fter Satan is put away, what is the next stage of God's plan? Immediately after explaining Satan's banishment, Revelation 20 tells us, "Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years" (v. 6). During this Millennium (meaning simply a 1,000-year period), Jesus Christ will rule this planet as King of kings. The saints or "called-out ones"--that is, true Christians--will be kings and priests with Him (Rev. 5:10; cf. 1 Cor. 6:2-3).
It is this glorious time that God's next Festival pictures! In Leviticus 23, God commanded the Israelites to keep a Feast starting just five days after Atonement: "The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the LORD.... 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.... And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall REJOICE before the LORD your God for seven days. You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD 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" (vv. 34-42).
So the Feast of Tabernacles was a time of great celebration following the fruit and vegetable harvest. It was to last seven days--representing a complete age unto itself. For like the weekly Sabbath, it clearly pictures the seventh millennium of human history--that is, the Millennium of Jesus Christ's rule. It was called the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths--these words both meaning tents or other temporary dwellings which the Israelites were to live in for seven days.
What can we learn from this occasion?
A World Filled with Joy
The book of Deuteronomy also gives instructions about this Festival. It states, "You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress; and you shall REJOICE in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates. Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the LORD your God in the place which the LORD chooses, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely REJOICE" (16: 13-15).
A key element in the Feast of Tabernacles, then, is rejoicing. For there will be much to rejoice about! Describing the time pictured by this Feast, the Bible says, "Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth the LAW, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore" (Is. 2:2-4).
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Yes, with Christ's return, with the veil of "blindness" lifted from humanity, with a world now full of humbled and receptive minds, and with Christ and His glorified saints ruling and teaching all nations, peace and harmony will finally prevail. As we've seen, the earth will then be "full of the knowledge of the LORD" and, as God says, mankind "shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain" (11:9). And there will be REJOICING such as the world has never experienced: "No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (35:9-10).
When the modern Israelites return from this end-time captivity, "they shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations.... Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; everlasting joy shall be theirs" (Is. 61:4, 7). The Prophet Micah adds that "everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid" (Micah 4:4). Indeed, there will be no homelessness or poverty. Abundance will be overflowing. It will be a time when God will make a "feast of fat things" for the entire world! (Is. 25:6 KJV).
The inspired Apostle Peter called this period, "The times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of ALL His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21). Indeed, literally scores of prophecies throughout the Old and New Testaments speak of the time of Christ's return, of all the world coming to understand, and of genuine peace and safety permeating the earth because humanity will be learning God's righteous LAWS and practicing His entire way of life. It is a "restoration" because Satan's age-long "reign of terror" will be over and the Government of God will at last be restored to this earth. This was the whole message Jesus preached at His First Coming (write for our free booklet, Do You Believe the True Gospel?).
The Great Fall Harvest
Also, remember that in Exodus 23 we find this autumn Festival described as "the Feast of INGATHERING, which is at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field" (v. 16). So, as we touched on in the section on Pentecost, this Feast celebrated the great fall harvest in Israel--picturing for Christians the great spiritual harvest of souls to be reaped during the 1,000-year reign of Christ!
You see, under the rule of God's Kingdom, salvation will be open to all humanity. For it will not be just the few who will be given an opportunity to be saved. Rather, everyone will be called! Of that time, God says, "I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh" (Joel 2:28). Although this started to be fulfilled with the beginning of the New Testament Church (Acts 2:14-21), it will find global fulfillment in the World Ahead, when everyone then living will finally learn the ways of God and have full opportunity, without satanic deceptions, to serve and obey Him.
The millennial reign of Christ is definitely the time prophesied in the book of Jeremiah: "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a NEW COVENANT with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah--not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put MY LAW [i.e. the same law] in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (31:31-33).
Indeed, God's magnificent spiritual law, the Ten Command-ments, has NEVER been done away! Rather, its points have been "magnified" by Jesus Christ and made even more binding so that we are to keep not only the letter of God's law, but even its spiritual intent. Therefore, true Christians are not merely to refrain from actual murder, but they are also to refrain from hostility and hatred, which express the attitude of murder (Matt. 5:21-22). We're taught to not only forsake literal adultery, but to not even lust for someone we're not married to! (vv. 27-28).
During the Millennium, God's laws are to be written in the hearts and minds of people all over the earth. For, as we've seen, this law expresses His very CHARACTER--the character He demands that we develop in order to live forever in His Kingdom!
And of course, also binding are all the holy Festivals of God. As we saw at the beginning of this publication, the Bible makes it very clear that ALL nations will learn "to KEEP the Feast of Tabernacles" in the wonderful World Ahead under the immediate direction of Jesus Christ. Even the Egyptians, who may at first resent anything "Jewish," will learn to OBSERVE this Feast (Zech. 14:1-19)--and all the rest of God's commanded Festivals as well. For all these Festivals stand or fall together.
These spiritual Feasts are for ALL humanity. Their magnificent purpose is to teach us the great master plan of our Creator. Without observing them, men, nations and churches are blind to this purpose--blind to what the Great God is working out here below. So don't wait until Christ returns and all are FORCED to keep these Feasts. Rather, become a "pioneer" today. Learn to BELIEVE and OBEY God's Word and act on His Truth NOW. Then Christ will say to you when He returns, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you RULER over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord" (Matt. 25:21).
What is the purpose of temporary dwellings during the Feast of Tabernacles? For the ancient Israelites, they served, in part, to remind them that they were "sojourners" in the land--that they were "just passing through." Spiritually, it reminds Christians that we too--even as Abraham, our father in the faith--are "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb. 11:13), looking forward to the time when the Kingdom of God will be set up here.
Moreover, we need periodic reminding that each of us now lives in a "temporary dwelling"--our physical body. Paul writes, "For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.... For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life" (2 Cor. 5:1-4).
Indeed, as Paul explains elsewhere, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 15:50). Thus, the only ones who will actually be IN the Kingdom during the Millennium are those who have been changed into spirit beings (cf. vv. 45, 49)--which will include all those who have been baptized, received the Holy Spirit and endured to the end! Those who remain as flesh-and-blood human beings when the Millennium begins, as well as all the children born during the 1,000 years that follow, will still be in "temporary dwellings"--awaiting their turn to enter God's Kingdom just as converted Christians do now.
Today, members of the Church of God still obey the command to assemble at particular locations for the Festivals of God--although that is no longer required to be Jerusalem (cf. John 4:19-21). But particularly for the Feast of Tabernacles, that location is oftentimes far away from our homes, where we thus need to stay in temporary dwellings for seven days--normally hotel rooms in this day and age.
Let's be sure, then, to KEEP the Feast of Tabernacles as we do God's other appointments. And let's be focused on the awesome time it pictures. For this GLORIOUS time--when all true Christians will join Christ in blessing, teaching and ruling this earth--will SOON be upon us! Let us all, therefore, genuinely SURRENDER our lives to God our Father and the true Jesus Christ so that we may be counted worthy of this magnificent calling.
