God wants us to Enjoy the Triune God in Christ Today and for Eternity as our Feast!

This week in our morning revival time we have been getting deeper into the three main feasts that God ordained that His people Israel would keep: the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of harvest, and the feast of the tabernacles. To be honest, before this week I never thought of these feasts much, but now I am filled with an appreciation for them and a love for the Lord!

The Lord’s heart and desire toward us is that we would feast on Him, and He even commands that corporately we would have some set times to come together, blend with other saints, and feast on the Lord. Hallelujah! The reality of these feasts is Christ Himself: Christ is the unleavened bread as our sinless life supply, Christ is both the firstfruits and the harvest (as the Spirit), and Christ is the real tabernacle of God with man. We simply need to feast on Christ in so many aspects!

Today we want to see more concerning the last feast, the feast of the ingathering, the feast of tabernacles; this feast is the consummation of the harvest, and it is for the people both to feast before God and to be reminded how their forefathers lived in tents while wandering in the wilderness.

In the Old Testament the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness living in tents, and God Himself lived in a tabernacle; this tabernacle had many aspects and details, and it was the meeting place of God with man. In the New Testament we see that, one day, God Himself became a man and in Christ God tabernacled among man, full of grace and reality.

This man, Jesus, is a God-man, and He is the tabernacle of God; He is the place where God dwells, and He is movable, portable, mobile. Christ went to the cross, died for our redemption, was resurrected as the Spirit, was poured out upon us, and we were constituted with God to become the church; the church is now the very enlargement and expansion of this individual God-man as the expanded tabernacle.

Today in the church life we are part of God’s expanded, enlarged tabernacle, and this tabernacle in the eternal age will be the holy city, New Jerusalem; the New Jerusalem is the tabernacle of God with man, the eternal mingling of God with man. The New Jerusalem is the processed and consummated Triune God fully mingled with His tripartite redeemed, transformed, and glorified people. This mutual abode is the eternal tabernacle of God. Praise the Lord!

In the New Jerusalem we will Remember how we Dwelt in Tents and Enjoyed and Experienced God!

The New Jerusalem, the holy city, is called the tabernacle of God with man; this indicates that those who participate in the New Jerusalem are the real keepers of the Feast of Tabernacles for eternity with full enjoyment and satisfaction. The fact that this feast is of the tabernacles means that in eternity there’s a remembrance of how we, before the consummation of the New Jerusalem, were still living in tents (Gen. 12:8; Heb. 11:8-10).

Before we enter into and become the New Jerusalem, we still “live in tents”, that is, we are sojourners and strangers, looking for the city that has the foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God (Heb. 11:9-10). In the New Jerusalem we will have many eternal and joyful memories of what we have experienced of God; we will remember with much joy and enjoyment how we experienced God and how He lived with us. When we were on earth living in a tent, God lived among us and in us in a tabernacle, and we enjoyed Him to the uttermost.

This word “tabernacles” implies the thought of remembrance (John 7:2). When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He attended the Feast of Tabernacles, which was supposed to be full of enjoyment, rest, and satisfaction; however, at the end of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink; he who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water (see John 7:37-38).

The real feast of Tabernacles is not something outward; nothing outward or even psychological can satisfy us – only Christ as the fountain of living waters can quench our thirst. Again and again, Christ as the reality of the Feast of Tabernacles calls people to come to Him and drink, and even the last call in the Bible is, If anyone is thirsty, let him come and drink (Rev. 22:17).

Hallelujah, we have found that our real satisfaction is to receive Christ and drink of Him that we would be satisfied and overflowing with rivers of living water! God in Himself is rich, and today He is flowing in Christ and as the Spirit; when we come to the Lord and enjoy Him today, we are filled with God, we drink of the living water, and this living water becomes in us a river of water of life flowing in us, out of us, and even flowing us into the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:1-2).

In the New Jerusalem, the eternal tabernacle of God with man, we will really keep the feast of tabernacles by remembering how we enjoyed God while living in a tent, and also by enjoying God and drinking Him for eternity! When the overcomers enter the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth, they will no longer be dwelling in tents, but they will still call their dwelling place “the tabernacle” in remembrance of what they have experienced (see Rev. 21:3).

When we are in the New Jerusalem, we will have MANY eternal and joyful memories of how we have experienced God and of how God lived with us; we will joyfully remember how we enjoyed and experienced God while we were living in a tent and God was living in a tabernacle. Eventually, our feast of tabernacles will be the enjoyment of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth; this will be the real consummation of all the harvest of our experience of God (2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 3:16-21).

Lord Jesus, we come to You to drink deeply from You as the Spirit: flow into us, fill us, and overflow from us as rivers of living waters into others, flowing us all the way into the New Jerusalem! Lord, we are here on earth as strangers and sojourners, living in a tent and having You tabernacle upon us and in us; we just want to enjoy You, keep the feast, and experience You day by day so that we may build up a good and solid memorial time in the New Jerusalem!

God wants us to Enjoy the Triune God in Christ Today and for Eternity as our Feast!

The three feasts that God ordained for His people to keep show us that God wants us to enjoy the Triune God in Christ now, in the millennium, and for eternity. First of all, the reality of all the feasts is Christ Himself; He is the unleavened bread – His life is sinless, He is edible, and we need to feed on Him so that we may be purified, made sinless, and become an unleavened bread for God’s satisfaction.

Christ is the reality of the firstfruits (He is the firstfruits in resurrection, He ascended to the Father on the day of His resurrection to be enjoyed by the Father as the firstfruits) and He is the reality of the harvest (Christ as the Spirit is the bountiful and rich supply for our daily Christian life).

Christ is the real tabernacle of God with man, and in His resurrection He has been enlarged to include us and make us part of the enlargement of God’s tabernacle on earth. Hallelujah for Christ our feast!

God’s desire is that we would enjoy the Triune God in Christ both now and for eternity. The first feast, the Feast of Unleavened bread, is sown as a seed – Christ is our daily life supply. The second feast – the Feast of the Harvest – is the reaping of Christ as the life-giving Spirit; it is a richer and fuller enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ as the Spirit. The last feast, the Feast of Ingathering, is the consummation and utmost enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ.

Our destiny as God’s people is to enjoy the fullness of the Godhead, the fullness of the Father in Christ, for eternity! Today we are living in time, in a tent, having the flesh with us, but we can enjoy Christ, partake of the bountiful supply of the Spirit, and drink of Him to be satisfied and at rest with Him.

The enjoyment and experience of Christ as our feast today (the feast of unleavened bread) will usher us into the enjoyment of the feast in the next age (the feast of the harvest) and will consummate in the ultimate and fullest enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ for eternity (the feast of the tabernacles). Hallelujah!

Lord Jesus, You are our feast: You are our bread, our meat, our water, and our life supply complete. Keep us enjoying You today and taking You as our real feast and as the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ! Lord, we want to daily eat You and be supplied with the Triune God in Christ as the Spirit with the rich, bountiful supply. Praise the Lord, our God is good for food, available for us to enjoy, and eager to dispense Himself into us so that we may feast on Him today, in the coming age, and for eternity!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John, msg. 6 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (2), week 9 / msg 9, Keeping Feasts unto God Three Times a Year Typifying the Full Enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # This feast is so enjoyable; / To men it’s so available, / For God said whosoever will / May come and freely eat. (Hymns #1145)
  # The grace which God bestows on us / Is just His Son in full; / The rich enjoyment of this Christ / Is plenteous, bountiful. / ’Tis far too great to comprehend, / Too wondrous to contain: / How we, once children of despair, / God’s masterpiece became. (Hymns #1321)
  # Living water, food supply, Lord, / Thou Thyself art, and didst die, Lord, / All our want to satisfy, Lord; / Now we feast on Thee. / What Thou art-eternal, boundless, / Full and perfect, rich, exhaustless / Meets our need to utter fullness / And from us o’erflows. (Hymns #78)