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"You
shall celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles seven days
after you have gathered in from your threshing floor and
your wine vat; . . .Seven days you shall celebrate a
Feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord
chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all
your produce and in all your work so that you will be
altogether joyful." Deuteronomy 16:13-15
The Feast of Tabernacles begins on the 15th day
of the 7th month
of the Hebrew calendar which falls in late September or
in October on the Gregorian calendar. It has been the
much anticipated time of the year for my family since
1979 when we kept our first Feast of Tabernacles at Lake
of the Ozarks Missouri. There were more than ten
thousand in attendance and the sound of that many people
singing hymns to the Lord in one place was glorious. My
family camped right on the lake and enjoyed many of the
local attractions as we rejoiced before the Lord.
The next year we kept the Feast at Big Sandy, Texas
where about ten thousand of us camped in the Piney Woods
on the property of Ambassador College. Seeing ten
thousand people walk from the campgrounds to the
building where services were held was a sight to behold.
Our third Feast was at St. Petersburg, Florida where we
rented a house right on the beach. The house happened to
be right next door to the famous Don Caesar Resort where
we dined in elegance at King Charles Restaurant. We have
kept the Feast at resorts, campgrounds, mountains,
beaches and islands and have found that the Lord was
always there to bless us as we rejoiced before Him.
As I wrote in an earlier devotion that the Feast of
Trumpets represents the second coming of the Lord in all
His glory, the Feast of Tabernacles represents the
establishment of His Kingdom upon the earth. It pictures
a time when there will be plenty and war will be
abolished. A time when Jesus and His saints rule
righteously and all peoples will learn the ways of the
Lord.
All the Festivals of the Lord take place at harvest
time. The spring Holy Days, Passover and Days of
Unleavened Bread occur at the Barley harvest - Feast of
Weeks, or Pentecost (as it is called in the N.T.) falls
in the early summer at the Wheat harvest - and Trumpets,
Atonement, Tabernacles and the Last Great Day are
observed in the fall at the harvest of the Vine and
Produce. These harvests represent three distinct harvest
of souls, Jesus and His saints, Israel, and the
Gentiles.
The annual Festivals of the Lord reveal God’s great plan
of salvation for all who will receive it. I love the
feasts of God, they have blessed me so, and I look
forward to observing them with the Lord in the Kingdom
of God. Why don’t you consider observing the Festivals
of the Lord.
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