What is the Feast of Tabernacles about? It is about remembering God’s power to deliver, to protect, to provide, and to lead His people. As we celebrate Tabernacles this year, let us be grateful for everything God has done for us and worship Him, acknowledging His power to do all that He has promised for Israel and for us.

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Show Notes:

Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, is a time when Jewish families live and take their meals together in a sukkah or a booth, just as their ancestors did in the wilderness. It is a time to remember the miraculous works of God that delivered them from Egypt and sustained them in the wilderness. They are to teach this history to their children so that no generation will ever forget the miraculous provision of God’s power. They know they must never forget that God is able to move today as He moved in the past.

As Christians we should not regard Tabernacles as just a Jewish holiday. We must be those who remember God’s power in our lives because we are in serious trouble when we forget. And so we should celebrate Sukkot this year with Israel and the Jewish people, not religiously but in a true heart of remembrance. We should be rehearsing the stories about the forty years in the wilderness and recognize that the power of God for Israel then is the same power He has now.

Today we need this provision of God moving in our midst. We must remember all that He has done. We must remember that we are sustained by His power alone and not by anything we do from ourselves. So let us study the Scriptures and teach our children the history of Israel and how God moves by His mighty power to take care of those He loves and covenants with. We keep these facts alive in our hearts and know that God can do the same thing in our lives today, right now.

Key Verses:

• Leviticus 23:39. “Celebrate the feast of the LORD … with a rest on the first day and a rest on the eighth day.”
• Leviticus 23:43. “So that your generations may know.”
• Deuteronomy 5:13–15. “The seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; … You shall remember.”
• Deuteronomy 31:8–12. “At the end of every seven years … at the Feast of Booths, … you shall read this law.”
• Deuteronomy 8:1–5. “You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you.”
• Deuteronomy 8:11–18. “Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God.”
• Psalm 78:4–18. “They forgot His deeds and His miracles that He had shown them.”
• Psalm 78:35. “And they remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High God their Redeemer.”

Quotes:

• “We’re in a time when many things are happening around us. Many things are happening in Israel. And it’s necessary that we don’t forget that He is a God of miracles and that He provides for His people.”
• “We will probably need again to experience this type of miraculous provision from God during our lifetime.”
• “There’s got to be a humility that comes in our hearts to remember all that God has done, all that He provided because we may find ourselves living in what seems like a new time of wilderness. And in that wilderness, we must remember He is able miraculously to provide for us.”

Takeaways:

1. The purpose of Tabernacles is that we come before the Lord to remember His mighty works, to remember His power, and to remember His ability to sustain us, to carry us, to protect us, and to shepherd us.
2. Let us not be like those who forget the works of God and therefore fail to keep His commandments. Let us not be like those who forget His deeds, who forget His miracles, and who forget all that He has spoken and sworn to Israel and to us.
3. We live in an age when the world is headed for disaster. And the greatest source of it is that we have forgotten the miraculous deeds of the God of heaven, and we have not honored Him or worshipped Him or given Him the credit for all that He has done.

For Further Study:

Deuteronomy 8

Psalms 78

Nehemiah 9 and 10