Prophecies of End times events and the work of our Messiah in the Feast of Tabernacles

sukkot was one of the festivals in the old testament there were three where every jewish man went up to jerusalem so they went up to jerusalem to live in these temporary relatively flimsy booths we learned that jesus is in jerusalem and he says it was the last day of the feast there was a ceremony a water pouring ceremony which started actually in the pool of siloam and it involved the high priests what is he saying who else but the one who is life in himself the way the truth and the life can say i have life for all who come and drink bucket after bucket they're just it's it turns into almost like a river flowing down and then here he says i'm the living water that they're pouring out symbolically but ultimately it's going to be really fulfilled as he returns that river flowing from the temple fill the dead sea with life the dead sea will be the living sea but it also mentions at that time there will be gentiles also coming up to jerusalem and specifically celebrating the feast of tabernacles so there is going to be a time where it's absolutely for jews and gentiles worshiping together in jerusalem you're listening to pod for israel for more information go to one for israel.org i want to welcome you to another great episode of pod for israel and we have with us david mishkin he's an author and one of our professors here at israel college of the bible and we're going to be digging into the third festival we're speaking of which is sukkot or the feast of tabernacles so david why don't you start us off when did this where is it where's the first time we hear about this festival and what's it all about well when we talk about the festivals of the old testament obviously we have to start in leviticus chapter 23. now all of the festivals are mentioned a number of times throughout the old testament but in leviticus 23 it's what i call god's year at a glance calendar it's kind of like our computer or our iphone you could say what am i doing today or you could have a whole week look or let's see what i'm doing the whole year and that's what leviticus 23 is so right away we see a clue at the beginning of leviticus 23 that in every period of seven days there's one special day that of course is the sabbath so right away there's one and seven and the rest of the chapter tells us that in every biblical year there are seven special days so the pattern is one and seven and seven and one and right now we are in the period of the final three feasts the fall feasts and they fall in the seventh month according to the jewish calendar so they must be pretty important so if we're going to talk about sukkot we need to speak about uh the other fall feasts as well all right and so we already covered that with yom tura and then yom kippur and then now we start this festival where we all get intense right it's very very intense uh basically a way to look at these three fall feasts there's a good outline i wish i could say it was my outline but i heard it from somebody else uh for those three festivals repentance redemption and rejoicing so the feast of trumpets that's repentance that's a time to think about our relationship with god maybe our lack of relationship with god uh our our sin what we need to get right and so forth because then we have 10 days and on the 10th day of the month the first one is begins on the first day of the month on the 10th day of the month we have the day of atonement that's about redemption now we're going to go to god and allow him to provide the solution because when it comes to sin only god has the solution right so after yom kippur five days later begins tabernacles or sukkot and that's a week-long festival so that at least in this outline is about rejoicing and there are a number of reasons why we want to rejoice first of all it's five days after yom kippur so anytime we're right with god and when we know our sins are forgiven that's a reason to rejoice that's good also it's a harvest festival and we thank god we praise him for providing and uh obviously for the harvest for the crops and for providing water some places get rain only in certain times but in israel it's very stark you'll have no rain at all from the spring all the way through the summer and at that time of sukkot it's like when you get the first little thunderstorm the excitement levels through the roof water is a good thing it's a very good thing as we know from living here uh we need it we need a lot of it right we know not to wait until we're really thirsty uh we need to be proactive uh we need water and just imagine then they didn't have uh you know water pipeline systems distal distillation networks i mean it was it's not this modern society we live in and they their cisterns were getting low their supply it was getting pretty bleak and they're anticipating this time of rain so water is life it's life-giving to our bodies and obviously to our crops so we want to rejoice and praise god because he provides uh everything really but specifically it says both in leviticus 23 and other times where sukkot is mentioned it talks about remembering the wilderness wanderings in the time of moses now that was supposed to be or supposed to have been or could have been an 11 day journey which turned out to be 40 years and there are various reasons for that but ultimately what are we remembering why should we be remembering uh the wilderness wanderings it's again that god took care of us where he didn't have to uh and it wasn't like we were being so faithful and we deserved anything so we see a lot of grace right there's a lot of grumblings but as much as there was sin god's grace is always greater than our sin so we're remembering that in the wilderness where we live in not an established house not a permanent house something temporary so during sukkot we remember the wilderness wanderings and by the way sukkot was one of the festivals in the old testament there were three where every jewish man went up to jerusalem the other two the three would be passover and also the feast of weeks or pentecost and finally tabernacles so they went up to jerusalem to live in these temporary relatively flimsy booths there isn't there's an irony there because we're supposed to remember that god is the one who provides uh so we have these temporary not really sturdy um booths and yet we're in jerusalem the place of security when we're in in faith that's the place of course that god is going to protect us so three times a year we went up to jerusalem including tabernacles they would go up remember the wilderness wanderings but rejoicing for all that god has done now a lot of this is rabbinic tradition in in the way that they build them but what what is it what does a tabernacle look like what's the key components what makes it a kosher tabernacle versus a non-kosher tabernacle what's some of the things yeah that's a good question uh differentiating from the old testament and what we have today it's usually made of wood and there's various forms of lattice on the top uh it might be you have to be able to see the sky right yes you have to be able to see this that's why it's lattice and not a solid sheet of something right so that would be one rule there inside today this is not uh it's based on something uh in leviticus but what became important is having a lulav and an etrug the etrug uh basically looks like a large lemon uh it's it's not exactly a lemon it's pretty close but it's called an etrug and um in the very orthodox neighborhoods in uh here in israel and other parts around the world they would pay a lot of money and you'll see them weeks before the actual celebration looking at it as if it's a diamond is it blemished is it how big is it is it fitting hundreds of shekels uh sometimes here in this room so you have your uh that's the edge rug the lulav is basically a palm branch but it's a mixture of both a palm tree and a myrtle tree and off the top of my head one other type of tree and that would often often be waved in each direction it was kind of a wave offering in a sense but it was a way of blessing uh your house and thanking god now the roots of it in rabbinic tradition are actually uh mystical so we may not want to follow all of those traditions right but there are different ways of thanking god for the harvest of having elements of the harvest in your in your sukkah so today obviously it's celebrated differently than in the old testament of course today in your backyard a lot of israelis they set up the big large screen tv and things like that today they have smaller devices they just break out and it's a time for family to come over to celebrate a week-long festival of sukkot you decorate it i know a lot of uh orthodox friends of mine they would put up uh they would actually put up little pictures illustrating illustrating the torah and the story of salvation so it's like you and you're supposed to actually recount uh the torah and and read the torah together publicly as a family and so you're retelling the story of salvation you're camping outside you're decorating like you would a christmas tree i mean it's very festive with all the you know garnish and stuff one so so you know i joked around it's like inside out christmas tree you get to live inside i mean that's a fun that's a fun activity well yeah it's an interesting analogy because in let's say in america you'll see christmas tree lots popping up obviously they're seasonal might be a few weeks maybe these days a few months before the holiday and you'll see that in israel as well not the christmas trees uh but preparing to have a sukkah oh yeah you know the hedgehog to build your sukkah so they'll have these lots just for that you know one other cool thing again this is kind of in the rabbinic tradition but some of these things are interesting you know even have like the passover seder it has some elements that speak of yeshua one of the things is you can only have one door yeah to to be a kosher sukkah only one door and you know in a way like we tell our family there's one door and only one there's only one way it's a salvation through yeshua he is the door that we enter in to celebrate and so it's pretty cool yeah the orthodox may not uh be they don't see it that way i'm sure they don't exactly that but yeah there are definitely lessons and as we'll see sometimes even yeshua even jesus used traditions right uh regarding sukkot uh to tell more about the gospel and more about who he is but it's a fun time it's a family time i mean everyone gets together and one of one of the cool traditions too and you see this is really a thread you know there was a time when god was angry about these hugging about these festivals he was sick of it he said he just makes them want to vomit why because they missed the heart of it and one of the heart moments one of the moments in intentional points was that you're supposed to invite the stranger the orphan the widow the homeless the person who doesn't have food invite them into your celebrations you know these festivals were like big backyard barbecues block parties you could say for people to join in and to share the blessings of god so the whole idea of uspazine can you jump into that a little bit oh you mean the movie oh the movie's great too yeah okay well but the whole thing of inviting you're supposed to invite a guest it's a mitzvah yeah to have guests in your suitcase all of the festivals first of all point ahead as we've been saying uh to the gospel to jesus and even further than that and they're great ways of teaching obviously orthodox jews are not teaching their kids about yeshua right but they're teaching them the story of the jewish people and in the same way on passover i think most people are in one way or another familiar with a seder if you go to an orthodox passover seder every single item it seems on the table has a story and a prayer maybe a song and that's why they take four hours but sukkot as well it's a time of teacher why do we do this what does it tell us about god so what you said before about maybe putting up pictures of bible stories or truths that they can learn it's a time for friends and family to come over it's a week-long celebration one night you have this group of family come over the next night you go to somebody else's sukkah uh it's very it's fun it's uh it's not unlike yom kippur where we fast uh you're definitely eating during sukkot you know it's it's amazing because you know as as a father when i look at these festivals i i really challenge you guys dig into the scriptures and just with intentional focus of trying to find the father's heart as a good father you know like any good dad you know i don't care if you're a city slick or what you're going to take your kid camping at some point at least you're going to camp indoors you're going to just you know kids love that sort of you set up a fortress inside even you know but but basically it's like he's a good dad he takes you out from the xbox away from the tv get out get together as a family and tell the story of salvation celebrate god's salvation and of course we celebrate the salvation and anticipation of our messiah's return what's important as you said it's the story of salvation it's the story of who god is and that's why as you said before sometimes god said i don't want your festivals what it means is if you don't have the right heart if you don't understand who god is if you're doing it for any other reason than to please god it doesn't mean anything yeah so it's a fun times it's it's important but ultimately there's the lesson of who is god so as i said one of the things we remember is the wilderness wandering and we see we see god's provision that's good so we see it in the torah but then where do we see it with the with the rest of the story maybe you know as they returned back there's a key element um we've been talking about which is in ezra and nehemiah this beautiful story that kind of parallels aliyah today and some of the things that will happen in the future and the kingdom to come what do you see in ezra nehemiah what happened there because we started to talk about yom tura and how that triggered this repentance and what happened well it does talk about a a great celebration of uh sukkot at that time and you're right there are parallels uh people come this isn't the first time this has happened that jews have been separated from the land and god has brought us back and i know there are people even even believers in jesus who don't necessarily see a god still working with the jewish people but uh the plan in the old testament is that only god creates his people only god gathers his people only god scatters his people so here in israel today for really the last century we're coming back we're here so if god is not in this it's really difficult to explain yeah that's very difficult to explain so we see that same thread it's it was it was known as the the most joyous celebration that there's ever been the most pure well also you can't you can't imagine a greater celebration than than being cleansed and having repentance and really truly coming with your full heart and repentance to to serve god and then and then they you know it's like they were kids you know they they flip open hey there's this sukkot thing wait we got to go get trees let's go and you know they went out and they just made it work and it was the greatest sukkot that there's ever been recorded in history according to scripture and so wow that's a really beautiful thing to look out for it'll be greater ones in the future exactly and that's the point so this is pointing to an even greater one because we as we know that was like the the culmination of ezra and nehemiah that of that book which actually you know i heard is actually one book but split up but basically in that story that that's opus it was at the the peak height of joy and then things clearly went downhill and it clearly became this is not the hope we were looking for this is not that messianic kingdom that was promised there's still one to come and so what do we see in the new testament with the celebration of sukkot well a couple of things obviously in the gospel of john there are a few important points if you read the first chapter 1 of the gospel of john the first 18 verses the famous prologue the first time somebody reads that if they had nothing else to go on they would say what what in the world is this talking about in the beginning was the word the word was with god the word was god uh what does that mean who is he talking about and it's after we read the entire book you know apart from the introduction we can go back to the uh prologue against oh now i know what he's talking about but regarding the word in verse 14 we have another clue it says the word was made flesh and dwelt among us right now for the rest of the book of john we see it's the story of the life of this person the life of yeshua and it's a little bit more easy to understand than some of the high theology but what does that mean that the word became flesh and dwelt among us in the original in the greek really it's saying that god tabernacled among us right and it's interesting in the old testament uh that word the english word tabernacle is used a number of times but we have to see obviously the original language for example god instructed moses to build a tabernacle that's one type of tabernacle and in the festival called tabernacles in english we just kind of hear the same thing in the original it would be a mishkan was the original tabernacle and a sukkah so they're two different things but they are related because they're both talking about god dwelling among us and even in the old testament when we look at god dwelling with his people that was the whole reason god said to moses build a tabernacle because i want to dwell with my people and when we look at that that helps us with some of the difficult theological concepts that we see in the new testament like the incarnation for example when god said in the old testament i want to dwell with my people well how does that work because god is everywhere i'm not saying he's everything that's pain cannot contain him basically and yet uh he's everywhere and yet in a unique way he is in first the tabernacle and later the temple how does that work i'm not saying i understand exactly how it works right but when we move to the new testament and see that the word became flesh and dwelt among us tabernacled among us at least we see oh okay it's not that different actually than what we saw in the days of moses or later in the days of the temple so that's the first thing we say in the new testament the gospel of john the idea of more specifically god tabernacling among us but in chapter 7 of the the gospel of john we see in verse 2 chapter 7 verse 2 the author casually says now it was the feast of booths another english translation might say tabernacles and the festivals were obviously important to john he's always taught another passover another passover more so than the other gospels so in verse 2 we learned that it was tabernacles and then in verse 37 and later we learned that jesus is in jerusalem and he says it was the last day of the feast so tabernacles is a week-long celebration it's now what was called the great day of the feast and he says those words which are a little bit similar to what he said just a few chapters earlier he speaks about living water we we know that from john chapter four jesus was speaking to the woman at the well and it makes perfect sense they were by water they were by a well and he talks about living water she said that sounds great and it's an opportunity to teach but why is he why is he using the term in john chapter 7 living water why on the final day of sukkot there are a couple of traditions that occur during the period of the second temple uh in other words after the old testament pretty much before the new testament they're from history they're not in the bible but apparently jesus was referring to them one was basically a festival of lights and i often think of it like today you might have a laser light show at a youth rally okay you might have or a political rally you might have fireworks if it's outside that's pretty much what it was it was a great display of joy and praising god so with the lights is this where they would take the priests the priest garments that were old and they would light them on fire up on these poles and stuff and it was like is that what you're experiencing no this is a difference that's not what i'm referring to anyway basin's full of oil and they'd be lit up and you know jerusalem was basically glowing yeah exactly oh yeah they would use the old priestly garments as wicks okay yeah yeah yeah so yeah it was like these big bonfires on poles yeah yeah and and jerusalem was lit up and there's a famous verse in the talmud which says if if you haven't seen the glory of jerusalem lit up you you don't know what beauty is something that's why they say jerusalem of gold because they probably lit up really like a nice golden it was uh everybody knew it the surrounding areas and towns uh but the other there was more specifically in john chapter 7 beginning in verse 37 when he's when he speaks about the living water there was a ceremony a water pouring ceremony which started actually in the pool of siloam at it involved the high priests and a number of other people they would fill basins and they would use one basin to fill the next basin and eventually they'd have all these water carrying devices filled and they would go march inside the temple around the altar they would even have a procession of people playing the flute people on the tambourine praising god for water and as we said water on a practical level is really important but if you look in the old testament to that phrase living water you're going to see a few things usually it refers to joy or god's spirit or salvation and usually a combination of those things and all of this was happening and in a sense what jesus was saying everybody who heard him on that day was aware of that ceremony so it was almost like he was saying you know that ceremony you all know it that's a good ceremony but come to me and i'll give you a reason to rejoice so what's happened is there's a procession of water like an endless waterfall you could say because they just keep pouring pouring pouring water it's washing away it's washing away the blood of the sacrifices and the dirt from the temple and everything it's washing away the filth well there's definitely obviously there's a cleansing aspect to water you know that anyone would understand but living water uh that's something else living water is not water from a well living waters from a spring well living water that he's talking about is of course something more life-giving it's eternal life and that's a remarkable what is he saying who else but the one who is life in himself the way the truth and the life can say i have life for all who come and drink so he's making remarkable statements again about himself he's using some of the traditions you know and obviously throughout uh the book of john really all the gospels we see that sharing the gospel we use maybe something from the old testament it depends who we're talking to we could use things from tradition we could use things from you know current events as long as we ultimately get around to sharing the gospel the message of who is jesus why is that so important you know what's really cool with this you know as i'm picturing this imagery of them just pouring water and bucket after bucket they're just it's it turns into almost like a river flowing down because you just a huge line a chain of of these jars coming up and being poured out it's pretty amazing doesn't it remind you of when the lord returns when he comes back to dwell into taberna to actually dwell in jerusalem once again what what happens that emanates what's coming out from the temple that river of living water that brings healing all the way to the dead sea and all the way to the mediterranean i mean it's a beautiful imagery and it talks about that that living water is going to bring life everywhere it goes and then here he says i'm the living water that they're pouring out symbolically but ultimately it's going to be really fulfilled as he returns has been prophesied about that river flowing from the temple out towards and it's going to heal the dead sea it's going gonna fill the dead sea with life the dead sea will be the living sea wow amazing when he spoke to the woman at the well uh they were talking about physical water and the water that i have that he spoke about the living water you won't thirst again and i think also we we return to john chapter 7 during sukkot remember sukkot begins five days after yom kippur and each year it wasn't uh assured well how do they do this year what's going on where where do i stand and we can be assured with jesus with yeshua once and for all when we partake of that living water you know that that we we have received from the life-giver all right so beautiful so wonderful so how can we be praying for israel through this time how can we be engaged in this i mean maybe first of all how how can our listeners jump into this you know i don't you don't have to go find a sukkah at your local store you can you got a tent go pop a tent up with your kids and tell the story of salvation you know go celebrate that way i mean god wants you to connect with your family and to talk about his great salvation that no greater tradition than that so yeah just find your own tradition with your family if you want you know well there is a time in zechariah chapter 14 uh still in our future uh after yeshua returns it talks about him returning actually his foot uh touching the mountain olives and so forth and it also mentions living water also in that chapter but it also mentions at that time there will be gentiles also coming up to jerusalem and specifically celebrating the feast of tabernacles so there is going to be a time where it's absolutely for jews and gentiles worshiping together in jerusalem yeah yeah it says uh so that time is it actually says well if you don't if you don't come you're bringing off there's consequences you're not going to have rain in your land and you know you're looking at i guess a lot of people believe that's in the millennial kingdom that's at that time happens and uh but hey we can celebrate today we'll for sure be celebrating later as far as when he returns but uh it's it's amazing to at least just review this as a family review this personally and just think about what god has done uh and yeah if you can get out with your kids why not you know go camp if you can uh be praying for israel during this time uh i think all the holidays are great opportunities uh to share the gospel yeah well the people's eyes to be opened specifically uh jewish people i could say definitely both in the united states and here in israel very secular and for the most part throughout the year they're not thinking about things like sin maybe they're not thinking about god they may or may not believe in god how religious are they usually not very but this might be the one time of the year especially now during the time of the corona virus they might be thinking what's it all about i mean before we get to a gospel message of forgiveness of sins a lot of people have to start and square one does god exist and a lot of jewish people as well but it's a good time for the first time all year the gospel kind of makes more sense oh yeah you know everyone knows even if they say i don't believe in sin if you just say to them you know if you go to your rabbi even if they don't have a rabbi if you say to them go to your rabbi and say you know i was pretty good this year no sin i don't have to fast everyone knows at least on a human level nobody's perfect yeah there are so it's a time where okay we're all sinners we're all separated from god we all need something so uh at this time even more so than the rest of the year it's a good time to be uh praying for for jewish friends right and for us you know as you as you guys have heard already you know we're under another one of these lockdowns as a nation which is kind of crazy can't you know go out very far can't travel so people are in their houses they're indoors and we're praying that they're online that they find one of our videos so be praying for us with that we need ultimately we create films we create resources david has a few great books out there that you can dig into we'll have the link into that um in all these resources we need the holy spirit to actually open up hearts and minds because you can talk till you're blue in the face until the holy spirit opens up their hearts to him uh it's all for nothing so we need your prayers right now pray for the pray for the people of israel pray for the jewish people around the world and uh and that this would be a great time of opportunity a great time of salvation so we're agreeing together for that and uh for you guys i just pray that you would be able to connect with the lord that you'd be able to see the heart of the father in sukkot and that you'd also have expectation of the kingdom that's coming and with joy at his salvation for us and the salvation for the world to come as he brings his kingdom back and so uh lord we just pray you'd bless our listeners today that you would just lead them by your spirit and that they'd be able to enter into this time of celebration with joy of your salvation and it'd be a time of blessing and we also pray for our brothers and sisters around the world our jewish brothers and sisters that you would open up their eyes to salvation that you would open up their eyes to see their messiah the one who tabernacled among us in flesh and that you would open them up to the gospel in yeshua's name amen thank you david thanks

Channel: ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry

Views: 231,416

Keywords: messianic, yeshua, one for israel, messiah, jewish, israel, tabernacles, Jesus

Id: ZDyXBDaVrM4

Length: 31min 19sec (1879 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020