As we come to the end of the Fall Feast season, what should we do now? Do we kick back and rest? Do we go back to life as we have known it? What is our response? When God’s people returned to Jerusalem following their 70 years of captivity, they restored the Fall Feasts, but soon recognized that these celebrations were not enough—so they didn’t stop there!
Listen Now:
Show Notes:
Normally, we see God initiating a covenant, such as when He wrote it on tablets of stone and gave it to Moses on Mount Sinai to read to the people.
But we see in Ezra and Nehemiah that when the people returned from captivity out of Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple, they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, and this Feast was so meaningful that they felt driven to make a covenant of their own with God. They did not want to repeat the mistakes of the past, so all the people gathered to make a written oath that they would walk in God’s law and keep all His commandments, ordinances, and statutes.
What a beautiful picture. After celebrating Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, these people were so hungry for God, so driven to walk in His presence and to do His will that they came together to write out a covenant before God and say to Him, “Lord, this is our covenant with You: We are no longer going to abandon Your Word. We are no longer going to abandon the house of God. But instead, we determine in our hearts, as our response to this Fall Feast season, that we will stand before You and make a covenant with You.”
Key Verses:
- Nehemiah 10:28-29. “Now the rest of the people … are taking on themselves a curse and an oath to walk in God’s law … and to keep and to observe all the commandments of God our Lord, and His ordinances and His statutes.”
- Matthew 24:42. “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.”
- Hebrews 9:28. “So Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”
- 1 John 3:2. “It has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”
- Romans 12:2. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Quotes:
- “They responded by recognizing that this is not yet enough.”
- “They didn’t even have a guarantee God would accept what they were doing or saying, but that didn’t matter to them.”
- “We are remembering those days … and it’s something so deep in us that we can’t just complete the feast and go home and tear down our sukkah and go back to a life as we’ve known it.”
Takeaways:
- Let’s remember Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets. The blast of the shofar must not fade from our hearts. We must remember to live a life on the alert to the voice of God.
- Let us remember Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. We cried daily to be ready and see God’s salvation revealed and delivered to us. So, we live our lives now remembering not only that our sin has been atoned for, but also the provision that we can live a life sanctified unto God.
- Let us remember Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths. The season reminds us that the wilderness was a taste of God’s Kingdom and God’s provision. Now, we must seek to build our lives in a way that brings us into His presence—that we might behold Him in His glory and divine provision.
- Let us write our own Document of Covenant in our hearts as we move forward from the time of the feasts, that we will seek Him and His Kingdom in the coming year, and that we will now make an appointed time to meet with Him.