[Note: The following is the prepared text for a sermonette given at the Feast of Tabernacles in Mossel Bay, South Africa, on October 4, 2023.]

When we think of the Feast of Tabernacles, it is natural that we should reflect upon the joy that we have while we are here eating and fellowshipping with our fellow brethren and looking forward to the blessings that God has for those who will enter His millennial rest. What I would like to do today, though, is a different task than pointing to the millennial blessings themselves, but rather point out the seriousness of the invitation that is being offered to those of us here today and what the results are for those who do not take this invitation seriously. In so doing, I would like us to go to a place that is unusual as far as the Feast of Tabernacles itself is concerned, and so I would like to begin with a detailed explanation of the connection between Psalm 95 and the Feast of Tabernacles.

Before looking at Psalm 95, though, I would like to set the stage with a bit of context. We tend to think of the children of Israel in the wilderness as having mainly missed the opportunity to enter the promised land as a result of their unbelief and rebelliousness. Psalm 95, though, and especially the commentary on this psalm that is provided in the book of Hebrews, though, points out that what they missed was something far more serious than that, and something that is relevant to us today as believers. The rebelliousness of ancient Israel did not only deprive them of entering the promised land and receiving the physical blessings of a land of milk and honey. but also of the spiritual and lasting blessings of entering God’s millennial rest.

Let us now turn to Psalm 95 and see how it is that the anonymous psalmist frames the issue of what was at stake for the ancient Israelites in the wilderness. This psalm is short, only eleven verses, and we will take it in two parts. The first part of Psalm 95 covers up to the middle of verse seven, so let us begin with the first six and a half verses of Psalm 95: “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.”

We are here at the Feast of Tabernacles and what this passage describes is exactly the sort of thing that we should be doing and should be appreciating at this time. We are here because we are God’s people, a part of His flock, being led by the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, towards His kingdom. God made the sea and the dry land, the hills and the valleys, and He will make the land bountiful and beautiful again in the millennium that we look forward to. The consequence of God’s power and His concern for our well-being is that we should sing to God, shout joyfully to Him, come before Him with thanksgiving and with psalms. This we do in our services daily during the Feast of Tabernacles, and we do not do this out of a concern merely for ritual and habit, but out of genuine and deep feeling for what God has done and what God will do for us.

The second part of Psalm 95, from the middle of verse seven through the end of verse eleven, takes on a darker tone that reflects on what was lost by the children of ancient Israel through their rebellion and unbelief. Psalm 95:7b-11 read: “Today, if you will hear His voice: “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me; they tried Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ””

Let nothing that is said in this passage towards ancient Israel be true of us today. Like ancient Israel, we have been given an opportunity to enter into His rest, an opportunity that is taken through hearing God’s voice and obeying His commandments. We are here in obedience to what God has commanded, that we should eat and drink and fellowship together where He has put His name. Ancient Israel was not willing to hear His voice, though, and walk according to His commands. Instead of passing the test put to them by God, they put God to the test through their rebellions and their murmuring and their complaining. It is all too easy for us to do the same. It is also worth noting that the Psalmist here echoes the language of the law when he uses the Hebrew word Meribah for the rebellion, and Massah for the day of trial in the wilderness, those being not only frames of mind but also places in the wilderness where those wicked frames of mind were exhibited. And it is those frames of mind of rebelling against God and challenging His character and goodness that prevented them from not only reaching the place of the promised land but also the millennial kingdom ruled over by the One who was leading them by the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud through the wilderness.

The author of Hebrews makes much of this passage in Hebrews 3 and 4. For our purposes today, we will look at what he says in the first two and a half verses of Hebrews 4. Hebrews 4:1-3a read: “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.  For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.  For we who have believed do enter that rest.”

We are here at the Feast of Tabernacles to celebrate the rest that the whole world will enjoy under the prosperous and loving rule of Jesus Christ. Those who survive the present evil age and those believers who are resurrected to reign as kings and priests in that kingdom will enjoy a time of prosperity and peace that the world has never known. God willing, we will not only be present to enjoy that kingdom but to rule alongside Jesus and our fellow believers from throughout the entirety of human history. It is worth remembering, though, that this offer was not first given to us, the Israel of God, but it was given first to ancient Israel, and they did not listen to that preaching of the Gospel in faith and obedience, and so it did not profit them. Let the Gospel that is being preached to us profit us, so that we may enter that promised rest that these days point towards and signify.