Leviticus 23:33-44

Hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. So glad to be with you today. Why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray. We'll jump into God's word. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much It is a joy and a gift to get to come to you, to hear from your word and to worship you. Father, please, Lord, help us to understand your word now. Please give us ears to hear. Please give us hearts to believe, minds to understand. Enlighten our eyes, Lord. We need you in Jesus's name. Amen. All right. So we come to wrapping up Leviticus chapter 23. We've been in Leviticus chapter 23 for a while now. We'll wrap up this chapter together. So Leviticus chapter three, beginning 23 to beginning at verse 33. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Notice now this is to the children of Israel, not just to Aaron and his sons.
The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a sacred assembly and you shall do no customary work on it.
These are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire to the Lord, a burnt offering and a grain offering, a sacrifice and drink offerings, everything on its day, besides the Sabbaths of the Lord, besides your gifts, besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings which you give to the Lord. Also, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord for seven days. On the first day there shall be a Sabbath rest, and on the eighth day a Sabbath rest. And you shall take for yourselves on the first day of the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the bows of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before Jehovah your God for seven days.
You shall keep it as a feast to Jehovah for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths, for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, 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 Yahweh your God." So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts. of the Lord.
Well, we need to ask ourselves our three questions. A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words? So, A, what is this about? This is the last feast that the Lord is going to teach them about. This is a feast of booths. So it's a giant camp out, right, where they're going to get together and they're going to have their bows, their branches from different trees, and they're going to make them. The word here is succoth, right? And so this is why Jacob names a place succoth after he builds an enclosure for his animals.
And so the whole point of this, though, is that they are to remember It's five days after the Day of Atonement. They're to now remember not just that God has expiated their sins in the Day of Atonement, but that God redeemed them out of Egypt and that they dwelt in the wilderness for 40 years. But God was a covenant king. God was gracious. God was patient. God kept his promises and brought them into the land.
But they were to remember those years that whole generation slept. in the wilderness. So that's what this section is about. It's a seven day festival and it is a celebration. Notice that in verse 41, it shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. This is not drudgery, but this is a thankfulness.
They afflicted their hearts five days previous on the day of atonement. Now they are to celebrate. that God is gracious. Even when his people are sinful, even when his people mess stuff up, he does not forget his covenant. And he is a gracious covenant keeping God. He brought them into the land. They have houses to live in. They don't have to live in booths. And this is what they were supposed to do.
So that's what this passage is about. Now, I'd encourage you to go read the second half of the book of Nehemiah. Go read his prayer of confession before they make a covenant and ask yourself, do you think that the people actually ever celebrated this? feast, this ceremony. Nehemiah's got something to say about that. I'm going to leave that to you for homework. But what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, really verse 37 and 38 is a summary of all of chapter 23.
So I have that underlined and bracketed and started in my Bible, right? These are the Sabbaths of the Lord, beside your gifts, beside your vows, beside all your freewill offerings, which you give to the Lord, right? All of these things are things that people might do, but the feasts are on top of all of that. And then, but in my Bible, I have verse 42 and 43 underlined.
So what are we called to do in response to this? We don't celebrate a Feast of Booths now, even though we did have a camp in with some of the boys at the church a couple of weeks ago. That's not what the norm, right? It's not like every year on the 15th of Tishri, we need to get together and have, no, that's not what this is saying now.
But do you understand that you are a pilgrim in this life? That where you live now is not your eternal home. that even though we may have the things of this life, they're given to us by a gracious and generous God. And we are to be the type of people who always recognize that our kingdom is not of this earth, but we are of a kingdom of heaven, of the kingdom of God, and that we don't lay up for ourselves treasures on earth where rust and moth will destroy, but that we lay up for ourselves our treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy. we understand that this is not the end of the story. That we are pilgrims in this earth and sometimes it is a pilgrim's journey with many trials, with many tears, with much depression, with much sorrow, but we celebrate.
We celebrate that He's good. We celebrate regularly that He's going to come again. We celebrate knowing that He is a wonderful God. And so we remember that on the Sabbaths, right, on the Christian Sabbath, on the Lord's Day, that's what we're to do in encouraging one another. to remember that the Lord is gracious.
Our covenant King is still just as good now and has displayed his glory in a way that the people in Leviticus could never have comprehended, but that he has given us his own son. And he has promised us, Jesus himself has promised us that he went to his father to prepare a home for us. And if it were not so, he wouldn't have told us.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that this World is not our final home as we see it. But Lord, you have prepared a better kingdom, a better place for us. And so, Lord, we pray that you would please help us to live our lives. In the light of who you are and what you have done for us, our gracious king, our covenant Lord, who has redeemed us, has been patient with us and who has made wonderful promises to us, we pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen. May God bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace that comes from being in Jesus Christ and knowing that he is a good shepherd leading you on your pilgrim's journey. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.