The Danger of Forgetting God | Lessons From the Feast of Tabernacles

I want you to imagine yourself 3500 years ago, you've left Egypt, you're walking towards the Promised Land, you're in the desert. Now you've wore the same clothes now for 40 years. Can you imagine that? The same clothes for 40 years. The Lord says here, your clothing did not wear out, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. You're wearing the same clothing 40 years, okay? You're under that desert sun. You're walking in the sand. There's nothing around you sometimes but sand, 40 years every single day. You're in that situation. That's, I mean, I could say it's tough. They know what it was. That was something. But look what the Lord says, he says to them, "Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son." So think about your life now, not in terms of enjoyment, but think about that God is at work in your life and my life, both to will and to do for his good pleasure. And the New Testament tells us that the Father disciplines every son, every child, every daughter that he receives. So when we look at our life, we should not expect that it's just going to be pleasurable. We understand God will discipline us. We have to take the good with the bad. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people don't want to hear this. I don't want it to be all hard and everything because God is the God of pleasure too. I mean, he loves it. You know, God loves that we can experience pleasure.

Why can we taste? Why can we smell? Why can we see? Why can we touch? Because God wants us to experience pleasure. He's the God of pleasure. So yeah, he wants us to experience all his glory and creation, the glory of relationship. All of that. You know, Jesus first miracle was turning the water to wine. Yeah. Yeah. So he gives us many, many pleasures. Yeah. But let's also make room for the fact that God also will cause difficulty because he's disciplining us and when he does, let's not rebel. Let's ask ourselves when we're going through a hard time, what is God doing in this? And how does he want me to respond? Yeah. Amen. Amen. I love the next couple of verses, Rabbi, because they say, "Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him." The verse 7, it goes exactly to that glory that you were talking about. This was what they were looking for too. "For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land where you will eat food without scarcity and which you will not lack anything, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you've eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which

he has given you. He has an amazing glory for us on the other side of these trials. Oh man, it's great to break into that reality, isn't it? It's so beautiful. When you look at the words here, as you were reading Dustin, all the words of the glory of the excellency of what God is bringing us into a good land and he describes a land of brooks of water of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills, I mean just think this is like this is Jesus that I've come to give life and give it more abundantly. This is like over the top goodness and blessing that God is bringing us into. Everything you could want, I love it too, the next thing, without scarcity and you shall not lack anything. This is really what God wants for us. He doesn't want us to lack. He doesn't want us to be in need. He literally wants to bless us to pieces but there is some requirements before he can do that in our lives because if we step into it otherwise, we think it's by our power and our might that led us into these things but it was God that gave this to us. You think about children, raising children and if you don't discipline them, if you just give them everything they want, every time they cry, every time they want it, every time they bake for it, they're not going to appreciate it. Now I was watching the show yesterday with my wife, it's called Supernanny. And there was these parents. And every time the kid would complain or like it would get really bad, the mother would give them candy to try to like make 'em happy. So now the kid, I know it seems like the opposite, right? And the super nanny, she comes in and helps these parents learn how to really parent. And she's like, this has to stop.

He just winds to get candy. And the kid was sneaking candy. They were running a muck in that house, but the super nanny got 'em in order. She disciplined 'em, said, no more candy. Unless you act right, you don't get good things. - Well, you know, it's like a dad that makes his kids go out and work and participate in the chores, mowing the lawn, whatever it is, a mom, making the kids work for something and then rewarding them. They appreciate that reward so much more. It makes them feel good about themselves. It's good for their own soul. And so it's really very comparable to what we see here, the Lord was disciplining Israel to bring them into this lavish excellency of blessing. And I love the next verse in Moses is speaking on the Lord's behalf to Israel. When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you. And this is where we get the concept of giving thanks to the Lord after the meal. - Yeah. - Like now in rabbinic Judaism, we give thanks to the Lord before the meal. But really from the Torah's perspective, it's good to give God thanks before the meal, but the command is really to bless the Lord after you're eaten and satisfied.

- I remember the first time we sat down to a meal together and you said, all right, we're not praying before the meal today. We're gonna give thanks and bless God after the meal. Really drove this point home. And since you did that, it's always changed for me. Now when I sit down, I can't help but sit down at a meal and think this is a gift that God's given me and he wants me to be satisfied with it. And it's just changed my thought. Like I used to always pray this prayer and still do pray Lord, thank you for this meal. Bless it and make it good and nourishment. But to look at eating is something that God wants me to have joy in and feel good and bless him for afterwards. - Yeah, yeah. I'm reminded of a funny story that some of you may have heard. There's a man of the faith from the past Smith. Wigglesworth, and he was ministering at a church one day and they had him over for lunch afterwards, had a big table set up. You know, they had many people there at the festive meal and they asked Smith, Wigglesworth to bless the meal but they were having pork. And so Smith, Wigglesworth said, "Lord, if you can make holy, what's unholy, please bless it." Okay, moving on here. Now what's interesting here is it's good to give to Lord, thanks before the meal and after the meal and a rabbitic Judaism, we do both.

But notice this, the next verse here, I love this. He says, "But where, this is after the Lord has given them everything." And he says, "Now I want you to bless me and be satisfied. Thank me for the blessing, for the good that he's given you. Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not seeking his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes which I am commanding you today. Otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied and have built good houses and lived in them and when your herds and their flocks multiply and your silver and gold multiply and all that you have multiply, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery." - Yeah, yeah. When you get good things, we do all this Lord, we do this, do that, we're like following God and then we come into it and then we forget. Rabbi, I'll never forget when I was probably 25 years old, I was working for a company that did tours to Israel and my boss had been to Israel 70 times and it was my first trip to Israel with him. And he turned and he looked at me and he said to me, he said, "Dustin, every time I come here, I give God thanks for bringing me here." He says, "Because I don't ever want to become ungrateful and for God not to bring me here."

And I've never forgotten that. It was such a lesson by a man in my life who imparted something really valuable that day that like all the good things that God gives you can be taken away like that. - Yeah. - And we can never forget what God has done for us and where he's brought us from to realize that he brought us into good land and good things. - Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of this has to do with what I'm going to call consciousness. I mean, I think the natural tendency is when things get easier, we forget God. I mean, it's what people call jailhouse religion. You know, people are in prison, they're really struggling and they get religious, and then sometimes what happens is they get out and life gets easier and they forget about God, it's a real phenomenon and human nature, we're all susceptible to this. So how do we guard ourselves from it? And I think it's an awareness of the tendency and we warfare against the tendency by consciously making a decision to not allow ourselves to become feeling entitled or to take things for granted. That's what I love about God's festivals and holidays and being here in the Sukkah. They're like road signs, you're traveling down the road of life and you have these holidays that God has put in place every year.

And if you celebrate them and you walk in the principal of them, they're like road signs, like here's your rest stop, don't miss it. You know, and like it's this opportunity to realign, to get back in alignment with, so that you do stay humble. That's why I believe like God told Israel to come under the Sukkah for seven days every year to remind themselves that it was God that brought them into the land. It really is an opportunity for us to, you know, if things are out of alignment, to get back in line with things. - Absolutely. The one that gave us these holy days, the scripture caused them appointed days. The Lord calls these days Sukkah, tabernacles, Passover, Shavuot, Pentecost, Yom Kippur, Yom Turuah, the Feast of Trumpets and the others. The Lord called them his appointed days. Moa Deem in Hebrew is the name. Now, keep in mind now, the one that gave us these days, calling them his appointed, he didn't call them Jewish holidays. He didn't call these Jewish holy days. But the Lord said in the book of Leviticus, when he introduced these days, he said, these are my appointed days. This is Elohim Yahweh. This is your Creator.

The Creator gave us these days. And the Gentile church has been grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel. What was first revealed to Israel, the Gentile church has now been grafted in. So what Dustin is saying is important here, that these holy days, they help us to stay what I would call tuned up. You know, like you bring your Chiron, every X amount of miles for a tune up. You know, check the timing belt. Get the spark plugs changed. Change the oil. So like you said, Dustin, sitting in the Sukkah each year, it helps us remember, okay, you know what? I really have nothing in this world but you, God, just like Israel had in the wilderness. You know, we get to somebody who's in our life, we start depending on our jobs. We're depending on other people. We get sucked into the world. We're running here. We're running there. But you sit down in the Sukkah. And you look up and you think, you know what? I'm sitting in the Sukkah now, and I want to put myself in the mind of an ancient Israelite 3,500 years ago. And they had nothing but God.

And the truth is, we have nothing but God. But get this, Dustin, that's enough. Israel had nothing but God, but that was enough. And I remember one year as I was starting out in ministry. And the way that I started out, I mean, I administered in churches, and then I left the ministering in a traditional church, and I went into the business world for a while. And then I left the business world to go back into full-time ministry. And so what would happen is, it's a long story, but I mean, I could give you how it all rolled out. But basically, I thought that my income was dependent on pastors inviting me in to minister in their church. So I would do like marketing. Eventually nine months or so into this, I'd walk into a church and I'd be sitting there and I'd be thinking, I don't know if I'm here because God sent me here or it's because I've got that Jewish anointing as a salesperson. I wanna know I'm here on purpose. I don't wanna think I'm just here because I'm a salesperson. So I'm sitting in my Succa one year and I'm thinking, God, I'm not dependent on these pastors to give me referrals. And I'm not dependent on this marketing. And I'm never gonna know, I said to the Lord, I'm never gonna know whether I'm in a church because you sent me there or because I'm a good marketer,

I'm never gonna know unless I stop my marketing. And so Lord, I'm gonna trust that all I really need is you And I'm never going to know, Lord, if I'm in this congregation, because you sent me here, or because I made a phone call, unless I stopped what I'm doing to see you move. And that's what I did. I stopped, I stopped marketing, I stopped asking for referrals, I stopped promoting myself, and you know what happened? Got sent me free to realize that he alone was the one that was doing it. And then from that point forward, there was power in my ministry. I think that's one of the things that we learn, you know, because you talked about bringing our soul back into alignment by practicing these holy days, these appointed days that the Lord gave us. For Seccote, it's recognizing that all you need is God. And don't feel that your life's dependent on somebody else. Just like I had to realize that my life was independent on pastors referring me or pastors inviting me. I, my life was dependent on the Lord. And that really sets people free. Yeah, it's really this opportunity that I think the church at large that doesn't celebrate God's appointed days and doesn't understand the principles of them is missing out on. I know, I mean, I grew up Baptist and, you know, I love my grandfather. It was a Baptist pastor and went to his church. I mean, I was baptized, he baptized me. I mean, I got saved because of him and I'm so thankful for him and who he was. And this isn't downing the church. It's just to say that there's so much we're missing by not understanding God's appointed days and times and what the principles of them and what God could be doing in our lives.

And I think about, you know, what if the church in America had this, just like we celebrate Christmas so strongly, what if we decorated? What if we were putting up Succos? What if we did spend this time with God with our kids, not just us, but our families coming into the Succo just like this and all of us as a family recognizing God is all that we need. What a lesson we could be teaching our kids, right? And something they can touch and feel and, you know, they're not going to forget this when they go off to a liberal college. And someone tells them, no, God isn't real. There's this is something that you can you can put into your family, into your children that they can partake in and be a part of and really have something deep down on the inside of them that connects them with God, not just one time, but every year. As we close today, I just want to bring further application to this concept that I've already covered. The God alone is enough and particularly beloved ones. What I want to drive home right now is the fact that when we age, there are unknowns that begin to come into our view that can make us afraid. For example, oftentimes people age and their spouse passes away. That could be a terrifying thing for some people. Other people are concerned that they're going to age and wind up in a nursing home. That could be very terrifying. The fact that as we age, sometimes the things that we used to be able to do when we were younger were no longer able to do, whether it's something athletically, whether it's a hobby, whether it's our job that was so important to us that we were so involved in. And we worry, what am I going to do with myself if I'm 80 years old and I'm confined somewhere.

But the lesson of secote is that God is always enough. I want to encourage you right now to face your fears head on. Whatever it is that you're afraid of in life, I want you to face that fear and put your hand over your heart and just confess out loud. God, you are going to be enough. See, the problem with fear is fear is a thought that enters our mind about something that will happen in the future. But the thought that we have about what's going to happen in the future that causes fear, it's always a thought in which God is not there. God's not in the thought. But the reality is, my holy brother and sister, God will be in your future. And he will be in my future. So whatever that thing is in the future that you may be fearing, know that just as the presence of the Lord literally dwelt in the center of the camp where the tabernacle was, as a pillar of fire by night in a glory cloud by day, that God was always there, so too, as you age in life. He'll always be your Suka. He'll always be your tabernacle and your covering. In the book of Numbers chapter six, the Lord gave instructions to Moses and Aaron to speak this blessing over his people. And the Lord said, when you speak these words over my people, I will place my name on them and bless them, receive the impartation of the Lord's blessings. (speaking in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language)

(singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up by His countenance and the Lord give you, beloved one, His peace. God bless you and shalom. You