Attending the Feast of Tabernacles is a highlight of the year for God’s people. If we are growing in grace and knowledge, the reality of the Kingdom of God becomes ever clearer to us as we gather together each fall to celebrate our part in God’s plan and to look forward to the establishment of God’s government here on earth.
Many reading this article will be keeping the Feast within a few hours of their homes. Others may be traveling thousands of miles around the globe. Yet the Feast of Tabernacles is an observance that brings us all closer together as a Church.
What is God’s instruction? We read: “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it’” (Leviticus 23:34–35).
Notice that, although only the first and last days are “holy time,” God says we must keep the Feast for all eight days: “For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work on it” (Leviticus 23:36).
For how long should we keep the Feast? “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” (Leviticus 23:41). Yes, God commands us to keep the Feast each year, year after year, generation after generation—forever!
“‘You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God’” (Leviticus 23:42–43). Notice that we are to leave our homes and live in temporary accommodations for the entire Feast. This reminds us that we are merely sojourners here on Earth.
But why does God so emphasize the importance of our keeping the Feast of Tabernacles? What lessons are we to learn from it, and how should we prepare ourselves to celebrate it? “You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before the Lord your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always” (Deuteronomy 14:22–23). Yes, God has commanded our attendance at the fall Feast so we may learn to fear the Lord our God always.
Elsewhere in this issue of the Living Church News, you have read exhortations to prepare spiritually for the coming Feast. Another aspect of our preparation is to prepare a tithe of our annual increase to pay our expenses traveling to and staying at the place where God places His Name: “But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household” (Deuteronomy 14:24–26).
God did not say that we can choose not to attend if the site is too far away. In the Millennium, people will come to Jerusalem for the Feast from every nation; they will not be able to complain that the site is too far distant. Except for severe health reasons, all God’s people should attend, and He expects us to set aside a tithe for our expenses. In past years, some have excused themselves to return to work during the Feast, or have left early to get back to school. A few have attended only the morning service on the Last Great Day, so they could get an early start rushing back into the world. Yet the Last Great Day is holy to God and should be entirely and reverently observed until sunset.
Properly saving our second tithe is one of the ways we show our Father that we do fear to violate His statutes and that we desire to fully honor Him at His fall festivals. While financial planning may seem like a mundane topic to address, it is actually crucial for the success of the Feast! Without adequate preparation, including financial preparation, the Feast would be a chaotic, distressing, and discouraging time. Imagine, for a moment, if you put all your Feast expenses on a credit card, only to be paying them off for the rest of November, December and January! What a blessing that God gives us His gift of the Festival tithe—with no recurring headaches over how to pay it off after the Feast is over!
God’s command to save a festival tithe is a vital link to ensure that the Feast of Tabernacles is observed each year. How many projects never happen because of “lack of funding?” Anyone associated with business or government knows that until a program is funded—it is not really committed to! The funding is where the commitment to the project is made. So, we can see why God saw an absolute need for a financial commitment by God’s people all year long, to ensure that they would always keep the Feast, year in and year out.
Many millennia ago, God laid out His system for funding the Feast, to ancient Israel. As the “Israel of God” today, we are to keep those same Holy Days. And therefore, the preparation for those Holy Days is the same, with some updates for a modern age. Deuteronomy 14:22 says, “You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before the Lord your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.”
This was a separate tithe than that given to the Levites (Numbers 18:21), because this was to be consumed by the giver of the tithe. Notice that God provided for this statute to be understood and followed even in the modern circumstances of our cash-driven society, by stipulating that our increase may be spent in the form of money (Deuteronomy 14:25).
Some few of our brethren around the world still do bring livestock to the Feast, to enjoy the fruit of their labors—their festival tithe—with their families and other brethren. However, for most of us in the modern economy, the only way we can save the festival tithe is through setting aside money. So, are we faithfully saving our festival (“second”) tithe? If you were slack in saving that tithe for this year’s Feast, resolve now to save it diligently for the Feast in 2014!
God is preparing a great future and a place for each of us in His family. He has called us to learn how to rule and teach this world the ways of peace and happiness. The Feast of Tabernacles is a unique opportunity for us to train for the awesome events to occur in the days and years just ahead. The Feast gives us a foretaste of the Kingdom of God.
Even after the Kingdom is here, the Feast of Tabernacles will still be observed, and all nations will be required to attend. As we read in Zechariah: “And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles” (Zechariah 14:16–19).
Once the nations learn what God will teach them at the Feast of Tabernacles, they will come to love and enjoy this holy time as much as His people do today. So, prepare diligently. See you at the Feast!
—By Rod McNair, with contributions by LCG Festival Staff