“TABERNACLES,” AND THE COMING OF THE LORD

Copyright © 2011 Trumpet Ministries, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles the Father and the Son come to us and make Their abode with us. Then the Holy Spirit, who always proceeds from the Throne of God, flows out from us as rivers of living water. The coming of the Lord to us in the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles gives us a personal knowledge of the Father and of the Son we have not possessed previously, and is associated with the historical coming of the Lord.

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There are seven feasts of the Lord. They are set forth in the twenty-third chapter of the Book of Leviticus.

Passover.

Unleavened Bread.

Firstfruits.

Pentecost.

The Blowing of Trumpets.

The Day of Atonement.

Tabernacles.

The feast of Tabernacles, the last of the seven feasts of the Lord, is described as follows:

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord. (Leviticus 23:34)

The kingdom-wide spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles is, as we understand it, the new heaven and earth reign of Christ. At that time God and Christ will be dwelling in unconcealed splendor in the Church, the new Jerusalem, the Wife of the Lamb. The Wife of the Lamb, the Body of Christ, is the eternal dwelling place of God. It is the "Father’s house," of John 14:2. The personal fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles is presented by the Lord Jesus as follows:

Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)

In the personal spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles the Father and the Son come to us and make Their abode with us. Then the Holy Spirit, who always proceeds from the throne of God, flows from us as rivers of living water.

The feast of Pentecost, which takes place before the feast of Tabernacles, signifies the rain, the Spirit of God, from Heaven. But the feast of Tabernacles speaks of the rivers of living water coming from within the saints.

The feast of Tabernacles, as we have said, has to do with the Lord dwelling in us. The types and statements of the Scripture indicate that the coming of the Lord to dwell in us must always be accompanied by judgment, by cleansing.

Notice, for example, the promise of the Lord concerning His dwelling in us and walking in us as set forth in II Corinthians 6:16-18:

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

The necessary judgment and cleansing follow immediately:

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (II Corinthians 7:1)

When Christ entered His Father’s house He drove out the moneychangers. When Christ enters our hearts He casts out what is displeasing to God, what is hindering us from walking as we should in holiness, prayer, and joy.

We have come now, in the course of the development of the Christian Church, to the season of the spiritual fulfillment in the elect of the last three feasts of the Lord: Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles.

Pentecost is the fourth of the seven feasts. Many Christian churches have been experiencing the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Pentecost throughout the twentieth century. Now it is time to progress to the fulfillment of the last three feasts.

Trumpets, feast number five, portrays the coming of the King, the Lord Jesus, to us for the purpose of driving His enemies from His Bride, and finally from the nations of saved peoples of the earth. The spiritual fulfillment of Trumpets is taking place now, and it includes the forming of the saints into the army of the Lord.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. (Psalms 24:9)

And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. (Malachi 3:3)

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. (Malachi 4:1)

The Day of Atonement, the sixth feast, is the war that the Lord wages against our personality, the war announced by the Blowing of Trumpets. The judgment on the evil in our personality that the Lord performs in us results in freedom from worldliness, sin, and self-will as we open the everlasting doors of our soul to Him.

When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. (Isaiah 4:4)

Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. (Matthew 3:12)

"Purge his floor"!

Tabernacles, the seventh and final feast, portrays the coming of the Father and the Son to take up Their eternal abode in us.

In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:21,22)

If the reader is an experienced saint he may have noticed that the Lord Jesus is taking him through difficult testings in these days. The purpose of the fiery trials is to call attention to the sins of the flesh and to purge them from his personality, to crucify "king self" so King Jesus may sit on the throne of his life. The coming of the Lord to us in the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles gives us a personal knowledge of the Father and the Son that we have not possessed previously.

We know the ways of the churches, and we know about God. In some instances, however, we do not know God.

Many believers are experiencing now the personal (not the historical) coming of the Lord and the purifying work of the Day of Atonement (Day of Reconciliation). The experience is as real as being born again or being baptized with the Holy Spirit.

However, we do not as yet possess the fullness of what was set forth in type in the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles.

It is the writer’s point of view that the fullness of the personal spiritual fulfillment of the Levitical feast of Tabernacles will take place in increments, beginning now, will grow in glory throughout the latter-rain revival that is beginning to mount in intensity, will develop further throughout the coming tribulation, and will attain completion and perfection just prior to the appearing of Christ and will herald and flow into His appearing.

All that will remain will be to clothe with a glorified house from Heaven that which has been perfected spiritually in us. The completion of our spiritual perfecting will take place during the great tribulation period and the coming of the Lord.

We can begin now to receive by faith the coming of Christ into us in a greater way than we have known. We can cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He cleanses us from sin and self-seeking. We also can begin to experience the rest of God as God settles down to rest in us and we learn to rest and abide in God through Christ.

It is our opinion further that our entrance into in the "Tabernacles" experience is an absolute necessity if we are to stand during the end-time judgments and horrors and is crucial to our participation in the first resurrection from among the dead and in the ascension to meet the Lord that follows.

Notice the concept is presented in Luke 17:31-37. Two people will be sleeping in one bed or working together at the mill or in the field. In the Day when the Son of Man is revealed, one will be taken and the other left.

Our assumption in time past has been that the one who is taken has made a profession of Christ whereas the one who has not "accepted" Christ will be left. The assumption does not fit the context.

In the case of Noah and his family, and Lot and his family, which are examples of a few being taken and the majority left, salvation or destruction depended on action taken at the time of the outpouring of wrath. Noah and his family entered the ark and were saved. Lot’s family took separate actions at the point of wrath; some were saved and some were destroyed.

Therefore in these incidents the Lord Jesus is not speaking to us concerning whether or not we have received Him as Savior but the amount of "oil" we possess, our spiritual condition and resulting actions, at the time of His appearing. He warns: "In that day, he which shall be on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot’s wife" (Luke 17:31,32).

It appears that the Christian religion has degenerated into a profession of certain points of theological truth, whereas the Divine salvation actually is a living experience with One who was raised from the dead. A great misunderstanding found throughout all church history is the description of the Divine salvation as another religion, the Christian religion, that functions as any of the other religions of the world. "Believe in the facts we present and you will go to Paradise when you die."

It is true today, and no doubt has always been true, that the elect whom the Lord has chosen will hear His voice and come out of the babylonish (manmade, man-centered, man-directed) confusion that calls itself "Christianity."

Christ does not often speak to us concerning our doctrine or theology, for they will not save us in the Day in which he is revealed. Rather, it is the kind of person we are, the way we behave, the things we do, that either bring us into His Presence or else alienate us from His Presence.

Only those who have Christ dwelling in them, who feed on His body and blood, who live by Him as He lives by the Father, who are filled with the Spirit, who are accustomed to obeying the Father, will be able to go to Christ in that hour (Matthew 25:10-12; John 6:54-57).

There is coming upon the world an age of horrors, a spiritual darkness greater than any other period of darkness and oppression that the earth has experienced in its history. The darkness already has begun and numerous Christians have yielded to its deceptions. The so-called "prosperity message" is one example of the current spiritual deception and darkness.

The Spirit seems to be testifying that soon a wave of severe persecution of the Christians will roll across the nations of the world. Much blood will be shed.

The authority and power given to the saints during the latter-rain revival will hold much of Satan’s wickedness and fury in abeyance. Then God will lift the authority and power of the end-time testimony and the full force of lawlessness will be unleashed on the world (Revelation 11:7).

We Christians cannot comprehend the evil and terror that are at the doors. We never before—most of us—have been in a situation in which there was so much spiritual darkness that we were unable to pray, unable to remember passages of Scripture, unable to think clearly. This season soon is to fall upon us.

The churches know that the nightmare of the great tribulation is coming. The doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture effectively is preventing the believers from preparing themselves (which is what Satan has planned). The Christians are asleep spiritually because of the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture. This doctrine is unscriptural and has caused and is causing much harm to the ability of the Lord’s people to stand in the hour of testing.

God has provided something for us that is infinitely better than any pre-tribulation rapture, infinitely better than being forced to flee from the battle because we think Satan has more power than we do.

God’s provision for the dark days is the personal spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles. God intends to dwell in His people to the extent that they not only can stand in Him throughout every difficulty but finally can be used of God to crush Satan (Romans 16:20).

God has made a way for us to triumph in the last days, not by fleeing from the conflict but by conquering every adversary through means of the Lord’s superior wisdom and power. Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world. (I John 4:4).

Joel speaks of the hour when the Son of Man is revealed:

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. (Joel 3:15)

And then:

The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. (Joel 3:16)

In the hour when Christ is revealed from Heaven, God will enter His people in fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles.

"Zion" refers to the Body of Christ (Hebrews 12:22). God will enter the members of Zion, into the Body in Heaven and the Body on earth, and will "roar" from them His words of judgment.

The firstfruits of the Bride will all be glorified together. We all shall be made perfect together when "that which is perfect is come."

God in Christ dwelling in us will enable us to stand from now until the Lord appears. God in Christ dwelling in us will prevent our being deceived by Antichrist and the False Prophet. God in Christ dwelling in us will enable us, at the time of the Lord’s appearing, to rise up against Antichrist and overcome him. Christ’s brightness shining as the lightning through His saints will destroy Antichrist (II Thessalonians 2:8).

The sixtieth chapter of the Book of Isaiah gives us a clear picture of what will take place at the time of the coming of the Lord.

In that Day the Spirit of the Lord will speak to the holy remnant whom God has protected from Antichrist:

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. (Isaiah 60:1)

The coming of the Glory of God to the saints is the hope that will bear up the elect throughout the dark days of the great tribulation. This is the dawning of the Day of Redemption, the Year of Jubilee, the thousand-year Kingdom Age, the time for the unveiling of the sons of God (Romans 8:18-21). This is the point at which the world, beholding the oneness of the saints in Christ in God, will believe God has sent Christ (John 17:21-23).

God in Christ will fill the members of the Body of Christ whether they are in Heaven or on the earth. Christ will be revealed to the world in the fullness of His glory and we shall be glorified together with Him (Romans 8:18; Colossians 3:4; II Thessalonians 1:10; I Peter 2:12).

For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. (Isaiah 60:2)

The Scriptures, both Old Testament and New Testament, teach us that Christ will return at the "midnight hour." To the people of the earth it will not appear to be a midnight hour. They will be marveling at the "peace and safety" that the reign of Antichrist has brought about. They will be buying, selling, building, planting, sowing, reaping, marrying, giving in marriage. The flesh of men will be rejoicing in the "fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness" (Ezekiel 16:49).

It will be a peace and safety without God!

The godly remnant also will be rejoicing but only in the Lord. The people who are filled with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will realize the nations have been infiltrated by fallen angels and demons. The forces of Satan will have captured the churches of God. This capture will not be obvious, it will be as it is today—a capture by deceiving the churches into fellowshiping with the economic and political systems of the world.

Even today we behold Christians teaching and believing that the Lord would have us prosper and take our ease as part of the world. If the believers can be tricked so easily now, what will be the case when the spiritual darkness is a hundredfold greater than in the present hour?

Have we forgotten the world hates Christ? Do we truly believe Satan is our friend? Surely it will require a blood bath of nightmarish proportions before the Christian believers wake up to the fact that they are asleep in the lap of Delilah.

The spiritual darkness is rising from the recesses of the bottomless pit. It is blanketing the earth. The Christians of the wealthy nations cannot perceive the darkness because it is coming in the form of ease and material prosperity while they are looking for an Antichrist ready to stamp us with the seal "666."

The darkness will increase in intensity (although held somewhat at bay by the last testimony of the saints, as symbolized by the "two witnesses" of Revelation, Chapter 11) until only the strong, pure disciples of the Lord will be able to abide in Christ. After the worldwide testimony has been given the saints will be forced to flee from the cities of the world.

When the worldwide, latter-rain testimony has been completed to God’s satisfaction the majority of Christians, the lukewarm, will fall away because of the abundance of lawlessness. The forces that will fill the earth will cause the lukewarm to become cold (Matthew 24:12). The Lord Jesus has announced that He prefers we be cold rather than lukewarm toward Himself. God will insure that the lukewarm become cold so the way of the Lord is made straight.

The apostasy of the Christians after the latter-rain witness has been given is typified by the young prophet who obeyed the Lord until his mission was accomplished, and then disobeyed the Lord, by listening to an older, backslidden prophet, and was eaten by a lion.

And when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It is the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the Lord: therefore the Lord hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and slain him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake unto him. (I Kings 13:26)

When we are young and fervent we serve the Lord successfully. But when we get older we may become soft. When we do we no longer are able to serve the Lord as He desires. There is no place in God’s army for retired soldiers.

There will come an hour when "peace and safety" fill the earth. The demons will be reveling in the closing moments of the age, knowing that their punishment is near but hoping somehow to avert it. The Spirit-filled remnant will be hidden away in the wilderness areas of the earth, aided by some of the peoples of the nations. The glory of Zion will be upon them.

The help given by people to Elijah and Elisha, who are types of the "two-witness" testimony, reveals that the "earth" will assist the Lord’s remnant (Revelation 12:16). The nations that help the Lord’s remnant, His brothers, will be saved in the Day of Christ (Matthew 25:34).

Suddenly the Glory of the Lord will arise on the remnant in the fullness of the personal spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles:

And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. (Revelation 11:11)

So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. (Ezekiel 37:10)

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: (John 17:22)

The glory of the Lord will be seen on the saints when the Lord enters into them:

And the Gentiles [nations] shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. (Isaiah 60:3)

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:23)

"That the world may know."

In that Day the peoples of the earth will understand clearly that God has sent Christ and that God loves the Church as He loves Christ. Christ will be glorified and we shall be glorified together with Him. We shall appear with Him in glory.

God glorified His name when Jesus the Lord walked on the earth. God will glorify His name again when Jesus and His saints appear in glory (John 12:28).

Antichrist will gather the kings of the earth and their armies in an attempt to prevent Christ and His saints from bringing the Glory of God to the prisoners of the earth. But to no avail. The Lord’s army will encircle the armies of Antichrist and destroy them.

Then all the ends of the earth will come to Jerusalem to "keep the feast of Tabernacles": that is to say, they will come to be blessed by the members of the Body of Christ who now are filled with the Glory of God in Christ. The nations of the saved will receive of the eternal Life of God and become part of the Glory of Christ.

Perhaps the strongest type of the Lord’s coming to be found in the Scriptures is that of the events concerning Gideon and the Midianites.

First there was a screening process. The army of the Lord was diminished in number from thirty-two thousand to three hundred.

So it is today. There is a screening process taking place. All who are fearful will be sent home, so to speak. Also, those who "drink water in a careless fashion" (who act foolishly and in an unguarded, unrestrained manner in spiritual matters) will be removed from the delivering remnant. There are practices in the Charismatic churches of today that remind one of Aaron and his naked dancers (Exodus 32:19).

Three hundred men of war remained—a tiny remnant left to face the multitude of the Midianites, the Amalekites, and "all the children of the east" (Judges 7:12). The number three hundred (the length in cubits of Noah’s ark) typifies the concluding of an age by judgment.

Each man was given three things: a trumpet, an empty pitcher, and a lamp within the pitcher.

And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man’s hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers. (Judges 7:16)

The trumpet speaks of the coming of the Lord to us in the personal spiritual fulfillment of the Blowing of Trumpets.

The empty pitcher signifies the cleansing of our personality in the personal spiritual fulfillment of the Day of Atonement. The breaking of the pitcher reminds us of the need to crucify the old adamic nature so the resurrection Life of Jesus can be revealed.

The lamp within the pitcher refers to the coming of the Father and the Son into us in the personal spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles.

At the beginning of the middle watch of the night (midnight—another type of the coming of the Lord), Gideon and the three hundred men blew the trumpets, broke the pitchers, held the lamps in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands, and cried, "The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon."

Then "all the host ran, and cried, and fled" (Judges 7:21).

Here is a picture of what will take place when the Lord Jesus returns. God will "roar out of Zion" in fulfillment of the blowing of the trumpets.

The physical bodies of the deceased saints will be raised, and then they along with the the living will be changed from mortality into immortality.

Now will the Glory of Christ, and God in Him, blaze forth from the saints as the lightning shines from one end of the heaven to the other, just as the light from the torches blazed forth when Gideon’s three hundred broke their pitchers.

But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. (Zechariah 14:7)

The enemy will panic and flee. Satan will be crushed under the feet of the saints.

The "three hundred" who are ready to be revealed in glory with the Lord are the firstfruits of the Wife of the Lamb. They have been selected carefully. They will stand "every man in his place round about the camp" (Judges 7:21). They are being prepared today for the supreme manifestation of God’s Glory.

In that Day the forces of darkness will flee in terror. God will crush Satan under the feet of the saints. All resistance to Christ’s rule will crumble. The saints will take the Kingdom. The kingdoms of this world will come under the authority and power of the throne of God and His Christ.

In that Day the light-filled saints will be lifted from the face of the earth into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

Slowly, majestically, the Body of Christ, to the consternation and horror of its enemies, will be gathered to the Lord, to the "carcass" on which the true saints feed and live.

God Almighty then will have set a table before us in the presence of our enemies.

Here is the fulfillment of the parable of the ten virgins. The Christians who possess the "oil," that is, who are filled with the Spirit of God and are living by the Life of the Lord Jesus, are ready at every moment to be filled with exceedingly glory and to rise to meet the Lord in the air.

The believers who have the "lamp," the Christian testimony, and then have chosen to walk in the flesh, who are not filled with the Spirit at all times (and the fact that at one time we spoke in tongues does not mean we are walking in the Spirit today), will not be prepared to be filled with the Father and the Son.

The nominal Christians will not be given a trumpet. They have no light in their pitcher. They cannot be counted on to stand in their place. They know neither the sword of the Lord nor the sword of Gideon. They understand nothing of the art of fighting alongside the Lord.

There is spiritual darkness today and it will become increasingly dark as the days go by. Already there is much deception among Evangelical-Charismatic believers. Many Christian people are coveting material treasures rather than the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Few have put the seeking of the Kingdom first in their lives.

At the same time, Christ stands at the door of each heart. To those who hear His voice and open the everlasting door of their soul, the King of Glory will come in. The Lord of armies will enter and prepare the individual for the Day of the Lord.

The conflict of the ages is upon us. Unprecedented tribulation is at hand. Unprecedented glory is available.

It is time now to take the Kingdom. Let every true saint arise and enter the fullness of God. The coming of Christ is at hand. He shall divide the spoil with the strong.

1Dr. Robert B. Thompson

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