Few people better illustrate God’s provision than George Mueller. Mueller founded orphanages in Victorian England, and through his diary, has left us with a wonderful reminder of how God provides for his children. Here is an excerpt from his diary from the morning of August 18, 1838: "I have not one penny in hand for the orphans. In a day or two again many pounds will be needed. My eyes are up to the Lord. " Later that evening he wrote: "Before this day is over, I have received from a sister five pounds. ... This morning, whilst in prayer, it came to her mind, I have this five pounds, and owe no man anything, therefore it would be better to give this money at once.... She therefore brought it, little knowing that there was not a penny in hand..." Five days later, on August 23: "Today I was again without one single penny, when three pounds was sent from Clapham, with a box of new clothes for the orphans." Mueller was later to look back on the period between 1838-46 as the time when the greatest trials of faith were experienced in the orphan work. They were not years of continuous difficulty: rather there tended to be a pattern of a few months of trial, followed by some months of comparative plenty. During the whole period, according to Mueller, the children knew nothing of the trial. In the midst of one of the darkest periods, he recorded, "These dear little ones know nothing about it, because their tables are as well supplied as when there was eight hundred pounds in the bank, and they have lack of nothing." At another time he wrote, "The orphans have never lacked anything. Had I had thousands of pounds in hand, they would have fared no better than they have; for they have always had good nourishing food, the necessary articles of clothing, etc." In other words, the periods of trial were so in the sense that there was no excess of funds: God supplied the need by the day, even by the hour. Enough was sent, but no more than enough Seeing God’s provision in our lives is critically important if we are to live lives which trust Him for all we are and all we have. Our passage this morning focuses on a great feast in ancient Israel when the Jews were to be reminded of what God has done for them, in providing them not only the food on their tables, but how He brought them through great difficulty throughout their whole lives.
The passage concludes in verse 16 by mentioning the three great feasts of Israel: the Feasts of Unleavened Bread, Weeks and Tabernacles. Last week we looked at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover. There we saw how Passover served as a reminder not only of how God rescued His people from slavery in Egypt, but also looked forward to the work of Christ, setting us free from the slavery of sin. Christ is the Passover sacrifice; He is the fulfillment. His death, burial and resurrection provide us with a complete understanding of what the Passover is all about. The next Feast we did not take time to examine, the Feast of Weeks, was to occur seven weeks after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We know the name of this celebration more by its Greek name, Pentecost. According to Jewish tradition this was the commemoration of the giving of the Law. For the Church, Pentecost was when God sent the Holy Spirit to fill His people, thus fulfilling the promise of Jeremiah 31:33: "I will put my laws in their minds and write it on their hearts," as well the promise of Ezekiel 36:26 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Sprit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Again, the old feast is given a new importance because of the work of Christ being applied to His people. What does this Feast of Tabernacles teach us? As with the other great feasts, this feast flows out of the agricultural milieu of ancient Israel, serving as a reminder of God’s provision for His people. But it does not stop there. The feast not only looks to the past and sees God’s provision, it looks toward the future and sees how God provides. Seeing God’s provision in the harvest - Deuteronomy 16:13-15God’s provision results in celebration The setting for this feast is agricultural, occurring at harvest, like our Thanksgiving, at a time when the storehouses are full and it is evident that through another year God has provided for His people. What began at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and reached its peak at Pentecost, is now concluded: all the grain is brought in. The vineyards are harvested and the wine pressed. For this reason, this is a time of celebration. The command may seem superfluous – to have fun at a harvest – but the focus of the pleasure is not on oneself, but on how much God provided. Deuteronomy doesn’t give us all the information we need, so we’ll look elsewhere. But notice what this does tell us. As with the two other feasts, there is a Sabbath context here. This is a feast for seven days during which time they are to celebrate, be joyful. There is a mixture of work and rest here. In verse 15 they are told that the Lord will bless them in all their harvest and in all the work of their hands and that their joy will be made complete. They certainly were to be actively involved in the planting, nurture and harvesting of the crops. There is no sense in which they were to do nothing. However, as the crops are brought in and from one Sabbath to the next, they are to rest from their labors; they are reminded that it was God’s grace which provided all that they needed. This cycle of work and rest is instilled in creation as God rested and is an important part of the structure of life in ancient Israel. It is important for God’s people to take time to stop and recognize God’s work in their lives. Do we mark occasions of remembrance where we put the brakes on our lives to reflect on all God has done? God’s provision results in contribution In verse 14 those who are to be a part of this feast are listed. No one is left out. It is a family feast which included children, servants, religious leaders as well as those who were often disenfranchised in society: the aliens, fatherless and widows. The feasts were not meant just for those who had done well. They were not a reward for those fortunate enough to succeed, but were a time when everyone was called to take pleasure in God’s provisions. The idea of family here is drawn very large, unlike in our context where too often we pit nuclear families vs. all others. It's not so here. When they came to any of the feasts they were to come willing to give. In verse 16 we read that for these three great feasts all were to come, but never come empty-handed. No matter how the year had been so far, there was reason to be thankful to God. They should come bearing some gift. Notice what the gift was to be like: "in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you." What we see here in Deuteronomy is sketchy, so we'll look to Leviticus 23 for a fuller picture. Seeing God’s provision in the wilderness - Leviticus 23:33-43 Whenever we are apt to complain about God’s faithfulness, we need to be reminded of His faithful provision when times are tough. God knew that Israel would soon forget how He had provided for them in the wilderness. Here in Leviticus we are told when this celebration was to occur. Just five days after the Day of Atonement, five days after the sacrifice of the scapegoat, in late September or early October, there was to be the Feast of Ingathering, Booths, Tabernacles. I can picture the movement from the solemn assembly of Yom Kippur when the priest entered the Holy of Holies on that one day to the exuberance a few days later. With the firm reminder of sins forgiven, there was reason to be joyful. As a side note, after the return from Exile, Ezra read the law and led the Israelites in acts of penitence during the Feast of Tabernacles (Nehemiah 8:13-18). The dedication of Solomon's' Temple also took place (I Kings 8:2) during this feast. Later, Josephus referred to the Feast of Tabernacles as the holiest and greatest of the Hebrew feasts. On the first day of the feast, each person collected twigs of myrtle, willow, and palm to construct their booth. These "huts" or "booths" were reminders of the temporary housing erected by their forefathers during the Exodus wanderings. The "booth" was a symbol of protection, preservation, and shelter from heat and storm. Samples of the fall crops were hung in each family's booth to acknowledge God's faithfulness in providing for His people. On the final day of the feast, the high priest of Israel, in a great processional made up of priests and tens of thousands of worshipers, descended from the Temple Mount to the Pool of Siloam to fill a pitcher with water. The worshippers marched back to the Temple where, in the midst of great ceremony, the high priest poured the water out of the pitcher onto the altar. All the while the Temple choir sang the Hallel, Psalms 113-118. As the choir sang, the pilgrims shook the lulab, the willow and myrtle branches in the right hand. In their left hands they held a piece of citrus fruit and cried in unison, "Give thanks to the Lord!" This was in commemoration of the waters which flowed from the rock at Meribah, which provided water for Israel on their journey, and looked forward to God pouring out His Spirit on all nations. Since in Israel the rains normally stop in March, there is no rain for almost seven months. If God does not provide the "early" rains in October and November, there will be no spring crop, and famine is at the doorstep. This ceremony, then, was intended to invoke God's blessing on the nation by providing life-giving water. This reminder of God’s provision is something we should never forget. It is far too easy to imagine that what we possess is what we have made ourselves. We far too easily imagine that we are indeed self-sufficient. We quickly forget how God watched over us and protected us during tough times. We think we can plan ourselves, but our planning, our preparation, lacks the sovereign control of God. You and I, as much as we can and should prepare, do not know enough to prepare well. It is in those tough times that God’s providence is so important. I read about a retired couple who, back in the 1970’s, was alarmed by the threat of nuclear war. So they undertook a serious study of all the inhabited places on the globe to determine where would be the place to be least likely affected by a nuclear war, a place of ultimate security. They studied and traveled, traveled and studied. Finally they found the place. And on Christmas they sent their pastor a card from their new home - in the Falkland Islands. However, their "paradise" was soon turned into a war zone by Great Britain and Argentina.Seeing God’s provision in Christ As we saw last week with the Passover, as we see throughout the Old Testament with the various sacrifices and other festivals commanded by God, all these pointed God’s people forward to the Messiah who was to come. Christ fulfills not only the Law of God, He not only kept the Law for us, He is also the fulfillment, the archetype, of what we see in the Old Testament. We read the Old Testament from the perspective of the New, but we do so cautiously, as the New Testament guides us. John’s Gospel helps us here. In John 7 Jesus, in obedience to the Law, goes to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, and in the temple courts He begins to teach. Verse 37 tells us that on the last and greatest day He stood up and proclaimed: "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink." Remember what has just happened. The priests have just taken water from the Pool of Siloam and returned to the Temple and poured it out. By doing this they looked to the Lord to provide their needs. To this Jesus claims to be the ultimate source of water. The Son of God was saying in the clearest possible way that He alone was the source of life and blessing; that He could meet every need of the human heart. Jesus is the rock which was stricken, providing refreshment and life for His people. This will happen after the atoning work of Christ is accomplished on the Cross of Calvary, after our Lord’s resurrection and ascension to the Father, and after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Another part of this festival in Jesus’s day was the lighting of four huge Menorahs in the Court of the Women. As the length of days lessened, the people were reminded that the Lord was their light, as well as being a reminder of the Lord leading Israel by the pillar of fire at night. In John 8, probably at that same time, Jesus says: "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." The promises Jesus made during the Feast of Tabernacles is not for our future, but for us today. He gives us water to drink; He is the light of the world. Because this Feast so identifies with our journey in the wilderness of this world, there are many theologians who think that the feast must be fulfilled in the future, at the end of the world. While this is somewhat understandable, each feast must of necessity be fulfilled in the death of Christ. At the Cross He became the offering which made the atonement, the offering for firstfruits, and the offering which makes the ingathering possible. All roads lead back to the Cross and the feasts find their fulfillment there, their completion there. There are many who have misunderstand the prophesy of Zechariah 14 as referring to some distant future time. There it talks about the coming of Christ, when living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, and the Lord is King over the whole earth. This is the fulfillment of Christ at the Cross. In Zechariah 14:8 we see the prophecy of which Christ makes mention. This flowing water which came from the rock in the wilderness, which was mentioned here and of which Christ spoke in John, was fully seen when the Spirit descended on the Apostles at Pentecost. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption; we have the deposit, guaranteeing our full inheritance in heaven. God’s provision certainly includes His works of providence which provide for us our daily needs, but it involves so much more. This passage speaks of the security of Jerusalem. That is not some future protection afforded by God, but the present security we now have. Jerusalem now dwells safely, because the Jerusalem that was in view is not a literal city, but the body of believers, God’s people, the Church. We are safe in this city since God has made peace with us. It has nothing to do with literal battles in a literal city in the middle east! We are secure now. We need not fear as if God’s pleasure is upon us based on our performance. The truth of God’s protection, His constant provision, should not be forgotten. We have nothing to fear. The early American Indians had a unique practice of training young braves. On the night of a boy's thirteenth birthday, after learning hunting, scouting, and fishing skills, he was put to one final test. He was placed in a dense forest to spend the entire night alone. Until then, he had never been away from the security of the family and the tribe. But on this night, he was blindfolded and taken several miles away. When he took off the blindfold, he was in the middle of a thick woods and he was terrified! Every time a twig snapped, he visualized a wild animal ready to pounce. After what seemed like an eternity, dawn broke and the first rays of sunlight entered the interior of the forest. Looking around, the boy saw flowers, trees, and the outline of the path. Then, to his utter astonishment, he beheld the figure of a man standing just a few feet away, armed with a bow and arrow. It was his father. He had been there all night long. No matter how much right now you may feel alone, no matter what you are going through, God’s hand of protection is with you. God guides His children not away from trouble, but through trouble. He guides you not so that you will never suffer, but that you may see His grace in the midst of your pain. Then, you will know His provision in ways you could never dream. |
