[Darris McNeely] It’s time once again for the Feast of Tabernacles. We’ll be taking a break on the BT Daily set as we all go to observe God’s annual festival, the Feast of Tabernacles. As we leave this thought with you, for you to consider: the Feast of Tabernacles is a time that pictures a better world, a better time ahead, in a different age – a time that will be ruled over by Jesus Christ Himself.

The Scriptures talk about the anticipation and the hope of a utopia, a better world, and it shows one very important thing – that the only way that that utopia, that peace, that worldwide kingdom will come, is through the intervention of Jesus Christ in history and the establishment of the kingdom of God on this earth. And that’s why many, many thousands of Christians every year observe this festival commanded by God in the book of Leviticus chapter 23 as the Feast of Tabernacles. And it is a time that is so eloquently put by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 2, where he writes about a time when the nations will go up to Jerusalem and begin to worship God. It says, “In that day the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established on the top of the mountains and will be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.”  God’s house will be the source and all nations will seek to find, and to learn, when they go.  “Many people will come and they will say, ‘Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways and we shall walk in His paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law  and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’” Imagine that, the house of Jacob will be a place that will draw people. Jerusalem will be a place that people will go seeking to learn God’s way, and not the multitude of paths of confusion that trod that particular city’s streets at this time.

God is ruling from Jerusalem. In verse 4 it says, “He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore" (Isaiah 2:2-4). The art of war will be gone. Instead, people will go to Jerusalem, to the house of God, to the place where God has placed His name, and there they will learn peace. May that day come, may that day arrive sooner than we can ever anticipate and hope for, by God’s grace and by God’s perfect timing. And when it comes, may it bring the peace and the rest for the world, for its peoples and for all the nations who will be gathered in a different time and place to learn the ways of God. “Let us keep the Feast,” (1 Corinthians 5:8) Paul said in another context. And it applies to this one, as well. You have a good Feast of Tabernacles and may your prayers be for God’s coming kingdom.

That’s BT Daily. Join us next time.