Notes on Triumphant Living 3

My message from Oct. 4 is outlined below. The audio can be found in our sermons section.

The Feast of Tabernacles was the final and most important holiday of the year. The importance of this festival is indicated by the statement, “This is to be a lasting ordinance.” The divine pronouncement, “I am the Lord your God,” concludes this section on the holidays of the seventh month. The Feast of Tabernacles begins five days after Yom Kippur on the fifteenth of Tishri (September or October). It is a drastic change from one of the most solemn holidays in our year to one of the most joyous. The word Sukkoth means “booths,” and refers to the temporary dwellings that Jews are commanded to live in during this holiday, just as the Jews did in the wilderness. The Feast of Tabernacles lasts for seven days and ends on the twenty-first day (3×7) of the Hebrew month of Tishri, which is Israel’s seventh month.

This holiday has a dual significance: historical and agricultural (just as Passover and Pentecost). Historically, it was to be kept in remembrance of the dwelling in tents in the wilderness for the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert.

It is expounded in Leviticus 23:43 That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

What were they to remember?

Matthew Henry’s commentary explains,

1.) The meanness of their beginning, and the low and desolate state out of which God advanced that people. Note: Those that are comfortably fixed ought often to call to mind their former unsettled state, when they were but little in their own eyes. 2.) The mercy of God to them, that, when they dwelt in tabernacles, God not only set up a tabernacle for Himself among them, but, with the utmost care and tenderness imaginable, hung a canopy over them, even the cloud that sheltered them from the heat of the sun. God’s former mercies to us and our fathers ought to be kept in everlasting remembrance. The eighth day was the great day of this holiday, because then they returned to their own houses again, and remembered how, after they had long dwelt in tents in the wilderness, at length they came to a happy settlement in the land of promise, where they dwelt in goodly houses. And they would the more sensibly value and be thankful for the comforts and conveniences of their houses when they had been seven days dwelling in booths. It is good for those that have ease and plenty sometimes to learn what it is to endure hardness.

They were to keep this holiday in thankfulness to God for all the increase of the year; however, the emphasis is that Israel’s life rested upon redemption which in its ultimate meaning is the forgiveness of sin. This fact separates this holiday from the harvest festivals of the neighboring nations whose roots lay in the mythological activity of the gods.

Isaiah 61:7  Because you got a double dose of trouble and more than your share of contempt, Your inheritance in the land will be doubled and your joy will go on forever.

No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

No matter what, we are not going to give up. We are going to keep pressing forward. We have a holy determination.

THE PEOPLE WHO SUCCEED IN LIFE ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE WHO ARE THE MOST TALENTED. BUT SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE HAVE THIS IN COMMON. THEY ARE ALL DETERMINED. THEY PERSEVERE.

We walk in the midst of warfare. We are all facing opposition and obstacles. Life is a battle. We have to have a warrior mentality.

A person who continues to have faith in God is positioned for victory. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.

We have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. We therefore have staying power, keep on keeping on power.

God only permits in our lives that which will be redemptive for us.

Shake off self-pity and discouragement. God will not only bring you through, but He will bring you through to a better place than where you were in Him.

EVERY SET BACK IS A SET UP FOR A GREATER COME BACK.

We walk by faith, not by sight.

Our latter days will be greater than our former days.

LOSERS FOCUS ON WHAT THEY ARE GOING THROUGH, WINNERS FOCUS ON WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO.