Christ in the Feast of Tabernacles

it's my privilege to introduce our speaker for this missions and evangelism lectureship mr. David Bruckner leads a worldwide Jewish evangelism agency called Jews for Jesus with branches in 13 countries including Israel Jews for Jesus is known for its forthright evangelistic approach in major Jewish population centers around the world a Jewish believer in Jesus himself David has been in ministry for over 30 years and has appeared many times on secular television and radio programs to make the case for Jews believing Jesus including the International syndicated program Larry King live biblically conservative as well as contemporary and engaging he is a sought-after speaker for major pulpits and conferences he is the author of four books and numerous published articles please join me in welcoming David Bruckner [Applause] thank you so much Shalom it is great to be back at DTS I've been here numerous times but always feel it one of the unique privileges of my life and any given year because it gives me the opportunity to speak to the Future Leaders of God's people the church not just here in North America but around the world and so thank you for the invitation I'm joined here with my colleague Susan Perlman who some of you already know one of the founders of Jews for Jesus and she is also the student services rep for the Board of Regents for Dallas Theological Seminary and a longtime board member so especially you ladies who are interested in leadership and ministry and missions you want to make sure to catch her at the brown bag that is happening after this chapel so want to commend chosen people and Mitch Glazer who have put this event together and and invited me to participate today and they've invited me to speak about Christ in the Feast of Tabernacles I guess Mitch you knew I wrote a book about it so published by Moody you can also get a free copy of this book and we have put note cards on the chairs for you if you're interested we certainly would be happy to send that book to you and hopefully what I'm going to share today will whet your appetite but I just really want to emphasize the fact that this lectureship happening both here and over in Fort Worth at the sister seminary there is a wonderful indication of what I think is a growing means by which God is going to bring the gospel to the Middle East and our partnership together and chosen people and Jews for Jesus and Israel College of the Bible and Joel Rosenberg and all of the people that you're having a chance to listen to today and in the coming days demonstrate that God is doing something that the Holy Spirit is a greater unity I think that makes God smile and I think it should make all of us smile so thank you Mitch thank you for to the staff of chosen people ministries I want to show you a picture that was that was sent to me on Friday and on the left your left is Dan sarod dan is a demon student here at Dallas he takes classes in Israel and he was also here this past summer and he's the leader of the work of Jews for Jesus our Israel director in the whole Tel Aviv area on the far side the right is Seth pastel and he is the Dean the academic dean at Israel college of the Bible and he probably heard or you will hear from eras soref who's here this for this lectureship who is part of the the he's the president of that wonderful institution and in the middle is a brand-new couple Israelis believers in Jesus now shy and tolley shy was raised in an ultra religious Jewish home and he saw a film of video done by one for Israel which you've heard of before as well so we're all partnering together because shy and Tolli live near Pettit Akiva one for Israel asked Dan and Seth to follow up on that contact they have just recently planted a Hebrew speaking congregation there in the North in Norton northern suburbs of Tel Aviv and so they followed up and within a period of months they professed faith in Jesus in just this past Friday dan and Seth baptized tie and shali giant Olly and that's the mediterranean sea behind isn't that wonderful so [Applause] so God is at work and there is fruit as the gospel penetrates even the most religious communities in the Middle East and I think this is an indication of the harvest that is yet to come a harvest that is spoken about that is alluded to certainly in this feast the last feast you will open your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 23 and you see there a promise of a harvest that is yet to come and the Feast of Tabernacles is actually happening right now and this today is the last day of the feast and so it's appropriate for us to consider this festival and what the implications are now for many of my Jewish people the festival is are like this they tried to kill us we won let's eat but of course God poured into the imagery and the symbolism and the textual aspects of these festivals tremendous insight into his character and his plan for salvation and the last of all the seven festivals mentioned here in Leviticus 23 is this Feast of Tabernacles it is a harvest festival and we can just read a few of the verses from here Leviticus 23 first of all verse 33 the Lord said to Moses say to the Israelites on the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Lord's festival of Tabernacles begins and it lasts for seven days and we skip down now to verse 39 so beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month after you have gathered the crops of the land celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days the first day is a day of Sabbath rest and the eighth day also is a day of rest on the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees from palms willows and other leafy trees and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year this is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come celebrate it in the seventh month live in temporary shelters for seven days all native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I have the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of the land of Egypt I am the Lord your God so there are commands and symbols that really bring out in this text we just read the significance of this festival and let me say if you tend to kind of your eyes gloss over when it gets to the Book of Leviticus don't worry you're not alone a lot of people who get excited about the Bible start with Genesis Exodus they get into Leviticus and then skip over so but there's so much richness here and it's your heritage to in fact of all the seven festivals that are mentioned in this chapter this festival the Feast of Tabernacles is the only one that is enjoined upon all the nations not just for Israel and we see that in the Millennium this is the one feast that all the nations are are encouraged to come up to Jerusalem in Zechariah chapter 14 you can see that for yourself but the first aspect of this feast is this command to remember all native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters that's the word Sukkot or Tabernacle as it's translated or a shelter so your descendants will know that I have the Israelites living in temporary shelters the Sukkot when I brought them out of Egypt I am the Lord your God God was concerned that once Israel traversing through the 40 years in the wilderness got into the and you know when we were in the wilderness we were we were very dependent upon the Lord his guidance you know pillar of cloud by day pillar of fire by night manna was how we ate water from the rock we had that sense of dependency upon God we might forget that and so once a year God said seven days you are to live in these temporary shelters these Tabernacles to remember to remember your dependence upon me we all need to be reminded that even though we might have money in the bank and a roof over our heads and food in the refrigerator that our dependency is not on those things but on God God wanted Israel to remember that like that old spiritual this world is not our home or just a passing through we need to remember that we're not living just for the temporal before the eternal and God intended for us as a people to remember that command to remember this is a picture of one very elaborate suka or a tabernacle see it's even silk painted and you can see the branches hanging through the roof it's kind of an open roof so you can see the sky at night and there's pieces of fruit from the harvest that are hanging there to remind us that God provides for us even when we don't have exactly a roof over our heads now you can go to Israel and see these you know a lot of Israel is suburban and urban and so you know people live in apartments and there are often balconies and you can see one of these Sukkot on a on a balcony and sometimes you've got a little satellite it's really interesting how we can add comfort to what God is that's to remember that we were in the wilderness but we didn't have satellite TV there either but it's it's really a wonderful time you're you're supposed to invite guests to come in to the tabernacle to enjoy a meal together so all of Israel really does celebrate this and enjoy this festival it's almost like a you know a week where a lot of people don't go to work they take vacation they go camping out in the woods or by the Sea of Galilee it's a really important time in Israel and we also like Israel to remember that this world is not our home we're just a passing through and that all that we have belongs to the Lord the second command we read was to rejoice on the first day or to take branches from luxuriant trees palms willows and other leafy trees and rejoice before the law Lord your God for seven days isn't it interesting that God has to tell us people to rejoice we don't naturally do it do we you remember Paul and Philippians said rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice the command of God is for his people to rejoice in him because so often we see the problems around us we have the difficulties whatever difficulty you carried in to this Chapel today may be the first and most important thing that's weighing on your mind or a test that you have to take later on today whatever it might be the command of God for all of us is to rejoice both in the old and the new testament and in this particular festival there were unique things that the rabbi's have kind of developed into what is called the lulav and the at Trog see the at Trog is kind of like a citron and it's a fruit that is grown in Israel sometimes you if you get a really good one it's gonna cost you significant number of shekels to get that and then the lulav is the binding together of the palm and the willow and the myrtle and these are things that kind of like almost like playthings that you're supposed to read use to rejoice so you take these items into the sukkah and you shake them you shake them up you shake them down you shake them this way and you do the hokey-pokey you know it's a it's it's just a celebratory way that the rabbi's have constructed the fulfillment of this command that we're reading about in Leviticus 23 and you know that's one of the things that I have to say I am so grateful for in my Jewish heritage a lot of people you know kind of beat up on the Pharisees because they're the bad guys but they have also been the the interpreters of what God's commandments are having how do you how do you rejoice with palm fronds and and Willow and Myrtle and so the rabbi's they said what we'll figure it out and so over time there has been many traditions that have been developed in the Jewish community that have helped the Jewish people to keep and to observe these wonderful important truths and rejoicing and remembering are part of Leviticus but over the time during the first and second temple period the rabbi's got even more creative and they developed two additional ceremonies that are part of the pinnacle of this seven-day feast and the seventh day is when these two ceremonies developed by the rabbi's during especially the first and second temple period became part of the temple ritual one was the water drawing ceremony and this was of course because of the harvest connection an opportunity for to Israel to remember that it is God who brings the rains in their season and God who provides the crops and so this elaborate ritual is described in the rabbinic writings and Sukkot which is one of the tractates of the Talmud and the Mishnah but we see this beautiful description in the Gospel of John Jesus had such a unique way of seizing the moments you know and of course the most significant moment was in the upper room when he not only celebrated the Passover the founding celebration of Israel's nationhood as God brought us with a mighty and outstretch I'm out of Egypt but he chose this moment of these rabbinic developments of the Feast of Tabernacles we read in John chapter 7 verse 1 now on the last day the great day of the feast and that's today hoshanah Rabbah the seventh day Jesus was in the temple of course he was he's there with all of his people celebrating this wonderful conclusion to this holiday Sukkot the command to remember and rejoice and rejoicing is really the central part of this and so the priests would fill up giant cisterns of water and and make their way up from the pool of Siloam and there they would march around the the altar in the temple seven times up for the seventh day and and and they would pour the water out over the altar and then the Levites would be singing and dancing from Isaiah chapter 12 they would sing who shaft in my and mrs. Sonia a how Yeshua with joy we draw water from the wells of salvation and what a moment what a high points in this great final feast and Jesus on the last day of the festival stood and said in a loud voice let anyone who has thirsty come to me and drink whoever believes in me as scripture has said rivers of living water will flow from them talk about a sermon illustration talk about driving home the point of who he really is you know I have a friend in Israel named ass off I met him when I was leading the Chicago branch of Jews for Jesus and we used to get together once a week to study the scriptures and we were going through the Messianic prophecies and the Lord had really opened his heart to the gospel and and and yet he had not prayed with me to receive the Lord when his business called him back to Israel and there as he was continuing to read everything that I gave to him he called me one day and he said David he I believe Jesus is the Messiah and I want you to baptize me well I was going back to Israel the next month they said boy that's great ass off this is so cool and so when I went to Israel I sat him down and I said ok I saw you got to tell me who do you think Jesus is you know he's the Messiah I said and he said he's the greatest person who ever lived I said and he said what do you mean and I said do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God he said well not really I said I tell you what Assaf I want you to read the Gospel of John and everywhere it says something about Jesus or Jesus says something about himself I want you to underline it he got to this chapter John chapter 7 and he called me and he said I get it I get it and it was a privilege for me on my next trip to Israel to baptize us off in the Mediterranean Sea as well but Jesus is claiming to be the living water that's not just a human claim is it there is so much more that's embedded in these words that we won't take the time today to dig into the Ezekiel the John goes on to describe it and I do so in my book as well so that's another plug for this book but there's one more ceremony that's connected to this great celebration of the last day it actually occurs in the night time and there's another stained glass imagery of that water drawing ceremony but this one is perhaps even more exciting and more celebratory than the water drawing because it involves not just the priests and the Levites but everybody and in the middle of the temple what happens is these giant candelabras at the night tonight would be set up and the the old robes from the the Levites that were worn out would be used as wicks and they would light these incredible giant candelabras in such a way that it would illumine the whole city of jerusalem that was said in the Collinwood that it was almost like it was day in the city even though it was night and the other comments are who you has never seen the illumination ceremony has never seen true joy and so it was became kind of like a circus atmosphere according to the Talmud they would actually have jugglers and play games and serve food and this was the conclusion of this feast and of course we know that during this time Jesus is in the temple as well now in John we have this interesting insertion of the story of the woman caught in adultery and I believe that Scripture but it may not be chronological it may have happened on that last day the great day of the feast but just after that story there is the story I must have missed a slide there okay so see if I can go back there is there we there we go when Jesus spoke again to the people he said I am the light of the world so again he's seizing a moment during the Feast of Tabernacles most likely I believe at the illumination ceremony another great sermon illustration that Jesus chose the moment to make a very specific remark about who he really is and so this is for us for all of us to see that Jesus is in the Feast of Tabernacles in fact he's the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles and some people say well you know all of this stuff isn't in the scriptures well the water drawing ceremony and the illumination ceremony are not in the Old Testament but folks they're in the New Testament and isn't it interesting and you can scratch your head and think about this and maybe write a paper one day about it how God was willing to use tradition man's development of biblical themes to point to Jesus we only need the scriptures that's for sure but isn't it interesting that Jesus was willing to take what the rabbi's had developed during that time between Leviticus and the New Testament to point to himself as the fulfillment and I just think that gives us a lot of ground for thinking and for reflection but of course as I said being the last festival on the list of Leviticus 23 it's all pointing forward there's a prophetic aspect to this Feast of Tabernacles and we see the I'm going backwards here here we go we're going forward to the future harvest this the the harvest is not you know when Jesus was walking through the fields and John and he said to his disciples look lift your eyes and see the fields are white unto harvest he wasn't talking about grain was he he was talking about people and there's a promise that those of us especially who are working among the Jewish people today and thinking about Israel in the Middle East have and that is that while a blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and thus what all Israel will be saved there is a future harvest that we're all looking forward to we're sowing seed now for the harvest that's yet to come I remember once I was handing out gospel tracts in New York City right in front of Macy's department store and a woman approached me well-dressed woman in her late 60s early 70s and she was angry and she began to yell at me and say you should be ashamed of yourself how can you do this do you know what you're doing does your mother know you're doing this and then she spat out words that cut like a knife she said you're trying to complete the work that Hitler began and she rolled up the sleeve of her dress to show me numbers on her arm Ruth is a survivor of Auschwitz the Holocaust and I understood her anger and there was little that I could say to her that day so then you'll understand my surprise when several weeks later during a fry the evening service at our Jews for Jesus office there in New York while I was giving the message who should come through the back door but Ruth and I recognized her right away but I couldn't quite place where we had met so after the service I approached her and she reminded me where we had met so I said all right Ruth so what are you doing here and she said I have an open mind and she did and she kept coming back every Friday night started coming to our Tuesday night Bible studies and what a joy it was for me when Friday night to pray with Ruth to receive Jesus as her Messiah hallelujah how can that happen how is it that somebody who's so bitter and angry and close to the gospel can open up to receive God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ I'll tell you because that same power the power that raised up Jesus from the grave is active and at work in the world today and I want you to be encouraged that God is at work today among the Jewish people in ways that we haven't seen since perhaps those first Jews for Jesus Peter James and John were out preaching the gospel and this to me is a sign of great hope and encouragement in a world that is full of turmoil that God has promises he's made them they're precious and he will keep every single one of them and that's the future harvest I was back on the streets a couple of years after this incident with Ruth and I was teaching a young college student about how to hand out gospel tracts and as he was doing it and that was observing he was approached by a religious Jew probably a rabbi you know with the black hat and the black coat and everything and he came up to him and he began to berate this college student how can you do this you should be ashamed of yourself and right at that point I mean I couldn't have figured it out but God did right at that point up walks Ruth you remember Ruth she goes up to this Orthodox Jew and she says young man not too long ago I was right where you are but now I know Jesus is my Messiah and I'm more Jewish than ever and I watched this guy scratch his head and walk away and I thought praise God there's another seed sown for the harvest that's yet to come amen and that's God's work that we are invited to participate in and it's going to happen the sooner the better don't you think I mean my heart cries out Maranatha I hope yours does as well even though I see a lack of interest in future things kind of in the church today I believe that the darker the night the more our hope of glory will become part of our discipleship and our faithfulness to God but I would say that the Feast of Tabernacles is also not just for this earth but for the new heavens and the new earth there is a promise in the book of Revelation revelation 21 and even at 22 22 and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying look God's dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God Himself will be with them and be their God and if you go on to read from there when God Tabernacles with us the new heavens and the new earth the description that John uses of that new city and that new abode for God's people draws heavily on the language and the imagery of the Feast of Tabernacles it is that future hope and that future image there's a river there's water flowing and there are fruit trees that grow on either side of the river bringing new fruit every single month and the Saints are gathered around the throne dressed as they might have on a celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles singing praise and and glory to the Lord and what an amazing picture that is don't you think an image if you will of what God is going to do the the earthly becomes even bigger and greater and more real like CS Lewis's image in the last battle further up and further in everything is bigger and more beautiful and more lovely and yet it's still in some wonderful way a reflection of all that God has given that's good here now and that should also make our heart long to appreciate the good things that he's given us here and yet to remember this world is not our home or just a passing through amen I want to invite you to stand I want to bless you all with a blessing a blessing that comes from Book of Numbers chapter 6 and it is called the Aaronic benediction I remember once a lady coming up to me after a church meeting and saying I really love that erotic benediction ironic benediction Numbers chapter 6 God gave this blessing to the priests the sons of Aaron he said bless my people with this blessing and they will be blessed first in Hebrew and then in English would you bow your heads please every card on are very smart your heretonight honorable Aqaba kun a car he saw I don't know I pawned the Vallejo via shameless Allah alone may the Lord bless you and keep you may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you his peace b'shem Yeshua machine a new SAR hashalom in the name of Jesus our Messiah the Prince of Peace oh man god bless you you

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

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Keywords: Dallas Theological Seminary, DTS, Jesus, Bible, Grace, Community, David Brickner, Jews for Jesus, provision, ministry, faithfulness, Messiah

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Length: 31min 50sec (1910 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 13 2017