A Renewed Perspective on Rejoicing

let's start the sermon today by going to deuteronomy chapter 16. deuteronomy chapter 16. these are instructions about the feast of tabernacles and i want to zero in on something very specific here and then we're going to talk about this in a little different way okay this is going to go a little different direction than you might think deuteronomy 16 and verse 13. you shall observe the feast of tabernacles seven days when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your wine press now this was the the feast of ingathering because this was when the great fall harvest came and you had you know all the food you know you have a spring harvest but of course the fall harvest is much greater so they have all this food coming in uh they're processing all this food they have it's the time of year to take maybe some out of the herd and kill them um and and you know thin your herds out some so there's meat it is the best time of year as far as just being able to eat okay and especially in that kind of agricultural society and you shall rejoice in your feast it's interesting how many times do we just call it the feast in some jewish communities they called the feast of tabernacles the feast because it it this was the time when you ate so it was the feast he says you shall rejoice in your feast you and your son and your daughter your male servant and your female servant and the levite and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates this is the time of rejoicing for everyone the widows the strangers the levites who didn't own property everybody was they have this time in which the emphasis here is feasting it is eating it is enjoying and once again in many jewish communities it is considered a time of hospitality because you don't eat alone everybody eats together everybody's sharing meals together because you're rejoicing together for what god has given to you verse 15 says seven days you shall keep a sacred feast so this is a holy time a sacred feast to the lord your god and the place which the lord your god chooses because the lord your god will bless you on all your produce and in all the work of your hands so that you will surely rejoice so god's gonna pour out upon them he promised these physical blessings which they were to celebrate they were absolutely absolutely supposed to celebrate the whole community together all the tribes together this physical celebration of what god had done now there's something else that during this time of year that's so interesting in the jewish community you know we're going to be keeping these days looking forward to the time jesus christ returns and does what he brings all humanity into a relationship with god and he restores the earth to basically the garden of eden so there's going to be great physical blessings great physical blessing so we'll hear about that at the feast and we'll be saying wow you know because we'll be sharing life and having life at a little higher level for most of us than we normally get to do simply because of our tithing and because we're in this special place we'll be staying we're not going to be staying in such the way they built such back then which were really temporary dwellings they couldn't last very long so we're going to be celebrating that but in many of the jewish communities during that time period they're going to be reading in a sin in the synagogues they have various scriptures they have to read in fact in a lot of jewish traditions the entire old testament has to be read in a three-year period so every sabbath there's parts of the bible read so that it's read throughout the whole year so every day during the feast of tabernacles there's some of the passages from the torah and some from the prophets and it's red these passages are read but in some communities they also read ecclesiastes now ecclesiastes must be a great book about rejoicing right we're commanded to rejoice and yet they read ecclesiastes every day and there's a reason they do it now not every jewish community does this but some do why would they do that it must be encouraging well let's go to ecclesiastes chapter one and let's see the encouragement in this book i know some of you the look in your face was they read ecclesiastes and i think i mean there are no instructions in the scripture to do that but i think it's one of those traditions that when you think about it there's a very important reason why they do it and there's something we need to consider about this verse 1 says in the word of the preacher the son of david king in his in jerusalem preacher is not exactly a good translation there's no english word that matches that and this wasn't necessarily like a religious position and now everybody agrees almost everybody this is solomon but whether it's jewish or christian commentators but preachers you know sounds like a a religious position this is more like i'm i'm the speaker in the in the assembly um telling what i've learned i mean this is this is a very personal thing that he that he goes through here so this is a little different than they like here i've got the scripture i'm opening up the scripture and i'm going to preach to you that's not what that meant that's what not even what that name meant or that title it's just i'm here to to give you a a a story okay i'm here to tell you something important now he starts out with the real encouragement the rejoicing vanity of vanity says the preacher vanity of vanities all is vanity i feel encouraged now the hebrew word is remarkably broad here it can mean it can encompass the concept of absurd it'd be absurd absurd everything is absurd or frustration i'm just frustrated and i'm frustrated and i'm frustrated it can mean futility in fact you'll find it translated futility in a number of english bibles feudal feudal feudal is meaningless in fact it actually translated nonsense nonsense nonsense it's all nonsense that's all this is solomon had reached a point in life that he says i am here to tell you all a message it's futile it's nonsense it's absurd and it's meaningless how did he get to this place the rest of this chapter he expounds upon this look what he says in verse 2 what prophet has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun there's other places in ecclesiastes he just says i worked i worked i worked and now i'm an old man and i look back and i think big deal why did i work so hard why did i do all this one generation passes away another generation comes but the earth abides forever the sun also rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it arose the wind goes towards the south and turns around to the north the wind whirls continually it just keeps going on its circuit he's just saying time just keeps going by sunset sunrise seasons come and go baby's born people die he just looked at it and said why what importance is this what importance is this he says the rivers went into the sea yet the sea is not full verse 8 says all things are full of labor he says we work and we work and we work men cannot express it the eye is not satisfied with seeing on their ear filled with hearing he just says there's nothing new under the sun the next couple verses he says i kept looking for something new but i can't find anything new you know totally new because i've seen it all and i've done it all why would this be read during the feast of tabernacles when we are commanded to rejoice and there's a reason they tie it in and as we go through this i'll show you why they do it and really what it means to us today first of all we have to look at how did solomon get here i mean we know the story of solomon as a very young person god came to solomon and said i'll give you whatever you want and he was going to be king he knew he was going to be king and he said well i want the wisdom to know how to be king i don't know how to be king he says good i'll give it to you and he did give him something special through god's spirit he gave him an understanding and a wisdom that was unlike anybody else in the of the of the kings of israel and judah he had the ability to rule make decisions do justice more than any other king god gave that to him god also gave him he said i'll give you all the wealth i will make you a great king and he did become a great king he became very powerful he became famous throughout the entire middle east he was famous for his wisdom in fact in first kings it states that he spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs were one thousand and five a thousand five songs he he wrote song lyrics we just don't have much of them and we only have a very small amount of his proverbs in other words he would write down these these pithy statements that say okay this should teach people how to think this should teach people how to live and we only have a small collection of what he actually wrote he became wealthy in fact he became probably the wealthiest man in the middle east he became a man of power because during his rule israel as a nation still because they were still together israel and judah were together this is what their height of power and all their history this was their height of power he had power he had fame he had everything and god gave him permission to build a temple dedicated to god in jerusalem god would not give david permission to do that god told david because of the amount of men you've killed the amount of fighting you've been involved in because of your violence past i will not let you build a temple to me but your but your son will and solomon knew that and solomon was used by god to build the temple for the worship of yahweh and israel and he dedicated that temple to god and something very important happened let's go to ii chronicle 7. ii chronicles 7 okay why is he going through this what's this have to do with the feast of tabernacles we have to understand we have to understand why you would read ecclesiastes during the time of rejoicing and you have to understand how solomon got to where he literally as an old man sat down and said it's all meaningless it's all useless it's it it's nonsense the man who had been blessed by god with a remarkable mind with all this wealth and all this power sat down and said it's all nonsense let's look what happened here when he dedicated the temple he built the temple they did the uh the dedication ceremony and this is second chronicles seven verse one now when solomon had finished praying he had given a prayer of dedication fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices and the glory of the lord filled the temple this is the manifestation of god's spirit the shekinah as we say in english that's not it's not it's pronounced in hebrew but the shechenal the glory of god they could see it it would look like a cloud and it filled the temple the priest couldn't even stay in there they had to leave because of the energy and the power as the spirit of god came into this temple they could see it and the priest could not enter the house of the lord because of the glory of the lord had filled the lord's house and when all the children of israel saw how the fire came down and the glory of the lord on the temple they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshipped and praised the lord saying he is good and his mercy endures forever and the king and all the people have offered sacrifices before the lord now to give you an idea for the the power of this small country just a few million people for this dedication verse 5 king solomon offered a sacrifice of 22 000 bulls and 120 000 sheep and the king and all the people dedicated the house of god that's quite an experience i mean god's talked to him when he was younger god now has manifested he's seen the glory of god he and all the people you talk about then we talk about if someone has the trust of everybody you talk about a man everybody can trust at that moment solomon prays and god shows up everybody's behind him he has everything god has given him everything let's get down to verse eight and at that time solomon kept the feast seven days now there's only two seven day feasts so this is either the days of unleavened bread or the feast of tabernacles so let's look what it says and all israel with him a very great assembly from the entrance of hamoth to the brook of egypt and on the eighth day oh the eighth day it's during the feast of tabernacles that this happened it was during the feast of tabernacles that solomon reached the zenith of what god had given him where he had now dedicated this temple to god on the eighth day they held a sacred assembly for the observance of the dead dedication of the altar seven days and the feast seven days and on the 23rd day of the seventh month now you see the feast of tabernacle starts on the 15th day of the seventh month so we now know exactly when this is this has all happened during the feast of tabernacles and on the 23rd day of the seventh month he sent the people away to their tents joyful and glad of heart for the good that the lord had done for david for solomon and for his people israel they were rejoicing and it says it he sent them back to their tents that is not a good expression of what the the phraseology in hebrew means it's interesting that this is translated in the jewish publication society he mis dismissed them to their homes the niv says sent the people to their homes okay in other words they went back to their other temporary dwellings so to speak because for seven days they were to be in temporary dwellings and at the end of the eighth day he sends them back to their temporary dwellings i mean their regular homes their regular dwellings he didn't send it back to their succos so they were staying in temporary dwellings they were all these people are in jerusalem he dedicates the temple and it's all doing the feast of tabernacles here we have a link and we're going to talk about this link to this event and us keeping the feast of tabernacles we still haven't answered though what happened to solomon what happened to solomon that he at the zenith we're seeing him at the zenith at the feet during the feast tabernacles and then years later we see him down here saying it's all nonsense what took him there well let's go back to ecclesiastes ecclesiastes 1. i find solomon both a remarkable person and one of the saddest situations in the bible in terms of what he did to himself unlike saul who turned entirely against god we can see in ecclesiastes he did not but he spent a chunk of his life away from god he went from the zenith of dedicating the temple and the very presence of god being there and the entire nation standing behind him his credibility his wealth his power he had everything but let's look at what he did with that verse 12 i the preacher was king over israel and jerusalem and i set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven this burdensome task god has given to the sons of man by which they may be exercised he said so i decided to figure out everything now god had given him a mind of wisdom he had a clarity of thought when it came to the torah when it came to the law when it came to the ten commandments he had a remarkable clarity of thought when it came how to lead people how to make decisions because god gave it to him but he decides now i am going to figure out everything all human conditions all human interactions i'm going to figure it all out but we see that same depression that we see in the first part of this chapter in verse 14. i have seen all the works that are done under the sun and indeed all is vanity and grasping for the wind you see you know what life is it's like the holding on to the wind you know how do you hold the wind you can't so i communed with my heart verse 16 saying look i have attained greatness and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in jerusalem my heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge and i set my heart to no wisdom and a no madness and folly i also perceived that after a while that this was like holding on to the wind now i want you to think about this god gave him through the power of his spirit this remarkable understanding god gave him the ability to make decisions god gave him wisdom leadership a way of understanding the law so that he could take the law of god and use it because he was the great judge you know all matters that couldn't get through the you have your the elders at the local level to make decisions the elders of levites that goes up to the priest and eventually you know the highest court in the land is solomon so he's making these judgments that's what he does most of the time he's able to take god's law and use it but where did it come from i have attained i have attained greatness or sort of back into the sermon a little bit he figured out i'm smarter than everybody so i'm going to figure out really how you can determine what's good and what's not good what's smart and what's not smart what's wise and unwise well god already had given that to him but it wasn't enough i'm going to figure it out so he says hey it's a great statement here and i set my heart to know wisdom and to no madness i was going to find out what nonsense really was verse 18 for much wisdom is much grief and he increases knowledge increases sorrow he said the more i understood the more unhappy i became the more unhappy i became chapter 2 verse 1 and in my heart come now and test with your with mirth therefore enjoy pleasure he says i decided to have everything a man could want one woman two women three women how about a thousand now that doesn't mean he was with all those women a lot of those would have some of them would have been political marriages because that's how they that's how they um made treaties was exchange family members that's why in europe by the time you get the first war the first world war you realize that the heads of state of over half of well all the major powers of europe were all cousins they're all related that's why the uh the king and queen of england changed their their their name to windsor because they had a german name and they were about to go to war with germany so they changed their name and the reason why um kaiser whoa how was their cousin they all knew each other they visited each other in the summertime you know who else was the cousin nicholas of russia they're all cousins they're all this is what happens when you keep trading everybody in marriages they were all related there are telegrams between nicholas and kaiser wilhelm begging each other not to go to war and they call each other nikki and willie so it's not odd that he would have women through you know there was just trophy wives what's her name number 720 who is she oh yeah she's the one you got from edom when you made that treaty with edom and she's like the third cousin of the second cousin of the brother of the king oh yeah her what's her name you know i mean it's so anyways he did have lots of women and he could be with different women every night if he wanted to so he says i'm going to find this all out i'm going to figure it all out he says and i figured out it's all futile i said of laughter madness he didn't even like to laugh anymore how depressed you have to be and of course i've met people like that they're just so down life has become so hard on them they can't even laugh or if you've ever lost someone and you hear something funny and you're grieving and you even feel guilty for laughing he looked at laughter and said madness you're like insane when you laugh that's all it is insanity and of mirth what does it accomplish why be happy it doesn't accomplish anything that's not wise is it what's happened to his mind i searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine while guiding my heart with wisdom how the laid hold of folly but i that i might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives is i use my life to experiment and you know what this is what young people do all the time and we keep telling you don't do it how many young people between about 15 and about 25 damage themselves their minds their hearts their i mean their emotions their actual bodies because they experiment well solomon decided i have the power to experiment with everything you talk about booze he says i could bring it in from all over the world and i could drink myself sick every night if i wanted to he said so i tried it i tried to see how much you could drink and still be happy okay okay i passed out last night so that's too much what's the okay let's try it again and see you see what i mean he's he's experimenting with his life after god already gave him what he needed and somehow it wasn't enough he says i made my works great i built myself houses in fact he built one house according to first kings took him 13 years to build it was such an opulent palace and i took him only took him seven years to build the temple to god took him 13 to build his own house i planted gardens or vineyards i made myself gardens and orchards i put orchards and i planted all kinds of fruit trees in them i made myself water pools which to water the growing trees of the grove i acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house yes i had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in jerusalem before me i also gathered for myself silver and gold the special treasures of kings and of the provinces and i acquired male and female singers the delights of the son of men and musical instruments of all kinds you talk about music you know they didn't have the ability to hear music back then the way you and i do i still have the old-fashioned cds i know there may even be some of you here that still have records i don't know i still like records i like do you i still like her or on a computer you know if i want to hear a song i've heard for a long time i'll just pull it up on youtube and see if i can find it and listen to it but we get we i pull up music pro almost every day from some place you know they could do that back then you got out your little stringed instrument that was sort of like a small harp and someone sang he had some drums you didn't even have a lot of instruments he said i could have music whenever i want i can just say for lunch bring me in a band you know i want a band here for lunch how big a band how many people you want how many singers you want what kind of music do you want he specifically said i i tried to get all the music i could so i actually had people brought into the palace from all over so i became great verse 9 and excelled more than all who were before me in jerusalem and he says my wisdom stayed with me he says i still remember i was making good decisions he was making good decisions with everything but his life he made good decisions as a king he made good decisions as a judge but when it came to his own personal life he didn't live by the very wisdom he was teaching other people whatever my eyes desired i did not keep from them i did not withhold my heart from any pleasure for my heart rejoiced in all my labor and this was reward for all my labor then i looked at all the works that my heads and done and on the labor which i had toiled and indeed it was futile and grasping for the wind and there was no prophet under the sun he goes on and on through the rest of this chapter into the next one into the next one and he says i don't get any fun out of life i get no enjoyment out of life i have no purpose in life what's interesting in the first part of chapter four he literally gets into you know then i started looking at the average person out there and how they're oppressed and the how they have to work so hard just to put food on the table and he said i realized well their lives are worse than mine and mine's meaningless so what their life must be meaningless too he didn't get it that a lot of them were happier than him so he just looked at everybody and said you know what all of our lives are meaningless we work to eat we eat to live and then we die what purpose is there anything wow reading this during the day or feast of tabernacles is going to really make you feel good isn't it i feel like rejoicing now but there's a point here there's an important point throughout the the book of ecclesiastes solomon solomon looks at his life then he looks at the world around him and he says if i'm the smartest if i'm the wisest if i know more than anybody this is all absolutely nothing he had everything a man a god can give a man everything that any you know if you think what could make me happy well if i had the best food every day he had best clothes every day he had it all the money that i couldn't even spend it all he had it women's song wine he had it and he says i abused it all i abused it there's one point where he talks about if i could have just found one good woman i could have just had one good woman he comes up with i can't rejoice i have nothing to be happy about okay remember this and go back down look at the feast of tabernacles let's go to leviticus 23. leviticus 23. and verse 39. verse 39 of leviticus 23 also on the 15th day of the seventh month when you have gathered in the fruit of the land you shall keep the the first day uh on the uh you i'm sorry you should keep the feast of the lord for seven days and on the first day there should be a sabbath rest and on the eighth day of sabbath rest and you shall take yourself on the first day the fruit of the beautiful trees and branches and palm trees and he tells them they have to build a temporary dwelling and there's still some jewish communities they'll do this you can see one out in their backyard and it depends on the jewish tradition they come from i mean you go back far enough and they used to live in them for eight or seven days they used to live in them for seven days um then it was well you only have to eat meals in them or you can sleep in them but you can leave them i mean what do you do with them okay in modern times they don't most people don't actually stay in them they build them they might eat some meals in there um they go out with their family and have instructions in it or whatever but there was a time when they actually lived in them and you if you read through here these aren't condos these aren't cabins these even aren't nice coleman tents now they're made nice but here you are at a time when you are hospitality is everything everybody's sharing fun everybody's it's like a party for seven days you eat and you're allowed to drink wine you're not allowed to get drunk you're even allowed to have strong drink it's the only time where it says it's okay to have a little nip so it's a time of joy it's a time of rejoicing it's a time of togetherness and it's a time of family remember your children are commanded to rejoice everybody is to be gathered in to do this and then let's go on here to verse 42 you shall dwell in booths for seven days all who are native israelites shall dwell in booths and here's why that your generations may know that i made the children of israel dwell in booths when i brought them out of the land of egypt i am the lord their god. oh i thought you were supposed to stay in the temporary dwelling so that we could be reminded so that we can have a good time no that's not why we stay in temporary dwellings they were told to do it to be reminded that it was god who took them out of egypt and their forefathers had no place their forefathers wandered the desert and now they were in that promised land but they were never to forget how they got to the promised land and they did that as a reminder of how they got to the promised land i'm going to read this well no let me go on here i'm going because i'm going to break up another point i'm going to skip something here because i want to i want to go to look at something david did david was not allowed to build the temple but you know what god let him do he let david be in charge of gathering all the wealth it would take to build the temple it would take a huge amount of money and resources i mean the the resources they used there they would have to bring in these resources and just the cost of the stones and so forth would be just enormous and so david was put in charge of gathering all those things he didn't get to build it solomon was but the last part of his life was spent preparing for the temple to god that he wanted so much to build but god said you can't when david had finished gathering in all the resources they would need to build the temple he had a dedication ceremony for the resources let's go to first chronicles 29 because here we see something that was about that one of the qualities of david that god could still always say i can work with that man first chronicles 29 let's pick it up in verse 10. therefore david bless the lord before all the assembly and david said so this is the dedication of the resources that he wasn't going to be able to use blessed are you lord god of israel our father forever and ever yours o lord is the greatness the power and the glory the victory and the majesty for all that is in heaven and in earth is yours yours is the kingdom spiritually and in israel at the time he said this is your kingdom oh lord and you are exalted as head over all david realizes everything comes from god everything that happened in david's life that was worth anything was because god did it helped him guided him gave it to him both riches and honor come from you david was quite wealthy david was honored now there was times because of his sins that the people did not honor him but at the end of his life he was greatly honored in israel both riches and honor come from you and you reign over all god's sovereignty was everything to david god was in charge of his kingdom and god was in charge of his life and your hand is power and might and your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all his greatness as king did not come from him his greatness is king he realized came from god now therefore our god we thank you and praise your glorious name but who am i see a slight difference here solomon forgot to ask that after a while i looked at my wisdom and said man i'm smart everybody says i'm smart everybody says i know more than anybody else and i do hey i wonder how much wine a man can drink i wonder how many women a man can actually have david says but who am i and who are i people that we should be able to offer willingly as this he didn't say oh lord look at the majesty of our offering because if you read the verses before this it's a huge amount of wealth he doesn't come and say look at us god we brought before you a huge part of the gross national product of israel and here it is and it's for you to have a temple that's not what he said at all david says who am i and who are we to bring this little bit to you who are we for all things come from you and of your own we have given you he said this all belongs to you anyways here we bring all this and we're all proud to look what we've done and it's like well that's yours to begin with it's yours to begin with solomon thought it was his and realized he was going to die and none of it was going to be his anymore he talks about that ecclesiastes when i die who gets my kingdom when i die who gets my stuff when i die who gets my wives but who gets everything of mine i lose everything i lose all my stuff i lose who i am i lose what i have david simply says it wasn't ours to begin with in the next verse we'll see the difference between david and solomon at least when he writes the first part of ecclesiastes and when we do you understand why it has to do with feast tabernacles verse 15. for we he's talking about himself he's talking about all the israelis we are aliens and pilgrims before you as were our fathers our days on earth as a shadow without hope he goes on to talk about but your god we're focused on you what david realized was something that solomon never got as he dedicated the temple just a few years later during a few tabernacles they stayed in temporary dwellings to be remembered to remember everybody's that's following god is an alien and a pilgrim no matter what we have here we're an alien and a pilgrim the king of israel said we're just aliens and pilgrims before god we come and we go and if that's all there is then vanity of vanity's all his vanity now you notice he didn't say that he says we're without hope but then he says some really positive things about how god is going to be with those who are right with him god's going to take care of those who are right with him and he goes on and he talks about the god of abraham and isaac and jacob now notice verse 18 oh lord god of abraham isaac and jacob our fathers keep this forever in the intent of the thoughts of the heart of your people and fix their heart toward you all solomon kept saying my heart was based on all this stuff and i have no heart left david says we know who we are we know who we are before you and because of that we understand this life seems hopeless but it's not he doesn't see it only he says we're without hope but we're not without hope it's interesting verse 19 and give my son solomon a loyal heart to keep your commandments and your testimonies and your statutes and do all these things and to build the temple which i have made provision he didn't say why don't you let me build it it wasn't his david understood it wasn't his it was god's and it was god has said no your son's going to build it so he prays for his son to do the great work that he had wanted to do that would he thought that would be the crowning achievement of his life and he gave it up willingly because it wasn't his anyways it was god's achievement because he understood i'm just a pilgrim and i'm a pilgrim on this earth that's all i am this one is what this has to do with these tabernacles this is why this is read in some jewish communities not this particular passage but ecclesiastes because they want as everybody's rejoicing as everybody's having a feast there's a party feeling i don't mean a wrong party there's a good party feeling to the feast of tabernacles there's a hospitality feeling i mean i've already i was i was driving today over here in my not so cool car i said to my wife you know i'm looking forward to the feast i've been looking online at panama city beach and there is two kinds of indian restaurants one serves food from i think it's southern or southern one from northern india i said i want to take a night and we order about five or six things from each of those and we have an indian night where we try foods from all over india she said to my surprise okay well okay so we'll just bring it we'll go get it we'll bring it in and you know we'll have people over and we'll just have a giant well let's try this from northern india this is from southern india this is goat this is this we'll just try all these different things you know we wouldn't normally do that for one thing i couldn't justify spending that much money right we are to rejoice but unlike solomon we must never forget we're pilgrims we're pilgrims look what paul says in second corinthians ii corinthians 4 and if you really understand the feast of tabernacles pictures christ returned instead of god's kingdom on this earth and you will probably hear there's almost always during the feast some sermon or sermon that talks about us being pilgrims you know some there's a passage in hebrews it's read almost every feast of tabernacles i've been at for 50 years we're pilgrims if we forget that the feast becomes just a party and it's a waste of our time because god isn't involved if that's all it is is a good time god isn't involved second corinthians 4 and let's start here in verse 16. therefore we do not lose heart even though our outward man is perishing yet the inward man is being renewed day by day for our light affliction which is but for a moment is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory [Music] yeah that's right it's wonderful this life is and i think it's great and it has its ups and downs right and there is a point where you start to realize i can't live forever like this my body won't let me we're not designed to live forever like this especially in satan's world and that's what we have to realize we go back to remembering i'm just a pilgrim here the earlier in life you realize that the better your life is because you don't make the same mistakes that david did and solomon did before they both they both figured it out at the end of their lives he says while we do not look at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporary but the things which are not seen are eternal that's what we're to remember at the feast of tabernacles have a good time but remember there's something more than this there's something a whole lot more than this that god is preparing to give you when the feast of tabernacles is fulfilled when christ stands on the earth and sets up god's kingdom on this earth verse 1 of chapter 5 for we know that if our earthly house this tent this temporary dwelling we need an upgraded model this temporary dwelling that we're in this tent is destroyed we have a building from god a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens there is a promise that there will come a time when we will no longer live in temporary dwellings we will have a spiritual body and we will live in the dwellings of god we will live in the spirit dwellings of god solomon sort of figured this out at the end how do we know that well let's go to ecclesiastes 12. and this verse is read many times as a an admonishment for young people but you know it really the power of it is if you understand how he got there i mean he went from this pinnacle during the feast of tabernacles one year of building the temple dedicated to god to being the most powerful monarch in the history of israel and probably one of the most powerful kings in all of the middle east of being the wisest man in the world from being one of the wealthiest men in the world for being a powerful man with a nation of economic power and military power and years later he ended up writing a book saying you know when you get down to it it's all meaningless and then maybe his greatest point of wisdom finally happens as an old man when he realizes god gave it to me at the very beginning and then i spent all this time trying to find the answer that i already had verse 13 ecclesiastes 12. let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter he says when you sum it all up here's what the conclusion i've come to fear god be right with god that's what it comes down to fear god keep his commandments for this is man's all in the end this is what counts this is everything everything else along the way is just good times and bad times for god will bring every work into judgment including every secret thing whether good or evil it's almost like at the end he was back to that young guy that young man who god said what do you want i want to fear you and keep your commandments i want wisdom the first wisdom he would have probably received was be right with me and simply do what i say and all these years later he's saying just be right with god and do what he says as part of the lesson of the feast of tabernacles i mean he became a workaholic you look at his life he did he did amazing things he achieved everything that you think a human being could achieve and yet he realized it wasn't what god had given him god has given all of us here something amazing he has called us into his truth and he has either given us his spirit already in dwelling or you're being guided by a spirit you're here being guided by spirit or it's already in you but god is bringing you where he wants you to go if you will go and if he's the tabernacles he says all of us go have fun but when you read through ecclesiastes here's what you learn and i'm just going to quickly go through this list and you can actually add to this list because i encourage all of you to read ecclesiastes either before or during the feast of tabernacles issue he found out the true happiness comes from a life dedicated to loving and serving others and obeying god not what he thought would make you make him happy he found out that he's useless jesus to acquire knowledge but a person must also grow in wisdom he must know how to he must know how to use that knowledge not only in helping other people but in his own life he was an expert at giving knowledge to others and he failed miserably at living by the same knowledge that he had his wisdom was given but not applied to himself he found out that pleasure is a blessing from god but if it's misused it's a curse it's not a blessing at all he found out that the accumulation of things can't bring lasting happiness he found out that man was made to work but if all you do is work in the end your life is empty he found that a person can't become overwhelmed with the evil in this world because he kept saying it's so evil it's so evil but we must keep sight of god's sovereignty and god's ultimate plan and that's what you see in david's dedication i know who you are i know what you're going to do and we've gathered this together it belongs to you anyways but we want to give it we're here to give it to you and then last the simplicity of he learned that the creator is given instructions on how to live life to its fullest and how to be prepared for the judgment to come he found it out it's all there it all had been given to him as a young man he had it before he had the wealth before he had the women before he had all these experiences with music and booze and before he had all this amazing thing where people came from all over the world and bowed down to him he was famous he was the rock star of his day before he had all that he actually had all he needed and that's what he finally found out he finally found it out during the feast of tabernacles you're going to be living in temporary housing is a great physical blessing but there's a reason it's temporary because you come back to a temporary housing too you leave your temporary housing and you come back to temporary housing because i don't care how long you've lived someplace it's temporary we're looking forward to the time when we live in permanent housing have a wonderful feast of tabernacles we're going to talk about this more as we get closer and go through the feast of trumpets and day of atonement have a wonderful feast of tabernacles and enjoy all those physical blessings plan for them now if you're in panama city beach look me up you'll be invited to our indian festival okay you'll smell like curry for three days have good meals have good family time but remember that the tabernacle the tent in which you live in which you take with you every place you go that temp is temporary and this these holy days are to remind us of that and to remind us of god's future and then when you really understand that and you're this this these holy days have their deep spiritual meaning only then can you really do what the bible says and rejoice in the lord

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Length: 57min 38sec (3458 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021