"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens…
Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent…" (2Cor. 5, 1.9)
SUKKOTH: Feast of Tabernacles ; the feast of the harvest
"LORD, WHO SHALL ABIDE IN THY TABERNACLE?"
Among the annual feasts ordered by the Lord, we arrived to the seventh, the last one, and the one which is the most joyful and spectacular from all at the same time.
We have to remember the past while praising the Lord with our entire heart for the love, the patience, the care and the goodness with which He has led and protected the Chosen People during the wandering in the desert. It is to remember this divine Providence that the Jewish people construct tents in which they are joyfully living during this period according to the instructions of the Torah.
Concerning the present, we praise the Lord for having blessing the ground and the seeds so that we could harvest abundantly.
It is also for that reason that God gave each Jew the opportunity to go to Jerusalem in order to offer their firstfruit, offerings and tenth.
All this as Pilgrims the hearts full of joy and gratitude.
In the times when pilgrims arrived to the limits of the Holy City, they built their tents or tabernacles around the Temple as close as possible to the Sanctuary. The well known restriction consisting to forbid people to do more than 900m (above 3000 feet) by foot on Shabbat is not a simple rule but rather the opportunity for all of us to spend all our time with and before God without having to think about travelling or any other activities and tasks.
The construction of the tent remained the central event of the feast till today. But this construction should also be the main duty of all Christian during their life of pilgrims here on earth.
May the Chosen People’s constructing work be an example for us today.
Immediately after the Revelation of the Laws of God and the Covenant at the mount of Sinai, the building of the Sanctuary began.
In our own life, when God reveals his laws once more through Jesus Christ, when these laws begin to live in us after having accepted them by our conversion, when we really born again, a new Covenant takes place at this moment between God and us.
Then, the Sanctuary starts to be constructed in our hearts. When above all men, above all thoughts and desires of flesh and soul, the Unique Temple: Yeshua HaMashiach is being built in us.
This order of things is still valid today and should not be modified. Because without laws and covenant we would at most remain some simple religious believers such as Balaam was when he just watched Jerusalem from the outside and looked at the tents of the Chosen People from far away without ever having become the member of it.
So there are still many believers and whole assemblies that remain external because they judge and reject the Laws and the Covenant of the Lord through Yeshua. These are the ones who are building their own tents and cities around something else than Yeshua HaMashiach.
When someone starts building towers or cities instead of tabernacles, he is such as Cain, the builders of the tower of Babel or the Egyptians who all did the same.
Anyone who is constructing himself and puts himself in the center of everything is equal to Amalek.
We receive the information concerning the disposition of the tents that yet have been constructed from the mouth of a stranger, Balaam:
1. Israel abiding in his tents
2. according to their tribes
3. The spirit of God came upon him… (Numbers 24, 2)
1. During our life of disciples, how many times do we forget that our stay on Earth is just transitional? How many attempts do we make to make our tent being more comfortable and luxurious?
2. How many Christian does completely ignore where they belong to and what their identity and their calling is?
Instead of settling at the feet of Christ, they put themselves under some "chief’s", pastor’s, churches’ or any other assemblies’ authority. This is how the Levites called to the service around the Altar become the simple doormen of assemblies, and this is how the choristers become some vessel-cleaners…
Although God has a well defined order.
He wants to settle the identity problem of today’s Jews. And He will take them out from the communities that are stealing this identity from them. God still wants to use this People in the calling and at the place that have been predeterminated for it a long time ago.
3. If only the third vision of Balaam would still be true today.
Instead of the Spirit of God, the veil is being put upon everything!
All the theologies, philosophies and any other dogmas and methods are hiding sins and are unfurling as a veil over men and the crowds of believers.
Balaam from his part prostrated before God after having seen the tents of those days and said:
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!…
Still today, when a young Jewish man enters a synagogue, his first pray is pronounced with these words.
It is a praise testifying of the profusion among the People.
Why did these praises disappear from the doors of our assemblies?
It would be also interesting to say some words about the disposition of the tents.
When Israel built up its tents, it made buildings that only had three sides. On today’s Succas there is still no door. Although, the inhabitants of one tent could not see into the next one since they were arranged so that two open sides did never face one another. It was a matter of a simple rotation of 90° of angle per tent.
Today’s assemblies should really learn from that!
The fact of belonging to a "tribe", or a community does not mean that we don’t have any private life at the same time! The Christian community is not a mass-shelter or a barrack-room and even less an overcrowded hospital. A community is a set of tents placed the one beside the other but still having their own spiritual, psychical and physical life irrespectively of the others. These tents are all open the same way to each other inside of the camp. Even if they received the same way and calling from God.
This disposition of the tents around the Sanctuary is still effective today in order to be able one day to see such a Body of Christ which is made of disciples having all the same value but different callings, such a vision that Balaam had while looking to Israel. The vision of a People which is gathered around the Golgotha with Yeshua at the center and living on the narrow way of Jerusalem, yet living in the eternal life during its physical life on Earth.
After having talked about the multitude of tents and their disposition as Balaam saw them, we must talk about another Tent. The one we all should have to enter one day.
So often do we say that we wish to live in the presence of God. But when are we really close to Him?
The answer is given by David in Psalm 15:
LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
The one who walks uprightly:
According to the Holy Scriptures, the ways of God (Psalm 31), the laws of God (Psalm 19), the Father is perfect (Mat 5, 48), the Master is perfect (Luke 6, 40), the will of God (Rom. 12, 2), the Son is the perfect High Priest (Hebrews 9, 11).
Although this list is far from being exhaustive, it nevertheless appears very clearly that all that is coming from God is not only good but also perfect.
Above all, Yeshua HaMashiach is perfect. He who was sent to us to be crucified and to rise from the deaths being the perfect winner.
Also perfect is the Holy Spirit and his work that leads us to all truth.
The link between this perfection is Love (1Cor. 13) which is no other than the Love of God that appeared through the sending of Yeshua HaMashiach among us. He who keeps us united inside of us and between each other.
We are walking uprightly if the Spirit of Yeshua lives in us. This Love has to be above all human desire coming from the flesh or the soul in our lives and our assemblies just as well.
The one who works righteousness:
Let us overtake all the truths of churches, assemblies, men or any other pastor or theologian that are often put on us by force.
Right off only a few words from the Bible can show us the real essence of the true righteousness:
The Word of God (1Kings 17, 20), his judgments, his ways, the work of his hand is faithfulness and justice, his word is true from the beginning.
The work of justice is visible in our life:
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other (Psalm 85), righteousness delivers (Prov. 10.2), life is on the path of righteousness (Prov. 12, 28), righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way (Prov. 13, 6), righteousness helds up, reinforce, its work is peace, righteousness is the power and the heritage of the servants of God, it is a shield, an weapon, and comfort: The Spirit of Justice, puts right, restores and its fruit is light.
The one who speaks the truth in his heart:
"The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life" (Prov.10, 11)
"The tongue of the just is as choice silver" (Prov. 10, 20)
"The righteous doth sing and rejoice" (Prov. 29, 6)
The consequences described above are lived by those who were born again. It is a matter of this spiritual state when the disciple does his work and lives in Yeshua HaMashiach.
When the Christian in thoughts becomes Christian in spirit and starts to live at last.
