The Feast of Tabernacles

[0:00] I didn't manage to finish last week, did I? So I'm going to try to do that this week. Heavenly Father, we just approach your word with awe. Lord, I'm continually astounded that you thought so much of us, that you portrayed in your word hundreds and even thousands of years before any of it happened, exactly what your plan was.

[0:23] And so this morning we will be looking at some of those revelations that you made from old. Lord, inform our faith today. We thank you that you are the God who can tell us the end from the beginning.

[0:35] And we just ask, Lord, that you, we don't just sit and gain information this morning, but that you change our hearts in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're going on to the Feast of Tabernacles, but we have something to do before that, because last week we studied the Feast of Atonement.

[0:54] And for those of you who are new here or missed bits, we're going through the Feasts of Israel and trying to learn what those feasts can tell us today.

[1:06] That's the purpose of the last six sessions. And this particular session is seven sessions. And today is going to be something of a mixed bag, because I need to finish last time, and then I need to start the Feast of Tabernacles, which it turns out has got so much involved in it that I'm not going to finish it today.

[1:26] So there will be another occasion when I finish up the Feast of Tabernacles. And I've got to try and do all of that and not get lost in my own notes. So we pray for miracles.

[1:39] So last week, I want to apologize if I left some of you with the wrong impression. When I was referring to Jesus, you remember we talked about the fact that Feast of Atonement was the covering of sin, and it covered sin for a year.

[1:57] And then they would have to go through the Feast of Atonement again, because you're in a new year and you need another year's protection from the judgment of God falling on you.

[2:08] So, and I made an analogy with our current situation, where I said that the Lord does the same with us. He covers our sins, because at the moment we're still sinners, even though we're not treated as such.

[2:25] And in the way I expressed that, and somebody brought this to my attention, and I'm mortified if you went away with this idea, that I in any way claim that God was indifferent to sin.

[2:38] And he's not. I just want to make that absolutely clear. The only point I was trying to convey is that we are, as far as I can see anyway, an unfinished work.

[2:49] Now his forgiveness isn't an unfinished work. His forgiveness was complete for all time, for all men, for all sin. So, but it does say in 1 John 1 and verse 9, if you say you have no sin, you deceive yourselves.

[3:04] So where does that leave us? And it certainly doesn't, it doesn't leave us in any way thinking that God is indifferent to sin. In fact, so much is he not indifferent to sin, that he decided that he would pay for all of our sins, for all time, with his own life.

[3:21] So you can't get less indifferent than that. And the miracle is that having saved us, he chooses to remember our sins no more. All right. So when we one day face him at that time, when everything winds up and there is judgment going on, he chooses to remember our sins no more.

[3:42] Or it's otherwise expressed in Colossians chapter 2, when it says he has removed the handwriting from the decree, which was against us and which was hostile to us. All right.

[3:53] Satan gets out the decree. It's blank. Not because God was indifferent, because he's already cleared the page. He's already paid for all of that.

[4:04] So the miracle is that he chooses to remember our sin no more. In 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21, it tells us that he who knew no sin became sin, or became a sin offering for us.

[4:18] He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And I look at myself, and he has made me the righteousness of God in Christ.

[4:32] And I look at my own life, and I think I'm not there yet. So I'm very much an unfinished work. But we also have the promise that there will come a day when I will not just be removed from the power of sin.

[4:46] I will not just be removed from judgment of my sins, but I'll actually be removed from the very presence of sin. So sin will no longer even be there.

[4:59] I will not have to repent. I will not have to concern myself about my conduct, because I will be made righteous just as he is righteous. So this is the bit that I didn't get to last week.

[5:13] And I now realized when a good friend pointed this out to me, that I may have given the wrong impression. I believe it's true to say Christ has one further phrase, sorry, one further phase of life to accomplish with us.

[5:29] He delivered us from sin's power. And I'm not going to dwell on it, because I've got a lot to get through, but you can look it up, and it'll be in the notes when you get them. Romans 6, verses 6 to 23, we see, particularly in verse 18, that he has delivered us from the power of sin.

[5:46] It says we are no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness. And he's delivered us from the consequences of sin, in that sin used to keep us from fellowship with him.

[6:01] And in James 4, 8, or Hebrews 10, verses 20 and 22, it tells us he has created a pathway within the veil. In other words, we can now come within the veil into fellowship with him, and therefore there is no longer a barrier to us fellowshipping with him.

[6:16] Our sin no longer presents that barrier. And what is yet to occur for us is for us to be removed from the very presence of sin.

[6:27] And if we just start with Revelation 21, and verse 27. In fact, you can't really start there as usual. It's the middle of a sentence.

[6:39] So start in verse 24. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. This is talking of the new heaven, and the new earth, and the new temple.

[6:51] The kings of the earth will bring their glory into it in the daytime, for there will be no night there. Its gates will never be closed, and they will bring the glory, they will bring the glory, and the honor of the nations into it.

[7:06] And nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

[7:16] So if you know Jesus, that's you. But there'll be nothing else there that is evil, or evil influence, or oppression, or sickness, or pain.

[7:28] No dentists. So for this to be the case, just turn to 1 Corinthians 15, and verse 50. For this to be the case, this that we are about to read must be fulfilled.

[7:43] Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. So this that you're looking at in me, and I in you, is the perishable.

[7:57] All right? This does not inherit the imperishable, which is the kingdom of God. Verse 51. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

[8:11] For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.

[8:25] For when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

[8:38] O death, where is your sting? O death, sorry, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[8:55] We are to be taken away from the presence of sin, which I think is just amazing and wonderful. So coming back to the Feast of Atonement, at some point, the Jews began to attach a red cord, or a red piece of cloth, to the temple door at the time of atonement, and after a short time, this would, according to tradition, turn white, indicating that God had forgiven the sins of the people, and this was seen as a miraculous event.

[9:29] Now, the truth of this, I don't know. It's entirely conjecture, as far as I'm concerned. It's not written in the scriptures, but it is widely reported in Jewish tradition. And tradition also has it that after the crucifixion and the resurrection, the cloth didn't turn white anymore.

[9:47] And this is in keeping with Jesus' statement in Matthew 12. Turn there, Matthew chapter 12. Matthew 12.

[9:58] And I'll pick out verse 31 and 32. And this is where Israel at the time had rejected their Messiah, and they had accused Jesus not of operating under the power of God's Holy Spirit, but operating under the power of Satan.

[10:14] And so he says this in verse 31. Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

[10:36] So I have no idea whether the tradition was true, but it was widely reported. And if it is true, then it seems to confirm this statement that Jesus made, that this sin that they got themselves into had gone beyond the point where it could be forgiven.

[10:54] And I'm not going to get off into, have I managed to commit the unforgivable sin? That is a different Bible study. But if you're here and you're born again, you haven't. Take my word for it for the moment.

[11:07] So what we've got in the Feast of Atonement, and we did briefly cover this, we have the means of forgiveness demonstrated by the Lord's goat, the one that was slain, the blood was shed, the blood of an innocent shed for the sins of the many, except it was only for a year.

[11:22] And then we have the other goat that was released into the wilderness. And we talked about latterly, it was not only released into the wilderness, but it was actually driven away and driven over the edge of a cliff so that it would die.

[11:34] So it couldn't possibly come back because there was this fear that the goat would return, carrying with it the sins of the people. But this was to demonstrate that sins were carried away never to be seen again.

[11:47] And if you turn to Psalm 103, and the psalmist wrote in verse 12 of this psalm, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

[12:03] Now you can't get further than that, right? If he just said, as far as the north is from the south, if you think about it, you can go north and eventually go over the top and you start coming back south again.

[12:14] But from east to west, if you start going west, you never ever start going east again. You just keep going west. So the description, as far as the east is from the west, there is, it's a cleverly worded symbolism to say that this distance is so far, it can never be bridged.

[12:34] Praise God for that, eh? So all of this was a symbolic and metaphoric precursor to the perfect finished work of Jesus. And these sacrifices were only temporarily effected because they had to be repeated every year.

[12:50] The Jews were living under a promise from God dating right back to Adam's day when he said he would provide a redeemer that would crush the head of Satan and rid the world of evil.

[13:01] And you'll find that in Genesis chapter 3, I believe it's verse 18, that he is going to send someone through the seed of a woman who would crush the head of Satan.

[13:13] The same theme continues right through the Old Testament. And in various places, God promises to supersede this idea with something even better.

[13:25] So they started out with this sacrificial offerings for sin. But God, in various places, said, I'm going to bring you something even better. And this picture is best presented from the book of Hebrews.

[13:40] Now, people argue about to whom the book of Hebrews was written. I believe it's fairly clear that it was written to Hebrew believers who were considering going back to Judaism to avoid persecution.

[13:54] They were heavily persecuted and, oh, we'll just go back to Judaism. It's the same God, after all. And the writer to the Hebrews makes the point throughout that it isn't the same.

[14:04] In fact, something better has been promised. Now, in the book of Hebrews, if you turn there and just turn to the first chapter, book of Hebrews chapter 1, and I'm not going to read massive chunks of the book purely for the sake of time.

[14:20] But one of the things Hebrews does right at the very start is the writer elevates Jesus to a greater place than anything else anybody has ever seen.

[14:32] Right? So it says this, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers, in the prophets, and many portions, and in many ways, in these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the worlds.

[14:51] So immediately, there is this superlative superlative description of Jesus. He's the one that made the worlds. And then it goes on. And he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power.

[15:07] When he had made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name than they.

[15:20] For to which of the angels did he ever say, You're my son. Today I have begotten you. And again, I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me. And when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, And let all the angels of God worship him.

[15:36] I'm just going to jump to verse 8. But of the Son, he says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever and the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

[15:48] Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. And, You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens of the works of your hands and they will perish but you remain and they will all become old like a garment and like a mantle you will roll them up.

[16:06] Like a garment they will also be changed but you are the same and your years will not come to an end. But to which of the angels has he ever said, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?

[16:19] The point is and if you read on which if we had more time we could just read the book of Hebrews. Jesus is described superlatively all the time.

[16:30] He's better than angels. He's better than Abraham. He's better than Moses. He's better than the law. He's better than all the priestly rituals. He is superior to the high priest which to a Hebrew believer was a big thing.

[16:44] The high priest was whoa up there in all that priestly garb with all that power and authority. Whoa! Jesus was better than all of these things.

[16:56] And if we jump forward and in fact I'll just mention in passing in chapter 5 he's identified as the perfect high priest. So the Jews were used to a high priest but this one's the perfect high priest.

[17:10] You see the Jewish high priest had to make offerings for his own sins before he could make offerings for the sins of others. This high priest didn't need to do that. He was a priest as Hebrews describes it after the order of Melchizedek which is a fantastic study all of its own.

[17:27] So if we turn to chapter 8 of Hebrews in verses 7 to 13 and before we get to that verse just start in verse 1.

[17:37] Now the main point in what has been said is this we have such a high priest who's taking his seat at the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens.

[17:48] So Jesus isn't just like any other priest and you've heard me talk on the matter before that he was a type the priest was a type of Jesus. But Jesus was supremely above and beyond any earthly priest.

[18:02] So he's sitting at the right hand of majesty in the heavens. A minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched not man. And we're going to be talking about pitching tabernacles in a moment.

[18:15] But what he's saying is he was a high priest in God's tabernacle that is in heaven that is superior to anything we can build on earth. So just jump down to verse 7.

[18:26] For if that first covenant had been faultless there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them he says behold and this is a quotation from Isaiah 31 verse 31 and following.

[18:40] Right? So the writer to the Hebrews is quoting the Old Testament. Behold days are coming says the Lord when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

[18:51] Now this is with the house of Israel. Right? Salvation is from the Jews. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

[19:02] For they did not continue in my covenant and I did not care for them says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord.

[19:14] I will put my laws into their minds and I will write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people and they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother saying know the Lord for all will know me from the least to the greatest of them but I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.

[19:39] He's chosen not to remember our sins. But the point of that passage is that God always promised that he would bring something that was completely different that didn't require this year in and year out sacrifice but that would bring a permanent answer.

[19:55] A new covenant where instead of his law being written here on these printed pages would be written on the human heart. Now I can't speak for you and this is I haven't made any notes on this it's just occurred to me.

[20:08] I can't speak for you but I feel like I'm halfway through that process. There are times when I'm flying well and my response to everything that life throws at me is godly.

[20:21] Yeah. Yeah I forgive that guy even though he's got right up my nose I forgive him. The road rage doesn't happen. All of the stuff that would beset me I rise above it and I walk in glory and I say thank you Lord you've given me power over this sin and then I'll speak to my wife unkindly or I'll and I come crashing down and I realize I'm a half finished work in many respects.

[20:50] but the promise is that this new covenant won't just be written on the pages of a book it'll be written on my heart because he has written it on my heart when I sin I am mortified and I want to do something about it because I don't want to be a sinful man but I still stumble again and so that's what I mean by an unfinished not Jesus' work is not unfinished I haven't walked into it properly yet.

[21:21] So in verse 14 of the same chapter we'll have a job to find that because it doesn't exist I wonder what I meant there you're right you're correct I'd like to say I was just testing you but I wasn't I got it wrong yes it's it's Jeremiah 31 not Isaiah 31 yes it's back in Hebrews no we are in Hebrews what have I got what have I got wrong here no there isn't no it's it's probably back in it's in chapter 10 in chapter 10 of Hebrews my apologies I've confused my own notes so in chapter 10 verses 1 to 25 particularly verses 10 and 12 what we see overall in the chapter is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises that Jesus sacrifice was at last once for all time for all sin for all men particularly verses 10 to 12 by this we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifice which can never take away sin but he having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time sat down at the right hand of God waiting for that time onwards until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet for by one offering he has perfected all those who are sanctified and the Holy Spirit also testifies to us after saying this is the covenant that I will make with them and it then re-quotes

[23:00] Jeremiah 31 not Isaiah so in in verse 19 to 25 of this chapter we are encouraged to take advantage of what God has placed on offer this new and living way which he inaugurated for us therefore brethren this is this is verse 19 onwards therefore brethren since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh so the message is it's there for the taking and unlike the old sacrifices now the feast of atonement was the forerunner of this so it painted a picture that one day Jesus would provide the ultimate answer and that we would be able to move from yearly sacrifices to keep just ahead of the judgment of God to a once and for all sacrifice for all men for all time for all sin which is the sacrifice of Christ fulfilling the feast of atonement orthodox Jews as far as I know they still celebrate at least to some extent the feast of atonement they must struggle because they don't have animals to sacrifice at the moment and they don't have a temple but they still honor the occasion the sad fact is they've missed the point that it is now completely obsolete because it was fulfilled by Jesus so Jesus crucified flesh is conflated with the idea that men can now pass within the infamous veil for centuries the Jews had this veil in the temple through which they could not pass apart from the priest once a year no one could pass without the fire falling from heaven and zapping them and Jesus crucified flesh is conflated with the idea that men can now pass within the veil we've just read that without suffering the fate you may remember of Nadab and Abihu who died on the spot when they tried it so that completes the teaching about the feast of Yom Kippur the day of atonement and that's the bit that I didn't say last week and you'd have been there a long time wouldn't you if so now I'm ready to move on to the next feast are there any big points that anybody wants to raise before I move on and if you think of any do raise them because you wouldn't have had this slight correction of tone if it hadn't been for somebody putting their hand up and say

[25:32] Ray I think you got that wrong I'm very open to being told that I'm wrong as long as you can justify it from the Bible ok the feast of atonement now sorry the feast of tabernacles I need a new brain the feast of tabernacles also known as the feast of booths or succot and we've covered two out of the three autumn feasts now the Jews celebrate these and this is the last one or in fact strangely it's the last but one but I'll deal with that in a moment there were three feasts that were mandatory for all Jewish males to attend in person these were the feast of Passover Pentecost and tabernacles and those were the feasts of harvest and if you think of Passover they were all feasts of fruit or feasts of harvest of some kind Passover happened at a time when they were gathering harvest of the barley and it was the time at which salvation was given to the earth

[26:42] Pentecost was the wheat harvest celebration and there are many analogies in the Bible between harvesting the wheat and the saving of souls and at Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh and lots of people heard the gospel for the first time in their own language and there was a massive amount of salvation 3,000 in one day and I think 5,000 the next day or something like that and so this tidal wave of salvation went through the land at Pentecost and now we have tabernacles which again is for the fruit harvest it's celebrating the fruit harvest and the fruit signifies the final destiny of any plant does it not it's right if you've got an apple tree in your garden it's fulfilled its purpose when it's given you apples until that time it's just a tree so the tabernacle speaks of the summing up of all things in more than one way so each of these had a historic significance they all celebrated something from the past but they also had a prophetic significance in that they looked forward to something this final feast then was an indicator if you think about the previous feast of atonement this goat would be sacrificed for the sins of the people and the second goat would symbolically carry away the sins of the people so you've now got a lot of people who were left with their sins dealt with the logical progression therefore is that the feast of tabernacles will speak of what they then go into after that forgiveness so it speaks of new territory entirely that they've not been able to live in thus far because of the sin in the nation now the word tabernacle can be either a noun or a verb by that I mean you can build a tabernacle or you can tabernacle with people it's both a naming word and describes an activity so to deal with the tabernacle itself and we can start putting some photos up and I've not got them in any particular order so I would just say next please next please right a tabernacle was a temporary abode of some kind what you what you had to do to to conform to the rules of this feast was you had to build a temporary abode of some kind a tent or a shed some temporary construction usually made from reeds or branches over a framework of wood they would be enclosed typically on three sides or at least two sometimes had a roof through which the stars could be seen and they would live in this tabernacle and the tabernacle was called a sukkah which is the singular of sukkot as far as I know and they would for the period of the feast which was a week they would live in it they'd eat their meals have their family conversations and even sleep in it if there was enough room because the Jews were known for having quite large families sometimes and so like other feasts the aim here was twofold first of all it was a festival of remembrance remembering when

[30:12] God was with them in the wilderness when he lived with them he tabernacled with them in the wilderness and if you just briefly turn with me to Genesis chapter 3 and Genesis chapter 3 describes the fall of man when God was unable to continue to fellowship with man because of sin and in verse 8 this is immediately after the fall of man they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden and then the Lord called to the man and said to him where are you and the man said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked so I hid myself he didn't even understand his condition of nakedness so innocent was he until this point but what you have here is God crying out to tabernacle with his man he came looking for man and he wanted fellowship with man and he could no longer have fellowship with man and so the feast of tabernacles reinvigorates that desire that God is expressing and God is the author of this feast and he is expressing his desire to tabernacle with his people and the prohibition for that tabernacling with him went from that time right the way through to this point at which we read in Matthew 27 verses 51 and 52 that the veil of the temple was torn in two the veil that precluded direct contact between God and man was torn down in the temple you can read that in

[31:55] Matthew 27 verses 51 and 52 so this feast and the building of these tabernacles expresses God's desire to tabernacle with men despite the fact that until the veil was torn it was not possible for him to do so because of our sin so let's turn to Leviticus 23 Sharon can you give me a five minute warning don't tell me I'm already inside oh I've got six minutes look at that I've got to try and finish today in a good place to carry on next time sorry 23 verse 32 no verse 33 so again the Lord spoke to Moses saying speak to the sons of Israel saying on the 15th day of this seventh month this is the month of tishri is the feast of booths or tabernacles for seven days to the Lord on the first day is a holy convocation you shall do no laborious work of any kind for seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the

[33:01] Lord on the eighth day now that's weird isn't it on the eighth day of a seven day feast we'll return to that on the eighth day I've now lost my place sorry verse 36 on the eighth day you shall have a holy conversation and present an offering conversation convocation and present an offering by fire to the Lord it is an assembly you shall do no laborious work these are the appointed times of the Lord to present offerings by fire to the Lord burnt offerings and grain offerings sacrifices and drink offerings each day's matter on its own day beside those of the Sabbaths of the Lord and beside your gifts and beside all your votive and free will offerings which you give to the Lord on exactly the fifteenth day of the seventh month and when you have gathered in the crops of the land you shall celebrate the feast of the

[34:02] Lord for seven days with a rest on the first day and a rest on the eighth day of your seven day never mind now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the foliage!

[34:14] of beautiful trees and palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days thus just pause there for a moment they're being commanded to rejoice for atonement they were commanded to afflict their souls to deal with their sin and to be sorrowful now they're being commanded to rejoice so you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days you shall thus celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations you shall celebrate it in the seventh month you shall live in booths for seven days all native born in Israel shall live in booths so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel living booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt I am the Lord your God so Moses declared to the sons of Israel the appointed times of the

[35:16] Lord so this this gives what the personal response should be from each individual you build a booth one of the things that was true and still is true today if you want to build a new property in Israel you have to build a place that has at least space for you to build a sukkah if you build a flat you have to build that flat with a balcony that will take a sukkah so this is a sukkah can you give me the next slide so that's another slightly bigger one and then this is a typical balcony with provision on it for you to build a sukkah and these are very much individual responses that are required by the Lord of each individual but parallel to this and in conjunction with it there was a massive amount of stuff going on in the temple and

[36:17] I'm going to deal with that stuff next week and then we've also got to deal with this mysterious eighth day how do you get eight days in a seven day feast and I believe what we're going to find is it's deliberately mysterious in that it speaks of a time beyond everything and perhaps leads us to focus on the new heaven and the new earth but that's a preview of coming attractions!

[36:48] is someone climbing a ladder the temple had these massive candelabra in them right they were if you google it it says they were approximately 75 feet tall so that's huge and they are fired by oil and one of the things exactly if you go forward three I think we might have them no next one there that's a small model of one it's not the real thing so they used to have to climb ladders to fill the oil pots to light these and they'd fill them with olive oil you figure the expense of olive oil now and the point I'm going to finish on is this when they lit this lamp the light was so bright that it was said that in any courtyard anywhere in Jerusalem you didn't need supplementary lighting that you could read and conduct your life because of the light that was coming from the temple of

[37:55] God and it brings to mind for me psalm 119 verse 105 your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path the provision of light is always synonymous with the provision of God's word and if you think of let's finish which speaks of Jesus first four verses five verses in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God he was in the beginning with God all things came into being through him and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being in him was life and the life was the light of men the light shines in the darkness and the darkness the light and the word he was the living word and his life was the light of men his word is a lamp unto our feet the lighting of these two candelabra was so bright that the light from

[39:00] God's house filled every dwelling in Jerusalem at the time to the extent they didn't need supplementary lighting it must have been almost painful to be close to it!

[39:11] actually but oh and I can't leave without saying this what they used as a wick for these lamps and the connotations in this I'm just going to leave you with they would tear up all the old priestly garments and shove them in the oil and use them as a wick and I just think there is such a I don't know I'm not even going to comment further but they would the obsolete priesthood right they would tear up all their old garments and use them as wicks to shed light to the whole of the city heavenly father we thank you for the revelations thus far and personally I'm really looking forward to next time when we get to see what happened in the temple and what you did with this feast to your own glory father we thank you for your word I pray that everyone here will be blessed by what they've heard and also will go from here and have a fantastic week with you guiding their footsteps in Jesus name amen