John 7:37-52 (The Christ Of Tabernacles)

The Shepherd's Church

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I didn't write this example down, which now is gonna add to the length of the sermon, so you're welcome. But there's a significant difference from living in Niagara Falls, New York and Niagara Falls, Canada.

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It is a massive difference. When we were in the car driving on our way there,

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Niagara Falls, New York was really an unpleasant place. I think we're putting that mildly.

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And you're like, I don't see anything special about this big falls that they're talking about. I had no idea that there was such a dichotomy between these two places.

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But when I got on the bridge, I started noticing some things. I started seeing some water that was bubbling up and I was like, okay, okay.

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Then I got over to the Canada side and I was like, this is amazing. But I would have never seen that if I just stopped in New York.

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I think that that's a perfect example for our text today. Because as modern day

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Christians, we often look at the Old Testament and we think that it's old. It's irrelevant to our lives that Jesus has come and he's perfectly fulfilled every single part of it.

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And it's so disconnected from our reality that we just wanna stay on the New York side of things and never go over to the

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Canada side of things, which is to our detriment. And what we're gonna do today, the bridge that we're gonna cross in order to get there is we're gonna go back into the

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Old Testament. The book or John seven really is talking about the

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Feast of Tabernacles. So we're gonna understand what Jesus is pointing to and why his living water is so good.

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We have to understand what the Feast of Tabernacles is. We have to understand what elements were present in that feast that are going to show us this beautiful climactic moment whenever Jesus stands up at the end of the feast and he says,

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I am the living water. It's almost like a couple of years ago, Addison was scared of a firework show and when the finale started happening, when all of the fireworks were bursting in the air, she was hiding under the blanket.

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There was something keeping her from seeing this beautiful thing that we were seeing. I don't want that to happen today. Today, I want us to go back and I want us to look at the truth of the

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Old Testament. I want us to see that so that the cover can be pulled out from our eyes and so that we can see what is going on in John seven.

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So if you will, turn with me to John seven, 37 through 52, but we're really gonna be focused on 37 through 39.

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This is what God's word says. Now the last day, the great day of the feast,

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Jesus stood and cried out saying, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

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He who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.

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But he spoke of the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive, for the spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.

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Some of the people, therefore, when they heard these things were saying, this certainly is the prophet. Others were saying, this is the

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Christ. So others were saying, surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is he?

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Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?

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So a division occurred because of him. Some of them wanted to seize him, but no one laid hands on him.

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The officers then came to the chief priests and the Pharisees and they said to them, why did you not bring him to us?

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The officers answered, never has a man spoken the way that this man speaks. And the Pharisees then answered them, you have not also been led astray, have you?

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No one of the rulers of the Pharisees has believed in him, has he? But this crowd which does not know the law is accursed.

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Nicodemus who came to him before, being one of them, said to them, the law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?

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They answered him, you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.

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So what we have here is we have

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Jesus proclaiming certain truths about himself from the Old Testament that they are not able to receive.

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Let's pray. Lord, I pray that as we examine your word today, that all of the truths that are found in it would be clear.

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Lord, I pray that they would be sort of a bubbling pool that collects and collects and collects until at the end we see how all of this crescendos into you, how you really are the fulfillment of every part of this passage and even the parts of this passage that we do not immediately see.

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Lord, let us examine this text and let us see how it points to you. And God, by the end of it, I pray that what is left with us, that what we walk away here from today is to see that in all things we turn our gaze upon Christ, we worship

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Christ, and we find him most glorious and most beautiful, in Jesus' name, amen.

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Now the setting of John 7, we talked about a couple weeks now, is it's autumn time. It's a feast of joy.

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The leaves are turning on the trees, the harvest has now been put into the barns, so everyone now is flooding into the city of Jerusalem so that they can celebrate and so that they can be joyful because of all that God has done and all of his provision.

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But underneath the surface is all of this fascinating detail about the Feast of Tabernacles that we don't immediately see.

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So in order for us to see that, I'm gonna be going through a very specific outline today. We're gonna first look at how the

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Feast of Tabernacles was placed within the Jewish calendar, especially in the fall. How did the

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Feast of Tabernacles fulfill something significant in the fall cycle of feast? Then we're gonna look at how the

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Feast of Tabernacles really does tell the climactic story of redemption in the life of Israel's people.

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We're gonna look at the Jewish expectation of the Feast of Tabernacles. We're gonna look at specific elements from the scripture concerning the

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Feast of Tabernacles, and when we're finished, we're gonna see how Christ is the ultimate and most beautiful fulfillment of all these things, and I pray that it will cause us to worship.

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So let's begin with the calendar. The Feast of Tabernacles was the final feast of the year in many ways.

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It was the seventh feast of seven, but in the fall cycle of feast, it was the third feast, the final feast of the fall feast.

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So you had actually three feasts. You had the Feast of Trumpets, you had the Feast of, or the

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Day of Atonement, and then you had the Feast of Tabernacles, which climactically ended that cycle of feast.

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It was the final feast in that there was not a single feast after that feast for six months.

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So when you went to Jerusalem to feast at the Feast of Tabernacles, it was your Super Bowl. In the same way, sort of, in the

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NFL, it's the last game of the year, and this is a terrible example because it's so pitifully low compared to such a beautiful thing as the

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Feast of Tabernacles. But there's a long period of time between the Super Bowl and opening day. You are going there to Jerusalem to celebrate the final feast of the year.

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And Jesus, as he's going there on this day, is going to Jerusalem the final time before they arrest him and kill him.

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Now, again, I told you there's three feasts in the fall. Tabernacles is the climax. The first feast is the

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Feast of Trumpets. The Feast of Trumpets is an interesting feast. It happens on the first day of the seventh month.

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And on that day, all of these shofars, these trumpets are blown out loud.

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And what you know from the Old Testament is whenever the trumpets are blown, it is an act of war.

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All of Israel would assemble together at the Tabernacle and they would get into their stations and they would prepare themselves to go to war with whatever country that they were fighting against.

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But now, at this particular time, what they don't realize is that they are not going to war with an enemy.

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God is actually at war with them. During the Feast of Tabernacles, their sin is so prevalent and is so before them that they realize that they have made themselves enemies of God and that God himself is coming for them.

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Now, 10 days is how long this feast lasts and it's 10 days of intense repentance.

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It's combing over every single facet of your life, trying to find any unconfessed sin, any unrepented sin, any sin that you haven't sacrificed a lamb or a goat or a way of offering or something like that.

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You go over every facet of your life because the holy God is coming and your sin has made you an enemy.

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That's the Feast of Trumpets. It was a feast of intense repentance, heaviness, and looking just at your life and realizing,

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I can't confess all my sins. There's things I've forgotten. So really, you have no hope, at least not yet.

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Now, whenever a major enemy comes after you and they're much bigger than you, much stronger than you, and you know that you're gonna lose, what you do is you send a delegation.

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You send someone to negotiate the terms of surrender because you know that you cannot stand against this powerful foe.

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That's what the Day of Atonement was. That's the second feast that happened 10 days after the Feast of Trumpets.

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God himself declared that the high priest, once per year, would go into the Holy of Holies inside of the temple, not because he was righteous.

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He was going in there to surrender. He was going in there to show that the people had sinned in such a way that they could not be forgiven unless God, by his grace, accepted the terms.

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So what they did was the high priest, early in the morning, would dress up in three layers of clothing, almost like he's dressing up for war.

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And he would walk through three layers of the temple, down to the deepest parts, and he would offer the blood of a single goat for all the unconfessed sins, for all the sins that weren't sacrificed for, for the people.

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And as he stood there and as he watched every single year, he was wondering, is this the year when

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God's holiness breaks out against me? The high priest, I've said this many times, but I think it's a fascinating point.

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He would wear a rope around his waist, because if this were the day when God's holiness broke out against the people of Israel, at least they could pull him out without having to go in.

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Because this holy God, his holiness attacks our sin, is at war with our sin.

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So the sacrifice would be accepted. Every year, they would go through this ceremony where a high priest would represent the people, and all of their sin would be covered in such a way.

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And it was really to assuage the holiness of God. So the high priest would come out, and the people would cheer, and they would know that for another year, they had been forgiven.

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For another year, they could live in the presence of God. For another year, they could enjoy his blessings. Until next year, when they went through the same cycle of deep repentance, and sending that poor man into the presence of God alone.

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This, of course, leads to the Feast of Tabernacles. Because after 10 days of intense, intense guilt, shame, and repentance, and after this climactic moment where the priest goes in and negotiates the terms between you and God, and you see him come out, then all of a sudden joy breaks out all over the nation.

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And all the people from the nation when they get word of it, they gather together four days later in the city of Jerusalem to begin worshiping

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God. The Feast of Tabernacles was a feast of jubilant joy that God had, through mercy and through grace, had forgiven them of their sins.

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It was a wonderful, joyful occasion.

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Now, the Feast of Tabernacles also, it doesn't just follow three fall feasts, it also follows three national annual feasts.

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And those are specific feasts. The ones I just told you were not high holy feasts, except for the Feast of Tabernacles.

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But there's three feasts out of the seven feasts that are particularly holy, and particularly sacred to the

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Jewish people. That's the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Pentecost, and the

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Feast of Tabernacles, the three high holy feasts. And I would argue that those three together tell the entire story of redemption, from beginning to end.

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So think about from the Feast of Passover's perspective. Here you have a sinful people who are stuck in a land that is not their own.

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And God, by his own power, rescues them out of their slavery, brings them through the waters of the

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Red Sea, brings them to the mountain of Sinai. And before he does that, the angel of death comes for them because they are sinners and they're idolaters, just like the

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Egyptians. And only because the blood of the lamb was painted over the doorpost were they spared.

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So here you have an expectation from the Old Testament that my sin needs to be covered by the blood of a lamb.

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Now, the Jews often got in trouble because they would look backwards to these feasts and celebrate what

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God did then. They never understood that these feasts also point forward. We'll talk about this in a little bit, but this feast does not exist just to forgive them of their, or to free them from their slavery in Egypt.

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This feast exists to point forward to a greater freedom that's going to come from their sin. God's not just freeing them from the wicked tyrant

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Pharaoh, he's freeing them from Satan himself. This feast exists to point forward to the great

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Passover lamb, the Christ Passover lamb, who is going to set his people free from their sin and deliver them from an even greater death.

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Think about this, the angel of God, this is God's angel was coming to kill them and the blood of a lamb protected them.

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How much more so than the bigger reality in that God himself is opposed to our sin.

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And if it were not for the blood of the lamb, Jesus Christ, we could not stand.

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So this feast has a temporal reality for the people of Israel, but it also points forward to a bigger reality and all of these feasts do.

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The main point though in Passover is that they're delivered from death. The Feast of Pentecost was the second high holy feast and that feast has everything to do with resurrection.

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The Pentecost was the feast of first fruits. The farmer who would come back from Passover had 50 days before he had to go back to Jerusalem.

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So that in those 50 days he would plant his crops with a furious work ethic so that he could get them all on the ground and by the end of those 50 days, he could just start to see the buds popping up out of the soil, the first fruits that have come up out of the soil.

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So the Feast of Pentecost is all about God being gracious to his people and allowing these plants, these crops to grow because in that time period, you weren't guaranteed anything.

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There could have been a drought or a famine or some kind of late frost, I guess you could say, in certain parts of Israel and your crop is killed.

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And if your crop is killed then your family dies out of starvation. So when they would see that bursting up out of the soil, they would see that God himself was providing for them and was taking care of them and was loving them.

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But again, it doesn't just end there because it pointed forward to something greater. The New Testament says that Jesus is the first fruit of a new creation.

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He's the first one to pop up out of the tomb and out of the ground as the resurrected one. And with him, he is bringing forth a harvest which leads us to the

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Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles was the finale of the redemptive year.

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It was after the harvest had been collected. So if you're keeping track here, you go to Jerusalem before the harvest to celebrate your freedom from death.

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You come back and plant the first fruits and watch God provide for you in that way. And then right before you harvest all of your crops, you go to Jerusalem once more to celebrate the

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God who cares for you. That is the entire story of redemption in that we are freed from slavery through the crucifixion of Christ.

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We are resurrected as the first fruits of his creation and we are waiting for the day when he harvests us and brings us home into his heavenly barns.

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The entire story of the New Testament is found in three feasts in the

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Old. And also because of that, the

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Jews often miss this, but they did have gratitude during this season. That's the third thing I want us to talk about.

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This feast has a particular place in the year, has a particular place in the story of redemption, but it also has a particular place in the

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Jewish expectations. For instance, Josephus, who is a historian living just a little bit after Jesus' day, this is what he said about the

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Feast of Tabernacles. He said, it is the most holy and most eminent of all the feasts.

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I actually had no idea of that. I always thought that Passover was the most holy feast.

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But Josephus is telling us here that the Jewish expectation was that the Feast of Tabernacles was the most holy feast because it crescendoed into this beautiful climax of redemption, so it was the finale.

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It was that firework show at the end. You save the best finale to last.

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Josephus is telling us that they felt a certain increased pressure during the time of Tabernacles.

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They felt a certain intensity from God. They felt a certain eminence. Eminence means nearness. When they were here, they felt a certain eminence of gratitude from God for all that he had done, and they were reminded of everything that he had done in history.

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If you think about it this way, the people of Israel were rescued from their slavery, and while they were traveling to the

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Promised Land, they had to live in temporary little things called booths. That's why the Feast of Tabernacles is also called the

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Feast of Booths. And in these temporary booths, they realized that they were totally dependent upon God.

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When you look up at that little, at the branches and limbs that are covering you, you know one good storm is going to wipe you out.

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So every step of their journey from the wilderness to the Promised Land, they were totally reliant upon God.

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And that produced in them a certain sort of gratitude because they knew that only God could take care of them, and only

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God could save them. But it also produced in them a certain forward -lookingness because they knew that God did not promise that they would always live in booths.

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They knew that God was gonna bring them to a Promised Land, and he was gonna give them permanent homes and permanent vineyards and permanent fields, and he was gonna grain on them sort of blessings that they could have never deserved.

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We read earlier in Exodus 17 how much they grumbled and how much they hated God, and yet look at how faithful God is being every single step of the way to his people.

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So when they looked up at that shabby little roof, and when they looked at the walls that were made out of sticks, they realized that God himself had been gracious in bringing us out of slavery, and God himself would continue to be gracious when he brought us to our land.

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So there was an expectation of his provision that he alone was the one that would provide for his people.

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But there was also an expectation of his presence. God, or the people of Israel, are not the only ones in Israel who are living in a tent.

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If you think about the story, God himself is dwelling on top of Mount Sinai. The mountain is rumbling and quaking and lightning and thundering, and the people are afraid for their lives because this holy

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God is so terrifying in his righteousness. And yet, as the people are tent dwelling in this little tent city configuration around the mountain of God, God himself in the book of Leviticus comes down from the mountain and dwells in a tent.

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The tent of meeting. So the Feast of Tabernacles not only reminded them of the time that they spent in tents and how

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God provided, it reminded them of the time that God came down and lived and dwelt in a tent and shared with them his presence.

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The Feast of Tabernacles was supposed to point them to the fact that God was gracious and that God was present.

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It also was to point them to a deeper reality. As we talked about in all of these feasts, they have a certain meaning for the people who are living through them, but they also have a forward -looking meaning for the people who were expecting something greater.

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And we know that in the New Testament, God himself came in the book of John and tabernacled among them.

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He pitched his tent among the people. So the Feast of Tabernacles also looks forward to the coming of the

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Messiah, the one who will pitch his tent in the midst of the people of God, and he will be the one who will provide for the people of God.

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Now, Moses gives us certain things that we're to look for in this feast, certain explicit things, and those are described in Leviticus 23, 34 through 44.

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This is what it says. Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, on the 15th of the seventh month is the

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Feast of Booths for seven days to the Lord. On the first day is a holy convocation, that means a

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Sabbath, and you shall do no laborious work of any kind. For seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the

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Lord. And on the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, that's another Sabbath, and present an offering by fire to the

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Lord. It is an assembly, you shall do no laborious work. These are the appointed times of the

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Lord, which you shall proclaim as holy convocations. To present offerings by fire to the

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Lord, burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings. Each day, each day's matter on its own day.

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Besides those of the Sabbath of the Lord, and besides your gifts, and besides all of your vatav and freewill offerings which you give to the

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Lord, on exactly the 15th day of the seventh month when you have gathered in the crops of the land, you shall celebrate the

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Feast of the Lord for seven days. With a rest on the first day and a rest on the eighth day.

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Now, on the first day you shall take yourself the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and bows of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the

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Lord your God for seven days. You shall thus celebrate it as a Feast of the Lord for seven days in the year.

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It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations. You shall celebrate it on the seventh month, and you shall live in booths for seven days.

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All the native born in Israel shall live in booths so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when

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I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God, so Moses declared to the sons of Israel in appointed times of the

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Lord. Now, as you can see, there's certain elements here that have to be examined.

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And what I find so fascinating here is that God specifically tells them how he wants them to worship him.

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He doesn't ask them for creativity. He tells them exactly how he wants them to worship him, and he gives them several things.

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First is this idea of Sukkot. Now, all of this is gonna make sense in a moment.

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I'm just stacking and stacking and stacking evidence so that we can point that all to Christ in a moment. Sukkot is a

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Hebrew word. It's the same Hebrew word that means tabernacle. So the concept of Sukkot is a tent, a tabernacle, or some sort of temporary dwelling.

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But underneath that term is this idea of a roof or a covering. Now, in English, when

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I talk about a roof, I can talk about it in a physical way or I can talk about it in a metaphorical way. If I wanna talk about a roof in a physical way,

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I'll say, you know, in 10 years, I probably will need to replace my roof because I don't want snow to be landing on my children's head.

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I'm talking about the nails. I'm talking about the shingles. I'm talking about the physical roof. But if I were to say to you that God himself is a roof for his people, it'd be an awkward sentence.

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We wouldn't normally say something like that, but it would communicate to every single one of us that God is the one who covers us.

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We're not talking about shingles and rubber and nails at this point. We're talking about God providing a covering for his people,

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God being the one who is protecting us. The Israelites had examples of this. They called God a shelter.

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They called him a hiding place. They said that he was the roof over their heads. So in the

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Feast of Tabernacles, you have this dual meaning where they actually did meet in physical booths, but they also were celebrating the fact that God is the one who's gonna protect them, not just from physical things, but he was gonna protect them from spiritual things.

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He was gonna be their sukkot. He was gonna be their covering. He was gonna be the one who keeps them safe. And that was a joy to them as they considered that reality.

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The second thing we see in this text for Moses is that there's a Sabbath element. It begins with a

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Sabbath and it ends with a Sabbath, which is a fascinating feature. I don't think there's any other feast like it. Now you think about the fact that it begins with a

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Sabbath and it ends with a Sabbath. It's telling them that they can't earn anything by their own labors and by their own effort.

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The feast is about celebrating what God has done. And just so they get that point, they're not allowed to work on the first day of the feast and they're not allowed to work on the eighth day of the feast to show them that they can't work to earn anything.

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They can't work to cover themselves. They can't work to protect themselves, their own labors. You and I can go and build massive houses with stone and concrete ceilings and one earthquake and it's gone.

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80 years later, you're gone. You can't work hard enough to protect yourself and give yourself life.

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So the point by starting it with a Sabbath and ending it with a Sabbath is showing that God's work is more important in your life than your work and only his work can protect you.

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So that Sabbath element of the tabernacles was there to remind them of who's the one doing the work?

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It's not you, it's God. I find this particularly fascinating because in John 7, they're accusing

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Jesus of being a Sabbath breaker. The feast that begins with Sabbath and ends with Sabbath showcases the work of God.

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They look at God and they say, you're the broken one. Which is fascinating, right? Because they're the ones who are anxious and not resting.

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They're the ones who are working to kill him, literally. They're the ones who are objecting to God's interpretation of scriptures and they're the ones who are putting forth their own labored text of tradition.

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They're the ones who are breaking the Sabbath. They're the ones who are out of step with the Feast of Tabernacles and Jesus is the one who actually is in step with the

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Feast of Tabernacles, it's ironic. Now we shouldn't be surprised that the

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Pharisees and the Jews misunderstand. For one, we misunderstand all of the time. We try to understand the things of God and we get confused and we get frustrated.

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We look past God and we look to ourselves, we do this stuff all the time. But we've read enough of the

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Gospel of John also to know that the Pharisees are always confused and always frustrated. They don't understand anything that Jesus is doing, especially the elements of this feast and how he's fulfilled it.

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So Jesus is their Sukkot, he is their Sabbath, but he's also pointing to a deeper sacrificial meaning that Moses is getting at as well.

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It's interesting to me that Leviticus 23, 36 says, for seven days you shall present an offering of fire to the

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Lord. That's seven days of perpetual sacrificing. That's a fascinating thing, especially considering the number.

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Seven days of continual sacrificing means that sacrifice was embedded into this feast.

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It was a very important part of this feast. Look at verse 37. These are the appointed times of the

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Lord which you shall present offerings by fire to the Lord, burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings.

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Each day's matter to its own. So not only are they being told to sacrifice every day, but they're being told to sacrifice in every way, which means that God is giving them specific instructions on how to worship him.

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But what I find so fascinating is that these seven days of perpetual sacrifice is also in a different sort of number.

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Look at Numbers 29 verses 12 through 16. The numbers here are pretty fascinating.

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This is Moses adding additional details in the book of Numbers. On the 15th day of the seventh month, that's when you celebrate tabernacles, you shall have a holy assembly and you shall do no laborious work.

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That's the Sabbath. And you shall celebrate with a feast of the Lord for seven days. And you shall present a burnt offering, an offering by fire as a soothing aroma to the

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Lord. 13 bulls, two rams, 14 male lambs, one year old, which are without defect, grain offerings, fine flour mixed with oil, three -tenths of an ephah of each for the 13 bulls, two -tenths for each of the two rams, a tenth for each of the 14th lambs, a male goat as a sin offering, besides the continual burnt offering, it's grain offering and a drink offering.

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This is not just sacrificing animals, sacrificing wine, this is sacrificing bread, this is multi -layered sacrifices, which means that sacrifice is embedded into this feast.

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And the idea of sacrifice is that we are sinners, God is holy, we need something to bridge the gap. Now, seven sacrifices on the final day.

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Look at what this says though in the book of Numbers. It is fascinating. The first day says 13 bulls, the second day says, in Numbers 29 .17,

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then on the second day, 12 bulls. Look at the third day in Numbers 29 .20,

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then on the third day, 11 bulls. Look at day four, Numbers 29 .23, then on the fourth day, 10 bulls.

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The fifth day, then on the fifth day, nine bulls. And then on the sixth day, eight bulls.

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And then on the final day, seven bulls. There is no feast that does this.

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This is fascinating. The bull element is going in decreasing order every single day, and you know what it adds up to?

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It adds up to 70. That is, it's not an accident. If God would have started with 14 bulls, it would have been 77.

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If he would have started with 12 bulls, it would have been 63. He purposely chooses that on the final day of this high holy feast, seven bulls would be sacrificed for a grand total of 70, which is a fascinating and unbelievable thing.

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We talk about the numbers and why they're so important. Seven is the number of perfection. That's the number that God himself chose.

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So seven sacrifices on the seventh day of the seventh month is that you need a perfect sacrifice.

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This bull that you're sacrificing, or seven, is not enough. You need a perfect sacrifice.

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You need something beyond these bulls because your sin is so deep. And the Israelites knew this, and the prophets, it says that the blood of bulls and goats cannot save.

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It was a temporary solution to a permanent problem. Seven bulls, seven months, seven days, they need a perfect sacrifice.

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That's what it pointed to. But it's also 70. And you're like, that's fascinating.

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Or maybe you're not. I'm gonna try to convince you that it is. How do you get the number 70 in the

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Bible? That's seven times 10. We've already talked about that seven is the number of perfection to God.

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So when you multiply seven times 10, you have the second number. What is the number 10 actually trying to communicate?

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Seven is perfection, 10 is completion. That's what 10 means. Why are there 10 commandments in the

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Bible? Because that's all that we're needed. It's the full completion of the law. If you do that, you'll be justified, which we can't.

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Why is a tithe 10 % in the Old Testament? Because that's a life filled with giving.

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You don't need more, that's enough. Why are there 10 generations before Noah?

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From Adam to Noah, there's 10 specific listed generations. Why? Because the world had fallen into complete ruin.

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Total, full rebellion. 10 generations showcased fullness.

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The rebellion was complete, it was full. Why does God say that he has cattle on a thousand hills?

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That's not the number 10, no, you're right. It's 10 times 10 times 10, which means that it's 10 multiplied and now to the largest proportion.

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In the Old Testament, when you repeat things, you amplify things. So in heaven, when the angels are singing, holy, holy, holy, three times holy

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God, they're taking it from the level that we can comprehend to the level of the ultimate. God is ultimately, infinitely holy.

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So when you repeat that word three times, you're going to the ultimate level. So why does

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God own cattle on a thousand hills? Does he not own cattle on the thousandth and first? Of course not.

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Thousand means that he owns all the cattle, all the time, everywhere that there could ever be owned.

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It's not a literal number. It is a number of such extreme fullness and completion that our brains can't even comprehend it.

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That's how many cattle that he owns. That's how many hairs that he knows that are on your head. He has that kind of knowledge.

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That's what it means. You talk about the millennial reign of Christ. There's a lot of people who say that it's a literal thousand years.

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I don't think so. I think that number doesn't say that. I think it means that it's the total and completed reign of Jesus Christ from the time that he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, sitting on his throne, and to the time that he returns back.

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It is a total and completed number of days and number of years because all time belongs to God.

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He owns cattle on a thousand hills because all space and matter belong to him. He's gonna reign for a thousand years because all time belongs to him.

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So when you multiply this number of completion with this number of perfection, you get total complete perfection.

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That's what you get. And there's so many examples of 70 in the Bible. I'll just go through a few. The people of Israel were in exile for 70 years, which was the total punishment and perfect number of years that God assigned for his people to live in Babylon.

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And after the 70th year and not a moment earlier and not a moment later, they returned and they rebuilt their temple.

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They were set aside for punishment by God with a total and perfect number, 70. There's 70 holy days.

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This is something I learned this week. There's 52 Sabbaths in a year. There's seven Passover's, seven days for Passover.

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There's one day for the Feast of Weeks. There's one day for the Feast of Trumpets. There's one day for the Day of Atonement and there's eight days for the

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Feast of Tabernacle. I added them up. It actually does equal 70 days, which is a total and complete and perfect amount of time to worship

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God. Set aside for me a total and complete number of days. He did that. 70 days in a year is when you will worship

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God in Jerusalem like this. 70 elders in Israel.

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As hard as Israel was to rule, 70 was the number that God chose because it's total and perfect.

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It's the number that is adequate for the ruling of God's people Israel. There's a legend of 70 translators in the

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Greek Bible called the Septuagint. This is legend. But apparently they decided when

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Alexander the Great brought Hellenism to the world and he was forcing everybody to learn Greek, they were nervous that the

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Bible was gonna be, the Old Testament Bible was gonna be lost. That people at some point would not know how to speak

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Hebrew anymore. So they had to translate it into Greek. And legend says that 70 men came together and translated it.

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The Septuagint, which is Latin from the septum, meaning 70. It's the book of 70. So the

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Hebrew Old Testament got translated into Greek. The Jews say that they had 70 people. What are they appealing to?

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It's a total and perfect translation. Pretty smart way to validate yourself if you ask me.

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I don't know why modern translations don't do that. But I think the most important 70 in the

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Bible, there's more, is in Genesis 10, the table of nations. And now we're gonna come full circle on why this is so important.

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Because we said earlier that Noah, or from Adam to Noah was 10 generations, meaning the world had fallen into total ruin.

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Noah is said to have had 70 sons and grandsons. His family was listed as 70. And it says that those 70 people would repopulate the earth.

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They would become all of the nations on earth. So it became a sort of Hebrew way of thinking to say that 70 represents the world.

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70 represents the nations. There's 70 nations is what the Jews believed. And it all traces back to Genesis 10.

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So what you have here is a feast that celebrates perfect sacrifice for the people of Israel, but yet global significance for the nations.

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They didn't even see it. A sacrifice of 70 bulls, one for every representative of the nations.

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So you've got global salvation even here in the Old Testament, that the salvation will go to the ends of the earth.

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So sacrifice was essential. And it had multiple different ways to explain it.

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The last thing I wanna share with you is this idea of a pouring of water.

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It actually wasn't revealed in the Bible to do this. The first thing that we talked about was

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Sukkot, that's in Leviticus. The second thing we talked about, a sacrifice, that's in Numbers. This doesn't show up in the

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Bible anywhere. This happened after the book of Malachi. It's the final book in the Old Testament.

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And before the book of Matthew, which is the first book in the New Testament. During those 400 years, a tradition developed that became incredibly important.

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And like the Jews always do, they elevate their traditions above the Bible so that their traditions are the most important thing that they did.

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And this became the central feature of the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, what would happen is that the priest would all gather together at the temple right at sunrise.

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And they would march from the temple mount all the way down to the pool of Siloam. That's the pool where Jesus heals the man who was sick for 38 years in John chapter five.

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It's the reason that they wanted to kill Jesus in the first place, which adds added significance. So here they are, marching down to this pool, carrying with them a golden pitcher.

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That's what the tradition said that they did. And they would go down to the pool and they would dip out a pitcher full of water in this pool.

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And then they would turn around and they would march back up to the temple mount in order to pour this over the offering.

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But one of the things you need to realize about this is that they believed that this was living water that they were actually getting.

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See, living water is a term that was most famous on Jesus's lips in John chapter four and in John chapter seven.

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But living water was a common concept in that time. Living water just meant running water.

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It meant streams. It meant rivers. You think about the Dead Sea, it's dead because it doesn't have an outlet.

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It has an inlet, but it has no outlet. You think about a pond, which is filled with algae and mold and different microbes.

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That's dead because it's not flowing water. So to the Hebrew, living water was flowing water.

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That's why they got water out of their wells because their wells were fueled by underground springs.

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This pool in Jerusalem was fed by an underground stream called the stream of Gihon. So this pool was considered living water at that time.

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And they reached down and they grabbed the living water and they were gonna take it up to the temple mount.

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And as they did this, the crowds were starting to form around them. The people were starting to worship.

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And the people themselves had all of these different praises on their lips. They were talking like Isaiah 12 three.

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They were singing this passage saying, we will joyfully draw water from the springs of salvation.

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They were reenacting Isaiah's promise that the streams of living water were for them. They were singing from Psalm 118 saying,

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Hosanna in the highest, which means God save us now. Ironically, six months after this, they're gonna grab their palm branches just like they were doing here.

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And they're gonna sing praises and say, Hosanna in the highest, God save us now. And then they're gonna turn on Jesus and they're gonna kill him.

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This crowd doesn't even realize the foreboding darkness that's awaiting them because of their unbelief.

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Right now, they have palm branches in their hand and they're singing Hosanna in the highest and they're marching up the hill to the temple.

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The temple was at the highest point of the city and they're marching together and singing together and dancing and waving their branches.

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And when they get to the temple mount, they enter the temple and they go to the court of the priests. That's one of the deeper parts of the temple courtyard.

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A rare privilege for the men and the women to be able to go in. And they go up to this massive altar.

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We saw earlier, 13 bulls, 14 lambs, one goat, a massive altar to be able to sacrifice all of these things.

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And the priests would take this golden picture and they would walk around the temple one time on days one, two, three, four, five, and six.

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And as they finished their walk around, almost indicative of like Jericho where they're marching around the city, they're marching around this altar.

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As they were doing that, the crowds were getting louder and louder and louder. People were shoulder to shoulder like a playoff game in the garden, like we're gonna win, but they were loud.

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They were worshiping. On the seventh day, something different happened. It was louder than the other days.

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But on the seventh day, they didn't just march around the altar one time, they marched around the altar seven times.

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And every time they made a loop, it got louder and it got louder and it got louder. Hosanna in the highest.

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And then the priest would climb up the steps of the altar and he would get to the top where the dead carcasses were and he would pour the living water over death, signifying that they believed that life was gonna flow out of death.

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They were proclaiming the gospel right then and there and they didn't even know it. And then all of this excitement happens and everybody's screaming and yelling.

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The priest is getting ready to dump the water over the sacrifices. Then all of a sudden,

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Jesus at the top of his lungs screams and cries out, bringing everything to a halt in Jerusalem.

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That's when Jesus cried out, right when they're getting ready to pour the water. This is what the text says.

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Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and he cried out, saying, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

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He who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.

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But this he spoke to the spirit whom those who believed in him were yet to receive, for the spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet horrified.

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Now, what I want you to see here is the audacity that it would take to stand up at the height, at the climactic moment of the feast and scream out.

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That word scream out, it's the same word Jesus used on the cross when he cried out and he said, father, why have you forsaken me?

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I give up my spirit. This word is an audacious thing that Jesus did because he is stopping the feast as if he was the one who had authority over it.

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He was bringing the feast to a halt because he believed and he was right to believe this, that he was the one that the feast pointed to.

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He was the only one who had the authority to stop the feast because he's the one who originally told them to start the feast through the power of his spirit when he revealed it in the

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Old Testament. He stood up and he cried out because he was saying, look at me.

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I'm what this feast is pointing to. I am the one who's gonna give you life and every single element of this feast is all about him.

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Think about all the elements we went through, the feast of trumpets, where the trumpets blow and you hear this mighty

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God who's coming after you because of your sin and you are gonna be slain because of your sin and Jesus is saying, no, that's about me because while you deserve to die and while the people of Israel deserve to die,

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I'm that God come after me and I'm that instead of a golden pitcher, I want him to pour out his wrath on top of me.

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I'm the one that the feast of trumpets points to. I'm the one who took the war from God that you and I deserved and I'm the one who saved you.

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Not sacrifices. The priest would go into the altar and he would mediate a sacrifice on the day of atonement.

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That was Jesus. Jesus is the true mediator between us and God. He's the one who went before the

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Father and sprinkled his own blood, but yet it's a better sacrifice than the one that the priests were offering because every year he had to march back into the presence of God.

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Every year he had to create a sacrifice, but Jesus, the true mediator, sacrificed in such a way that can never be repeated and it lasts forever.

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Jesus is the one that the day of atonement pointed to. He's the one that was the joy of the celebration.

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Remember the three feasts in the fall that led to repentance and then led to the death of the animal and then to joy.

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Jesus is saying that because of his death, burial and resurrection, you and I can have joy.

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The entire hope of the Feast of Tabernacles is all about him. He's the one that Passover pointed to.

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Instead of a lamb being sacrificed and his blood being painted on a doorpost, Jesus Christ is the lamb and his blood was painted on the cross and spiritually speaking, it says in the

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Bible that his blood was painted on our hearts so that death cannot come for us.

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The Feast of Tabernacles pointed to the whole story of redemption. Jesus' crucifixion shows us what

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Passover was really meant to be interpreted as. The death of Jesus Christ so that you and I could go free from a greater tyrant than sin and death,

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Satan himself. He freed us by shedding his own blood. The Feast of Pentecost is all about Jesus because in his resurrection, he was the first fruit.

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He was the one who popped up out of the earth and he's the one who's going to make you and I fruitful in his

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Holy Spirit. The Feast of Pentecost is all about sending the Spirit of God. That's why

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Pentecost was about the Spirit coming on his people because Jesus rose fruitful, gave us the

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Spirit to make us fruitful. All of it's about him. The Feast of Tabernacles is all about him.

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The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is gonna lead us and it's gonna guide us and it's gonna grow us. The Israelites waited six months for their crops to grow and when their crops grow, they thanked

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God and they gathered their crops and they threw them into the barns. That's what our life is all about right now. We are growing in the

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Spirit of God, waiting for Jesus to return and bring us home into his heavenly barns.

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But Jesus is the expectation of all of these things. He's the one that is gonna give them the true presence of God.

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We see that they're waiting and looking for the God to show up. Malachi 3 says that this

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God whom you serve will show up at your temple. They believed that the God that this Feast of Tabernacles pointed to was gonna come in the flesh and he did.

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Jesus is the very presence of God and not just back then. He gave us his Spirit so that you and I can have the presence of God today.

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The hope of the Feast of Tabernacles is all about Jesus. We have God's presence because of Jesus.

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He's the one who's gonna bring the harvest in us. We've seen that already. He's the sukkot, he's the covering.

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He's the one who covers up. The Bible says that we've been wrapped in the royal robes of Jesus Christ.

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This little tabernacle that they would live in out in the wilderness was nothing because it all pointed to Jesus, the one who would blanket us and cover us and protect us for a lifetime as we wait for him to return.

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He is our sukkot, he is our Sabbath rest. He's our perfect sacrifice of seven bowls.

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If you have been saved by Jesus, it is a perfect sacrifice that cannot be nullified.

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You can't send your way out of it because it's perfect. And it's not just for you, it's for the nations.

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The 70, it points to Jesus in that we will go into all the world preaching the gospel and then every tribe, tongue, and nation will hear the gospel and then the end will come.

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This gospel is for the nations. And I guess the height of all of this, that Jesus takes this pouring ceremony and he shows us how it's gonna happen.

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He's gonna die so he can save us. He's gonna raise so he can indwell us. He's gonna sanctify us until he comes back to get us.

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All of that's true, but this pouring ceremony's important because Jesus is saying that in him, streams of living water are gonna come out.

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Jesus is not promising you that you will collect all of his graces and get fat on his mercy.

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He's saying that it's going to come to you and then through you so that the nations can know

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God. Jesus, the living water, flows through you to the world. It flows through you to your neighbor.

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It flows through you to your boss or to your job or to everywhere. His living water goes through us to the world.

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Every facet of this passage is all about Jesus. If you're not, if you're not a believer today, please repent and turn to Christ.

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Don't be like the people in Jerusalem who rejected him and rejected him and rejected him.

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And then it was too late. If you're a Christian, look at all that God has done for you.

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The hope of tabernacles is joy. The joy leads us to gratitude and gratitude leads us to worship.

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Worship God for what he has done for you in Christ and go out into the world and let the streams of living water that he has put inside of you flow out of you so that others can see all of the good things that he's done for you as well.

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Let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for this passage.

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Thank you that it's so wrapped up in your history which teaches us that you are consistent, which teaches us that you showed your people for thousands of years what you were gonna do.

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Lord, thank you that the same spirit that Jesus is prophesying here now lives in all of us in this room who are

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Christians. Lord, I pray that we would live by the spirit, that we move by the spirit.

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Lord, I pray that we would rejoice in the beauty of your word and that, Lord, we would be convinced that your grace has not flown into us for us to store it up in storehouses so that we can be the sort of self -righteous church that looks down our nose at the world.

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Lord, I pray that we would be the church that sees your grace flowing to us and through us to the nations.

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Lord, we are downstream of you. Lord, let us love and care for those who are downstream of us.