.
And the water was their way of saying, God, thank you for your bounty for us for the last year, for the way you have provided water for us. Excuse me, I got that backward. The wine was to say thank you. The water was to say God, because that was the produce that came from the water, if you will. That was their crops, the wine, the grapes, the water was poured as a way of saying, God, we depend on you for water.
We’re trusting you to provide water for our lives because without water, our crops will die and without crops. We will lose our subsistence, our means of livelihood, our means of life.
Apparently, when that water was being poured out, there was a voice that proclaimed this on that last afternoon of the festival. Here was the voice.
If anyone thirsts. Let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, riving rivers of living water will flow from within them. Jesus was there at this festival saying, I in the water, I am the one that provides life giving water to you. I speak to the, I provide for the, I. Embraced the thirst, the spiritual thirst, the, the soul thirst of people.
I am the ultimate water that you need, that you cry for in your lives. The living water had come to fulfill the picture of in gathering that night as the festival was closing. There in Jerusalem. And if we can bing up that visual of the temple
right here along there, there are four there. There’s a candle lab that is 75 feet high. There’s another there. There’s one there and there’s one there for you guys. It’s there, there, there, and there. There are 16. Bowls that were on these four canolas 75 feet high towering over the, the court of the temple area.
Because the temple was on a hill, it would be seen by the entire community at that time. And as those candles were lit, it was the reflection that God, Had been their light through the wilderness. Remember again, this, the Feast of Tabernacles is remembering going through the the wilderness and God had led them by his light.
He had been the Shekinah glory, he had been. The light that lighted their way was a glorious celebration, and it reminded them how God had directed them and led them. And apparently in John chapter eight at this Feast of Tabernacles, again, the voice, Christ and the voice said this, I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. We are here today celebrating God’s provision to us. Our joy in seeing him provide for future ministry opportunities, but also in just being himself. It is a reminder of what our true source of joy is. Christ, the one who satisfies our thirst, Christ, the one who provides light for our way.
As we gather on this, what we’re calling our in gathering, Sunday towards the extending hope. Remodeling project, this first part of that overall project, but the remodeling of the lobby and the the worship center here and the projects there for you guys in Collingswood we’re celebrating ultimately Christ the capacity to be able to lean into him, to rejoice in him, but also to trust him.
I’d like to pray together, Lord.
I worship you this morning that you are the water that quenches our souls. Lord. We identify with the psalmist that said, as the dear pants, for streams of water, soul, my soul, thirst for you. Oh God, you have brought life. You have brought satisfaction. You quenched the, the inner turmoil in our lives and Lord, As you look into the heart of everybody that’s here or listening online, everybody here in callings with God, you see the thirst.
You see the other places that we’ve turned to to try to find satisfaction, which can only ultimately found in He who is the life giver, the thirst quench of our souls. We worship you Christ as our life. And our light. We worship you and praise you for press provisions, but also for what you’re going to do in our lives, in our midst, as we believe you to guide our steps through your provision in these projects.
Lord, we want it to be not just about money, about building about. Structural changes. We want it to be about faith and seeing God and honoring God, and most of all knowing you more so, Lord, glorify yourself in our lives. Be to us what you have offered to be. The water, the light in Jesus’ name. Amen.