Title Feast of Grace / Deuteronomy 16:9-17
What God expects of us is that we enjoy life. 'Let's participate in God's joy' Just as God made us happy, living a happy life brings glory to God. That is why God provides and plans for us to live happily from creation to the end of Revelation.
If you look at all the secrets of the Bible, it contains the content that makes us 'live happily'.
God especially loved the people of Israel and gave them many graces and gave them three big feasts to share in God's joy for this grace. Those feasts are the Passover, the Feast of Firstfruits, and the Feast of Ingathering.
The Passover is a festival to commemorate the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and following Moses out of Egypt. When the people of Israel were liberated from Egypt, the blood of a lamb was put on the doorposts to protect the people of Israel in the house, and all the firstborn of the Egyptians who had no blood died. As a result, Pharaoh surrendered. Because there is blood in the house of the Israelites, the people of Israel keep the Passover as the most important thing because disasters have passed.
On the Feast of Firstfruits, the people of Israel received the Ten Commandments in the wilderness on the 50th day after their exodus from Egypt, so the Wilderness Church was born. But when they entered the land of Canaan, 50 days after the Passover, they harvested the first fruits. Therefore, the first fruits are expressed as the Feast of Firstfruits and the Feast of Weeks.
Also, when autumn comes, there is the Feast of Ingathering, the Feast of Tabernacles, where you can farm, gather all the crops, store them, and give thanks to God for 7 weeks in tents. This is a feast to remember the time when the Israelites met and ate in the wilderness, to build tents in the wilderness and to celebrate joyfully before God.
God made it necessary for all Israelite men over the age of 20 to participate in this feast three times a year. All the Israelites living within 80 li near Jerusalem gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate this feast. “Remember when you were slaves in Egypt, and keep these ordinances to do.” This feast was a feast for God's grace.
Therefore, we keep this feast because we have received the grace of God. Without grace, we cannot keep this feast of God.
This feast is not celebrated by anyone. The Israelites in the wilderness observed this feast. Only those who entered the land of Canaan were kept. Even though they were exodus from Egypt, the Israelites who died in the wilderness did not keep the feasts, and only the Israelites who entered the land of Canaan and received God's grace kept the feasts.
When we consider these words, there is a deep secret. We believe in Jesus, but believers who do not receive grace cannot enjoy the feasts of God's feasts. The festival refers to the joy of the people of Israel, the feast, and the community. The people who died in the wilderness died while groaning and agonizing, and only the Israelites who entered the land of Canaan can taste this feast.
If we believe in Jesus but do not receive grace, we will not be able to enjoy the deep grace of the feast that the Lord gives us, and our lives will end in mourning.
The people of Israel are divided into three categories. Israel in Egypt, Israel in the wilderness, Israel in the land of Canaan, the same people of Israel. When they were in Egypt, they could not live like God's people and lived as slaves. However, when those Israelites followed Moses out of Egypt, they enjoyed freedom as God's people in the world called the wilderness. The Israelites, unable to overcome the lusts of the flesh in their hearts, eventually wander around in the wilderness and die, and only Joshua, Caleb and the second generation enter the land of Canaan. When you enter the land of Canaan, you will receive abundance flowing with milk and honey and the happiness of keeping the feasts.
There are three types of Christians. The first is an Egyptian believer. Before we believed, we were children of God in the world. There are still many such people. Although they were chosen as children of God, they are living in harmony with the world while serving as slaves to the devil.
Second, I am a wilderness believer. The wilderness believers came out of the world. Just as the Israelites followed Moses out of Egypt and in the wilderness, they came to church. However, they come to church and still believe in Jesus painfully without receiving grace.
Third, I am a Canaanite believer. I am a believer who has passed away completely from this world and becomes a spiritual believer flowing with milk and honey in Christ. The church continues to bring out the children of God in the world and transform them into the church, and the wilderness believers who come to the church to transform them into spiritual believers who can taste heaven.
Think of yourself as a wilderness believer or a Canaanite believer. Wilderness believers are people who come to church but want to be content with worldly things. A Canaanite believer is a believer who quickly clears the wilderness and fills it with God's spiritual milk and God's spiritual honey, making my life enjoyable and happy. I hope you become such a believer.
Those who enter the land of Canaan are those who have received grace. In other words, he is the one who has passed away. A person who died to the world, died to himself, died to the past, and made himself fully alive in Christ, in Old Testament terms, can be said to be a Canaanite believer; in New Testament terms, a spiritual believer, or a dead believer.
When the people of Israel entered the land of Canaan and kept these feasts, the three graces of those who keep the feasts are mentioned here.
First, we must live joyfully before God.
“In the place the LORD your God chooses, you shall keep a feast before the LORD your God seven days, and you shall rejoice in all that the LORD your God will bless you in all your goods and in all that you have touched” (verse 15).
Those who have received grace are told to rejoice completely before God. Do I receive favor and rejoice in the presence of the Lord, or am I still attached to the world of Egypt and the world because I can't forget it? Rejoicing in the presence of God is what a saved person looks like. You must have a joyful heart toward God. This is the blessing of the saints.
If you ask, 'Why do we live in this world?', we are living in the world to live happily. Where is the Pleasure No matter where you find it, humans are at a loss. However, there is no pleasure in human pleasure until it is attained in the presence of God. That's why St. Augustine says, "I had no rest until I found rest in God." Until you find joy in the sight of God, the joys of this world are like a bubble.
Some people find joy in the sight of God and others in the world. David tried to find joy in God's presence, and Solomon tried to find joy in the world. David, who enjoyed joy in the sight of God, had eternal joy, a joy in heaven, a joy that was not taken away from tribulation, hardship, or any adversity. But Solomon, who enjoyed the pleasures of the world, was temporary, empty, and ultimately regretted. So Solomon confessed that everything was in vain. He said, 'I tried to enjoy all the pleasures in this world, but all things are in vain.'
“I also knew that it is the gift of God that every man eat and drink and find pleasure in his hard work” (Ecclesiastes 3:13). He confessed that true joy is the joy we get from God.
Many people today try to live like Solomon. There are many foolish church members who want to get some pleasure in life with worldly pleasures. We need to be smart. Now, if we do not find joy in Jesus, there is no joy wherever we go in this world. If we are people who believe in Jesus and are determined to receive joy before God, then we must enter the land of Canaan as soon as possible. As much as they wandered in the wilderness, they are making their lives pitiful.