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A Booth in the Wilderness · Messiah in Life

0:18
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Messiah in Life podcast, hosted by Bishop Justin D.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: Elwell of Messiah Congregation and Restoration Fellowship International.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Next week, we will return to our study of Ephesians.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: But in this episode, we celebrate the Feast of Booths or Sukkot with a message called a Booth in the Wilderness.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: Booths reminds us that Israel had been redeemed from Egypt, yet they were still journeying through the wilderness.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: In much the same way, we are citizens of Messiah's kingdom, yet we are still pilgrims on the journey.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: The wilderness is real, but it is not forever.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Our dwelling may be temporary, but his kingdom is eternal.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: And now, here is Bishop Justin with a booth in the wilderness.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 23.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we're coming to the end of the festive cycle through Sukkot.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: If you've been here, you have gone through Passover and all of the feasts leading into these fall feasts, and now as we are coming to their conclusion.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: This is the feast of Sukkot is a feast, a festival of in-gathering.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: It is one of the commands that we must gather together in Yershua.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: I am in Jerusalem as a community in order to rejoice.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: We're commanded to rejoice.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: And of course, Paul tells us to rejoice always.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: And again I say, rejoice.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's a little bit hard, so the Lord tells us as a command explicitly to do so.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Let's read Leviticus 23, beginning in verse 33 through 44.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, for this for seven days is a feast of booths to the Lord.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: On the first day you shall uh shall be a holy convocation.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: You shall do no ordinary work.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: For seven days you shall present food offerings to the Lord.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the Lord, and we'll be doing that next week.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: It's a solemn assembly, you shall not do ordinary work.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: These are the appointed fest feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim at times of holy convocation, for prevent presenting, excuse me, to the Lord food offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, sacrifice, and drink offerings, each of its pro on its proper day.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Besides the Lord's Sabbaths, and besides your gifts, and besides all your vow offerings, and besides all your free will offerings which the Lord your God will give you, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, you shall have gathered in the produce of the land.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: You shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: On the first day you shall shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest, and you shall take on the first day the fruit of the splendid tree.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Actually we have it right up here.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Um the splendid tree, branches of the palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: You shall celebrate it as a feast of the Lord for seven days in the year.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: It is a statute forever throughout your generations.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: You shall celebrate it in the seventh month.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: You shall dwell in booths for seven days.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord your God.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Thus Moses proclaimed declared to the people of Israel the appointed feasts of the Lord.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: This is God's word.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Back in verse 33, we read Daber Albine Israel, Le Amor Bechamish.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: According to rabbinic tradition, if you were here on Monday night and praise the Lord, the worship team did such a wonderful job covering, and Steve gave a meditation at the end.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: It was a time of concluding Yom Kippur, a time when we leave the season of the Inatemet Nashtagem, where we afflict our being, to now come to a season of Zaman Sim Khatenu, the season of our rejoicing.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: We leave that very inward focus.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: We leave where we are looking at our, let's say, the inner chambers of our hearts, the conditions of our soul.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: But when does Yom Kippur end?
5:39
SPEAKER_00: When does it end?
5:40
SPEAKER_00: There's a rabbinic teaching about this that I found quite beautiful.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, as I reflected on it, there's so much parallel to messianic faith.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: According to Rabbinic teaching, while Yom Kippur, of course, technically ends at nightfall, as the day is concluding, that is obvious.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: But historically, the rabbi said that Yom Kippur did not truly end until the high priest had safely returned home.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Until he had safely returned home.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Why he had spent days preparing.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: And then he entered into the Kirosh Kirishim, the Holy of Holies, and he exited the Holy of Holies safely.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: So he went in before the presence of God, and in the presence of God he ministered and he ministered rightly, he ministered correctly.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And from that he left and he departed and he went home.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And quite often in Jerusalem, among the Orthodox, you will see them literally dancing home arm to arm.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: As they're going back to the yeshiva, they're going back to their homes or whatever, men will join arm to arm and sing and dance.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: However many miles it is, they'll dance all the way home.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And then they will have a feast.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: Because what the high priest would do when he returned home to his family after not seeing them for days and surviving, surviving that uh ministry of atonement in the Holy of Holies, he sat with his family and he had a feast.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: He sat with his family and he had a feast.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: He had a feast with his loved ones.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Sukkot begins with the Lord's people leaving their permanent homes, their safe places, right?
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Our locked doors, as we would look at today, and calls us to go out into the temporary.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Moving into temporary dwellings, I don't recommend that you sleep in our sukkah.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, it would be a little breezy, a little rainy.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful to go out and have something to nosh, but I would not recommend sleeping.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Bring your own sukkah if you want to do that.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: And they did that last uh last uh week uh in Yom Kippur, but still we'll we'll permit it.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: But there's a movement, there's a movement from the Holy of Holies back to the permanent dwelling, back to the home of the high priest.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: But then we move once again, but we move from our permanent into impermanence.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: We move from our homes to a sukkah, to a booth, to a tabernacle.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: And what we learn is that the Lord's presence is not confined to the sanctuary.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: We know that historically and biblically, he manifests his presence among the people in the tabernacle and in the temple in a very unique and beautiful way.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: But his presence does not stay there.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: We enter into that holy space with reverence, with worship, with adoration.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: We lift our hands, we lift our hearts, we lift our voices, just as we do here.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: You would do all of that as you approached the temple, as you would approach the altar.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, as the high priest was preparing on that one day a year to enter into the presence of the Holy of Holies, he would be lifting his heart, lifting his voice as well.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: But now we see that when we come together, he's not just limited to these four walls.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: He meets us out at the tabernacle, at the sukkah.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: And he shows himself.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's a beautiful picture.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: I've told this story many times.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: The first time I taught on it was actually in Paul Grubner's backyard with the congregation's favorite sukkah ever, the one that liked to move on its own around the property.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: He picked that up all the time.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: It was meant to be movable, and it was very much.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: But I remember one year or that year teaching that the the presence of the Lord.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: That was a long time ago, Paul, wasn't it?
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: I was I was I was still in pampers.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Um but I taught on how the presence of God dwells uniquely uniquely in the shadow of the sukkah.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: And everyone there took it so literally that if you remember, they lined up to stand in the shadow of the one part of the sukkah that had the shadow.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And they stood and they prayed in that, and they one by one they took turns going and and just being in that presence for a moment.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And it was a beautiful, it was it was one of those times where I learned how impactful your words can be as you minister, that they would actually do that.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: But he meets us even out there.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: So in these unique habitations, he meets us, and in the glory of his creation, he meets us.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Sukkot reminds us that there's a time, of course, when we look back historically, when Israel wandered the wilderness and they lived in temporary shelters.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: They lived in Sukkot.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: As they journeyed through the wilderness, obviously they needed to take their homes with them.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: And it's remarkable if you, particularly if you watch any documentaries about the Bedouins who are still, you know, nomadic.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: And they take down their tent and they put up their tent and they do it exactly the same way everywhere they rest.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Everything is put back.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: So when you enter in, you might have moved 15 miles that day, but when you enter in, it still looks the way it did the last time you were there.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: And that's the exactness of the tabernacle itself.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: That everywhere Israel traveled, the Lord had given them the design that this is how it shall be assembled, this is how the camp shall be set.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: So that even in the impermanence, there was always a familiarity.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: There's always something familiar.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: When I used to travel more for missions, I always took something that was of home with me.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: So that if I'm gone two or three or four weeks, I still have something physical of home.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: When I was much more active hiker, some of you probably remember the pictures, I especially as I was going on more ridiculous journeys, I started taking a rubber ducky with me.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: And rubber ducky was climbing the mountains with me, but rubber ducky reminded me of being at home, being at my desk, because rubber ducky is still sitting on my desk at home.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: But it's that permanence and the impermanence.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: It's the the ability to settle even when things are disrupted around you.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord is calling us to understand that through this holiday, the sukkah was a tangible reminder that, of course, we had been delivered.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: Delivered from Egypt.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: As we say in the Passover Haggadah, Zechar Elitsi Yad Mitsuraim, that I've been exited from Egypt.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: But it's also a reminder that we haven't yet arrived at the greater promised land.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Israel knew, even though they had entered into the promised land, that there was still a greater promise yet to come.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: So it reminds us of that, even though even though this is our, as we say, our permanent home, this is our campus, this is our where our little family comes together week after week, year after year, and does the things that godly people do when they assemble for worship, it's still temporary.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to glory with us.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: We take care of it, we steward it, we do it as much as well as we can, but it's still temporary.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: See, we're reminded when we look at the sukkah, when you go out to the sukkah today, remember that you're not a slave.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: You're not a slave to sin.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: You're not a slave to your past, but we're still pilgrims.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: We're still on a journey, we're still going along the way.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Peter exhorts us, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: This is the Apostle Peter speaking to the Ecclesia, the outcalled ones.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: This is who Peter is speaking to.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: He's recognizing that we're still making our journey through this wilderness.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: And the booth, of course, is this tent.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: As Peter says, he was about to put off this tent.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: So it is, in a sense, a sukkah.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: It's a temporary dwelling where the redeemed dwell while we are here in this wilderness of God's creation.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: We've been redeemed, they've been redeemed, but we're still, as I said, on a journey.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the beautiful tensions of the life of faith.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: People who believe that the messianic life, the Christian life is perfect, probably hasn't been walking it very long.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: It isn't perfect, but the one that we're following is perfect.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: We haven't arrived in perfection, but He has.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: He is the one we are faithing unto, He is the goal of our faith.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: I think when we look at the condition of our of the body of Christ the day that we all love dearly, so often one of the things that I hear from people is the church is just so much messed up.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: I've got so much church.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: No, you don't have church hurt, you have human hurt.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference, there's a distinction.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: And I remind them that, and this might sting, it probably stings all of us.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: If we were to find the perfect church, we would not be allowed to be part of it.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: So we're looking for the perfect church when we would not be qualified to enter.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: So we walk in the grace of the Lord, we walk in the mercy of our of our Messiah.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: And we remember that we're not looking for perfection here.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: It's temporary.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: One day we can do this, tomorrow we cannot.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: So that's the beautiful tension.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: We belong to the kingdom of God, yet we still find ourselves walking in the wilderness of this life.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Because as we follow Messiah, our citizenship, we understand, has changed.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean we're dismissive of the earthly systems that the Lord has set in place.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we might agree with the government for a period of time in the United States.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: We may not agree with them for a period of time in the United States, but we're still attentive to it.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: We still minister through it.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, we are first and foremost citizens of the kingdom of the living God and his Messiah.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: We belong to his kingdom, not that of Caesar.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: We've been delivered, of course, from the dominion of darkness, into the glorious kingdom of the one who walked out of the tomb.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: See, beloved friends, in everywhere he meets us, we find that he has done what is impossible for us to do.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that bring us relief?
18:52
SPEAKER_00: That we are not trying to climb our way to heaven because of how good we are, how fit we are, but we're trusting in the one who will ultimately transition us there.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: In that beautiful harvest, that greater harvest that is to come.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: So we're not trying to become his people.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: I think that's one of the great theological lacks, is we don't teach enough who we are in him.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: We're still trying to become, in some sense, his child.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: When the moment we were born again, we were his child.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's days when we've been spanked.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: When I used to beat my sons with the iron rod, he's ignoring that.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: No, you know, there's days when we are, of course, corrected.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: But as Hebrews tells us, it's because he loves us.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: So we're not trying to become his people through Messiah.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: We are his people.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: We're not wandering because we're abandoned.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: We're journeying because we have been redeemed.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the difference?
20:23
SPEAKER_00: There is a vast difference, a galaxy of difference between wandering aimlessly and journeying intentionally.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: It might look, if I'm out on a hike, it might look that I like I have no idea where I'm going or what I'm doing.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that is true to some degree.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: I probably I probably ask myself, what am I doing?
20:50
SPEAKER_00: But it is a journey.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: There's a purpose, there's a destination, and there's a return.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: But when you look at the sukkah, I want you to think of the bride, think of the ecclesia, because the rabbis have done uh an incredible amount of commentary on the symbolism, not just of the biblical meaning of the sukkah, but also kind of the uh, let's say, uh, what's the word I'm looking for?
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Anthropological meaning of it.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: What does this look like when we view each other?
21:32
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like when we view each other?
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Some of us might see ourselves as pillars or posts.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Some of us might see ourselves as the leaves that have fallen off the branches that are covering it.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Some of us might see ourselves as the twine that joins it together.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: But the beauty of it is that we are all part.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Of it.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: It's all of us being knit together as his habitation.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Even in our temporariness, you know, Sakha, which is the root of sukkah, carries the sense of covering or of overshadowing or even hedging in, bringing together, binding together in a manner of speaking.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: And we remember that we all lived in tabernacles, and we still live in tabernacles as we are following the glory of the Lord.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: We all do.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: We are all on that same journey.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: We're all pursuing his presence.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: But we remember that we're not doing it in opposition to each other.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: My journey does not mean that you are having a lesser or greater journey.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: We take the competitive aspect of our society and human nature, and we think, well, somehow they're further along, or maybe I'm just further ahead.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: No.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: It's all of us journeying together.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And some of us, yes, we might be in the front.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Some of us might be in the the rear, but we're in the camp.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter where you are, provided that you are in the camp.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: I read this many years ago.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Rabbi Mordechai Yosef took a completely different view of Sukkot, the the the the sukkah.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: And when he looked at the feast, he he said in some sense, Sukkot must mean trust.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Now linguistically it doesn't.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: You can make no case to support that.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: But what he was looking at is what the Lord is calling us to do at Sukkot.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: To trust him.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: To leave again the place where we feel most safe, to leave again the place where we are most secure, where we are warm, where we are fed.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: And he calls us out.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: If there happened to be a bear walking through this property and you were sleeping in our sukkah, you make a nice snack.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people who who have an idea of where I live, and they're like, how do you guys live there?
24:41
SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you live there?
24:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's bears there.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's bears, there's wolves, there's coyotes, there's porcupines, there's fishers, there's all kinds of things that would like to get at you.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: There's deer.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: We have, I was telling some of the hunters here this morning, we've got a big buck who's been king John, you're staying away.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: A big buck who's who's been spending his nights up at the end of our uh lawn on one side of the house.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: The other side of the house, we have a couple does with some um with some babies and some yearlings.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And they don't even walk away when I go outside, even to split wood.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: They just walk over, they're munching on the grass.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, how are you today?
25:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing well.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: How are you today?
25:22
SPEAKER_00: Because they know they're safe.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: So you guys stay away.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Because you will not be safe.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just kidding.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: But it is that trust element being out where we are vulnerable, and that is where we need to trust him more.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: And as we look ahead, I remember years ago, actually, the first time I taught in Cleveland for an RFI conference, Dr.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Michael Lake, some of you know who Dr.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Mike is.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: In the evening, he came up to me, he was approaching me, he was crying.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: He's a big man, he's I think six five.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: He's a big, he's a big man.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: He's expanded his kingdom as well.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: He's a big man.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: When he hugs you, you kind of disappear for a while.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: But the sweetest, most gentle soul you'd ever meet.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: He walks up to me in tears, and I'm thinking, uh oh, I'm gonna get it.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: What did I say this morning?
26:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I swore.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: I think I was on my best behavior.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: Maybe my filter was off, something's wrong.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And he quoted this verse, which has kind of been a hallmark of my ministry for the last decade or more, from Revelation 7:9.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: After this I looked and I saw a great crowd which no one was able to count out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes and palm branches in their hands.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: If you understand what you're looking at and what the final feast is, which happens to be the first feast of glory, Revelation 7 is a beautiful eschatological picture, and this is Sukkot.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: And as he walked up to me, he said, I've read that verse, I've studied, I've taught that book, but I never connected it to the Feast of Sukkot.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, mainly because he had never taken this in his hand.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: He had never shook it before the Lord.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: He never looked at it, he never examined it, he never had the opportunity.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: And and and so often, when we lose those visual aids that are from Scripture, we read the command for that.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: When we lose it, we lose a unique view into the revelation that John has given us here.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Next Shabbat, you'll see me dressed in a white robe, my kittle.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: And we will shake, shake, shake the Lulav.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: It'll probably be dried up, but we'll do it anyway.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: But when we look at the interpretation, and and I remember when the Lord first kind of gave this picture to me.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: When we bring this together, we're presenting a bouquet.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: The Lulav and the Etrog become a bouquet, all of it being assembled, we have our spine, we have our mouth, our eyes.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: And then this little yellow non-lemony citron is our heart.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: So we're literally lifting a bouquet of every part of us before the Lord.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: But the rabbis also see the people of God in each of these elements.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: How it's all of us together.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: And you know, these are all similar, yes?
29:35
SPEAKER_00: But the etrog is odd.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Unique is nicer, but you bring them together.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: So even in our uniqueness, even in our differences, even in our distinctions, the Lord brings us all together.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that you have to look like me, act like me, think like me, walk like me, talk like me.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Heaven forbid.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: He still brings us all together with our uniqueness, with our distinctions, with our differences.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's what makes the bouquet beautiful.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: That's what makes the body beautiful, is that the ecclesia is made up of people who have come from every tribe, every tongue, every people, every nation.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's enormous.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: You might have some born again who are who came from the Sikh culture of northern India, still wearing their turban, still dressing in their traditional manner.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: You have Africans still dressing in their traditional manner, you have Russians who are dressing in their traditional manner, whatever it might be, but we're all in that ekklesia, we're all in that outcalled assembly of God.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do?
31:00
SPEAKER_00: We take that Lulav, we take that atrag, we take the bouquet and we bring it before the Lord at the sukkah, we shake it in all six directions, and we rejoice in it.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: That here we are assembled.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know if you've noticed this redemption doesn't immediately remove us from the wilderness.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Imagine the excitement in the air as the children of Israel were leaving Egypt.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah, we're free.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said, Stop here.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, this still looks like Egypt.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: What's going on here?
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah, we're free.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a big body of water in front of us.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna cross that?
31:48
SPEAKER_00: And a generation that left with expectation of being delivered and entering into the promised land fell short of the glory of God.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Israel could look back toward Egypt and know that they were no longer slaves while simultaneously looking forward toward Canaan and knowing that they had not yet arrived.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: It is living in that now, but not yet.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: I know beyond a shadow of doubt that right now I am seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: You will never persuade me from that position, even while I am standing here in all of my anxiety.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: The knots in my stomach, the lack of sleep, all of that.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: You will never persuade me from knowing that truth, but I'm still in the wilderness.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: In much the same way, we're between that, what Messiah has accomplished and what he has promised to complete.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: We're not there yet.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God, we're not there yet.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Because we can still share the gospel with someone else.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: One more person.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: There is a final person.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that?
33:08
SPEAKER_00: There is a final person who will say yes to the Lord.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: There is somebody who will be the caboose of redemption history.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: There is, but who is going to share the gospel with that person?
33:22
SPEAKER_00: That's what I ask.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: If we're not prepared, if we're not willing to do so, who?
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Who?
33:34
SPEAKER_00: We have the Holy Spirit, praise the Lord.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: He has now become a pledge, but we're awaiting the fullness of our inheritance.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: We know the presence of God, but we're still experiencing sorrow, weakness, disappointment, loss, grief, whatever it might be.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: We don't diminish or eliminate those human experiences.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we might as well just become catatonic or have a uh what's the lobotomy.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: We might just be lobotomized if we want to be pain-free.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: No.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Again, these experiences should drive us to him, not away.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: It's tempting.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: It is tempting.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: We have been given eternal life, but we're still in mortal bodies.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've noticed, but there it seems at a point the X uh the uh the expiration does come, but uh there's you know the warranty seems to be voided, and parts start falling apart, and they have to give you new stuff.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: We're citizens of a kingdom that is not of this earth, but we're still walking through the wilderness, sojourners and exiles.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: That's why the sukkah is such an important and powerful vision of the messianic life.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: It's a dwelling, but it's temporary.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Another week and a half, uh, the men will assemble once again and take that very heavy sukkah and move it back to the garage.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: I heard it weighs a pound or two.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: It's fun to put up.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: I've never been here for that.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Because mine, I like light things, I like easy things.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's get this up, be done with it.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: But I think we built that to go through a hurricane.
35:38
unknown: Permanent temporary dwelling.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: The permanent temporary dwelling of the sukkah.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Those are a thing, I will tell you.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: The sukkah, of course, is temporary.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: It gives us shelter, but it's not a permanent home.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: It reminds us that in this present world, as real and important as it is, it's not our final destination.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Paul says this so beautifully.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Not only was it not worth comparing the glory that is to come, but it was light.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: All that we're enduring is light when we view it in the light of glory.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us as far more exceeding an eternal weight of glory.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the wilderness is real, but it's not forever.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: That's why the sukkah and at Sukkot, we're not only reminded to remember and to look ahead, but we're commanded to rejoice.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: You shall take these and you shall rejoice before the Lord.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: It's like taking the flags.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Every time I see the banners going up and waving around, especially when the little ones are up here doing it, it's just so beautiful because it is a form of worship through rejoicing before Him.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: And again, that's why this is Zamansim Kateinu, the time of our rejoicing.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: It's not the time of our afflicting.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: We might be afflicted, but we are still called to rejoice.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: Israel was commanded to celebrate because the Lord who brought them out of Egypt was the Lord who accompanied them through the wilderness.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the sukkah may have been temporary, it is temporary, but his presence is not.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Circumstances changed, their circumstances changed, but his faithfulness has not.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: I remind you that in these deep valleys that we go through, he is still faithful, he is still there.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: And that is our hope.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: That even though we are abiding for the present moment in these very mortal tents of flesh, his presence, the reality of who he is, is eternal.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: That's our hope.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: We may yet still be in the wilderness, but we're not alone in it.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: That's again why we need each other.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: We're not alone in this.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: We may live in temporary dwellings, but we belong to an eternal kingdom.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: We may not have yet arrived at everything as he's promised, yes.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: But we know the one who is leading us there.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: Sukkot reminds us that we're pilgrims, but we're not lost.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: We're following the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: We're in the wilderness, but again, we're not abandoned.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: We're not left on our own.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: We're not left as orphans.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: Our dwelling is temporary, but again, and I'm going to say this again and again: his kingdom is eternal.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps there's a greater picture, and this goes back to the original idea that of when did Yom Kippur end?
39:23
SPEAKER_00: When the high priest sat at the table with those that he loved.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: That's the beauty.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: We may not see it in Revelation 7.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: We may not, but if you again, if you have been to the sukkah, if you have built the sukkah, if you have experienced the sukkah, you understand the picture of what is happening there, this wedding feast.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: That's all Revelation 7 is.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: It's a celebration of his wedding feast.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, we read of that later.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but we're given the picture of it in 7.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: So the greater picture here that we should think about just for a moment is Yom Kippur to Sukkot.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: See, our great high priest, Yeshua the Messiah, he entered the heavenly sanctuary on our behalf.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: Now we need not wait a year to experience his presence yet again.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: We enter through him and in him to go boldly before the throne of grace.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, he will bring his redeemed people to rest safely.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: But again, it's at a beautiful feast that he prepares for those he loves.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: He has gone to prepare a place for us.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: Where is the place that he has left from that beautiful moment where he has provided the blood of our redemption, the blood of our forgiveness, where he has purchased us and made us his beloved?
41:03
SPEAKER_00: And where does he take us but into his holy chuppa?
41:08
SPEAKER_00: His covering, the place where we rest with him, where we sit with him.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: When does the great Yom Kippur end when he brings his beloved into his holy habitation?
41:23
SPEAKER_00: When the Father sends out the angels for the greater harvest, when he returns, and then he sits with those he loves.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: And as we see, I love that we're never given a number for that great crowd.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: We're never told how many or how few.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: Imagine, remember, John is seeing this in redemption future.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: He's seeing this in the future.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: He's seeing the eschatological people of God there in the future.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: But he's at the beginning of this with just a few.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: And imagine, he's saying, Lord, how?
42:56
SPEAKER_00: All of his contemporaries are gone.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: All those that he learned with Messiah from are gone.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: They're all gone.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: He is the last to be there.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Lord, how will this go forward?
43:09
SPEAKER_00: He didn't tell him how, but he showed him the fruit.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: What is the fruit?
43:15
SPEAKER_00: You, me, generations past, generations future should he tarry.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: We don't know how it all works, but we know it's going to.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: We know there's a harvest.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: And it is a harvest that is too great for us to count.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: We take solace in that.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: We receive joy from that.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Because John, who wondered, what is this going to look like when I graduate to glory, what will this look like?
43:49
SPEAKER_00: It looks like a feast.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: It looks like a sukkah.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: It looks like sukkot.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: It looks like the lulav, the etrog, it looks like the robes, it looks like everything I'm familiar with, everything I've celebrated every time in Jerusalem when I came for this feast of in-gathering.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: It looks just like that.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: This bridal, uh, the this this feast of the Lord, where the Lord brings his people into his into this bridal suite.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: In this new Jerusalem.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: It looks a lot like the old, but it's been completely made new.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: No sin is entered in, no pain has entered in, no defiling agent has entered in.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: We're eternally separated from the sin that yet besieges us.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: And John was able to rest in that picture that what seemed to be from far in the past is in fact right there in the future.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: See, beloved friends, the wilderness is temporary.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: I know you think it's not, but it is.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: It's temporary.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: The sukkah is temporary.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't noticed, you're you've been on the shelf for a little while.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: Our tents are temporary.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: The pilgrimage is temporary.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: But here's where I want to conclude.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: The presence of the Lord is eternal.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
45:36
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for studying with us.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: And until our next episode, may the Lord bless and keep you all in the mighty name of Jesus.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: Amen.