The Danger of Forgetting God | Lessons From the Feast of Tabernacles

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: The Father disciplines every son, every child, every daughter that He receives. When we look at our life, we should not expect that it's just going to be pleasurable. We understand God will discipline us.
Dustin Roberts: What if God's discipline isn't meant to discourage you, but instead to draw you closer to Him? Welcome to Discovering the Jewish Jesus. I'm your host, Dustin Roberts. Today, Rabbi Schneider and I are outdoors together under the Sukkah for the Feast of Tabernacles. As we sit beneath this symbolic shelter today, we remember that our security comes from God alone. We'll discover how His appointed times can deepen our dependence on Him and reveal His love to us through discipline. Now, join Rabbi and me under the Sukkah.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: I want you to put yourself in the position of an Israelite. Imagine yourself 3,500 years ago. You've left Egypt, you're walking towards the Promised Land, and you're in the desert. Now you've worn the same clothes now for 40 years. Can you imagine that? The same clothes for 40 years. The Lord says, "Your clothing did not wear out, nor did your foot swell these 40 years." You're wearing the same clothing for 40 years under that desert sun. There's nothing around you sometimes but sand. 40 years, every single day. You're in that situation. I mean, I could say it's tough, but they know what it was. That was something. Look what the Lord says. He says to them, "Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you, just as a man disciplines his son." Think about your life now, not in terms of enjoyment, but think about that God is at work in your life both to will and to do for His good pleasure. The New Testament tells us that the Father disciplines every son, every child, every daughter that He receives. When we look at our life, we should not expect that it's just going to be pleasurable. We understand God will discipline us.
Dustin Roberts: We have to take the good with the bad. A lot of people don't want to hear this. I don't want to be all hard, because God is the God of pleasure too. He loves it. God loves that we can experience pleasure. Why can we taste, smell, see, and touch? Because God wants us to experience pleasure. He's the God of pleasure. He wants us to experience all His glory in creation and the glory of relationship. Jesus' first miracle was turning the water to wine. He gives us many pleasures, but let's also make room for the fact that God also causes difficulty because He's disciplining us. When He does, let's not rebel. Let's ask ourselves when we're going through a hard time: what is God doing in this and how does He want me to respond? I love the next couple of verses, Rabbi, because they say, "Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him." Verse seven goes to exactly that glory that you were talking about. This was what they were looking forward to. "For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you've eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you." He has an amazing glory for us on the other side of these trials.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: It's great to break into that reality, isn't it? It's so beautiful. When you look at the words here as you were reading, Dustin, the excellence of what God is bringing us into. A good land. He describes a land of brooks of water, fountains, and springs flowing forth in valleys and hills. Jesus said, "I have come to give life and give it more abundantly." This is over-the-top goodness and blessing that God's bringing us into.
Dustin Roberts: Over the top. Everything you could want. I love it too, the next thing: "without scarcity and you shall not lack anything." This is really what God wants for us. He doesn't want us to lack. He doesn't want us to be in need. He literally wants to bless us to pieces. But there are some requirements before He can do that in our lives, because if we step into it otherwise, we'll think it's by our power and our might that led us into these things. But it was God that gave this to us. Think about children, raising children. If you don't discipline them, if you just give them everything they want every time they cry, every time they want it, every time they beg for it, they're not going to appreciate it. I was watching this show and there were these parents. Every time the kid would complain or it would get really bad, the mother would give them candy to try to make them happy. Now the kid—it seems like the opposite, right?—they were running amok in that house. But the Supernanny got them in order. She disciplined them and said, "No more candy unless you act right, you don't get good things."
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: It's like a dad that makes his kids go out and work and participate in the chores, mowing the lawn, or a mom making the kids work for something and then rewarding them. They appreciate that reward so much more. It makes them feel good about themselves. It's good for their own soul. It's really very comparable to what we see here. The Lord was disciplining Israel to bring them into this lavish excellence of blessing. I love the next verse where Moses is speaking on the Lord's behalf to Israel: "When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you." This is where we get the concept of giving thanks to the Lord after the meal. In Rabbinic Judaism, we give thanks to the Lord before the meal, but really from the Torah's perspective, it's good to give God thanks before the meal, but the command is really to bless the Lord after you've eaten and are satisfied.
Dustin Roberts: I remember the first time we sat down to a meal together and you said, "Alright, we're not praying before the meal today. We're going to give thanks and bless God after the meal." It really drove this point home. Since you did that, it's always changed for me. Now when I sit down, I can't help but sit down at a meal and think: this is a gift that God's given me and He wants me to be satisfied with it. It's just changed my thought. I used to always pray this prayer and still do: "Lord, thank You for this meal, bless it, make it good and nourishment." But to look at eating as something that God wants me to have joy in and feel good and bless Him for afterward.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: What's interesting here is that it's good to give the Lord thanks before the meal and after the meal. In Rabbinic Judaism, we do both. But notice this next verse here. I love this. This is after the Lord has given them everything and He says, "Now I want you to bless Me and be satisfied. Thank Me for the blessing for the good that He's given you." "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not seeking His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."
Dustin Roberts: When you get good things, we do all this: "Lord, do this, do that." We're following God and then we come into it and then we forget. I'll never forget when I was probably 25 years old. I was working for a company that did tours to Israel. My boss had been to Israel 70 times, and it was my first trip to Israel with him. He turned and looked at me and said, "Dustin, every time I come here, I give God thanks for bringing me here. Because I don't ever want to become ungrateful and for God not to bring me here." I've never forgotten that. It was such a lesson by a man in my life who imparted something really valuable that day: all the good things that God gives you can be taken away like that. We can never forget what God has done for us and where He's brought us from to realize that He brought us into good land and good things.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: I think a lot of this has to do with what I'm going to call consciousness. It's like a conscious awareness. Because it's easy to forget. I think the natural tendency is when things get easier, we forget God. I mean, it's what people call jailhouse religion. People are in prison, they're really struggling, and they get religious. Then sometimes what happens is they get out and life gets easy and they forget about God. It's a real phenomenon and human nature is susceptible to this. So how do we guard ourselves from it? I think it's an awareness of the tendency and we warfare against the tendency by consciously making a decision to not allow ourselves to feel entitled or to take things for granted. That's what I love about God's festivals and holidays and being here in the Sukkah. They're like road signs. You're traveling down the road of life and you have these holidays that God has put in place every year. If you celebrate them and you walk in the principle of them, they're like road signs: "Here's your rest stop, don't miss it." It's this opportunity to realign, to get back in alignment so that you do stay humble. That's why I believe God told Israel to come under the Sukkah for seven days every year to remind themselves that it was God that brought them into the land. It really is an opportunity for us if things are out of alignment to get back in line with things.
Dustin Roberts: This is Discovering the Jewish Jesus with Rabbi Schneider and he'll be right back, but first we want to help you go deeper into God's word. That's why we've come up with a free gift. It's called 18 Messianic Prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures. It's a PDF and MP3 teaching bundle where you can see for yourself how Jesus fulfills Messianic prophecy throughout the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. Get yours at myfreegift.com/prophecy. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. We take that command very seriously here and through our online media platforms, TV, radio, and our overseas crusades, we're sharing the truth of the gospel with people of all different nations and tongues everywhere. If the Lord has put a burden on your heart to support our missions work, please give today. Discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Now back to Rabbi.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: The one that gave us these holy days, the scripture calls them appointed days. The Lord calls these days His appointed days. Mo'adim in Hebrew is the name. Keep in mind now, the one that gave us these days calling them His appointed, He didn't call them Jewish holidays. He didn't call these Jewish holy days, but the Lord said in the book of Leviticus when He introduced these days, "These are my appointed days." This is Elohim Yahweh. This is your Creator. The Creator gave us these days and the Gentile church has been grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel. What was first revealed to Israel, the Gentile church has now been grafted in. So what Dustin is saying is important here, that these holy days help us to stay tuned up. Like you bring your car in every certain amount of miles for a tune-up, check the timing belt, get the spark plugs changed, change the oil. Sitting in the Sukkah each year, it helps us remember. Okay, I really have nothing in this world but You, God, just like Israel had in the wilderness. We start depending on our jobs, we're dependent on other people, we get sucked into the world, we're running here, we're running there, but you sit down in the Sukkah and you look up and you think, "You know what? I'm sitting in the Sukkah now and I want to put myself in the mind of an ancient Israelite 3,500 years ago." And they had nothing but God. The truth is, Dustin, we have nothing but God. But get this, Dustin, that's enough. Israel had nothing but God, but that was enough. I remember one year as I was starting out in ministry. Basically, I thought that my income was dependent on pastors inviting me in to minister in their church. So I would do marketing. Eventually, nine months or so into this, I'd walk into a church and I'd be sitting there and I'd be thinking, "I don't know if I'm here because God sent me here. I want to know I'm here on purpose. I don't want to think I'm just here because I'm a salesperson." So I'm sitting in my Sukkah one year and I'm thinking, "God, I'm not dependent on these pastors to give me referrals. And I'm not dependent on this marketing. And I'm never going to know," I said to the Lord, "I'm never going to know whether I'm in a church because You sent me there or because I'm a good marketer. I'm never going to know unless I stop my marketing." And so Lord, I'm going to trust that all I really need is You. Just like the children of Israel in the wilderness, all they had was You and You supplied their need. And I'm never going to know, Lord, if I'm in this congregation because You sent me here or because I made a phone call, unless I stop what I'm doing to see You move. And that's what I did. I stopped. I stopped marketing, I stopped asking for referrals, I stopped promoting myself. And you know what happened? God set me free to realize that He alone was the one that was doing it. Then from that point forward, there was power in my ministry. I think that's one of the things that we learn because you talked about bringing our soul back into alignment by practicing these holy days, these appointed days that the Lord gave us. For Sukkot, it's recognizing that all you need is God and don't feel that your life is dependent on somebody else. Just like I had to realize that my life wasn't dependent on pastors referring me or pastors inviting me. My life was dependent on the Lord and that really sets people free.
Dustin Roberts: It's really this opportunity that I think the church at large that doesn't celebrate God's appointed days and doesn't understand the principles of them is missing out on. I grew up Baptist and loved my grandfather who was a Baptist pastor. I went to his church. He baptized me. I got saved because of him and I'm so thankful for him and who he was. This isn't downing the church. It's just to say that there's so much we're missing by not understanding God's appointed days and times and what the principles of them and what God could be doing in our lives. I think about what if the church in America had this? Just like we celebrate Christmas so strongly, what if we decorated, what if we were putting up Sukkahs? What if we did spend this time with God with our kids? Not just us, but our families coming into the Sukkah just like this and all of us as a family recognizing God is all that we need. What a lesson we could be teaching our kids. And something they can touch and feel. They're not going to forget this when they go off to a liberal college and someone tells them God isn't real. This is something that you can put into your family, into your children, that they can partake in and be a part of and really have something deep down on the inside of them that connects them with God not just one time, but every year.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: As we close today, I just want to bring further application to this concept that I've already covered, that God alone is enough. Particularly, beloved ones, what I want to drive home right now is the fact that when we age, there are unknowns that begin to come into our view that could make us afraid. For example, often times people age and their spouse passes away. That could be a terrifying thing for some people. Other people are concerned that they're going to age and wind up in a nursing home. That could be very terrifying. The fact that as we age, sometimes the things that we used to be able to do when we were young, we're no longer able to do. Whether it's something athletically, whether it's a hobby, whether it's our job that was so important to us that we were so involved in, and we worry, "What am I going to do with myself if I'm 80 years old and I'm confined somewhere?" But the lesson of Sukkot is that God is always enough. I want to encourage you right now to face your fears head-on. Whatever it is that you're afraid of in life, I want you to face that fear and put your hand over your heart and just confess out loud: "God, You are going to be enough." See, the problem with fear is fear is a thought that enters our mind about something that will happen in the future, but the thought that we have about what's going to happen in the future that causes fear, it's always a thought in which God is not there. God's not in the thought. But the reality is, my holy brother and sister, God will be in your future and He will be in my future. So whatever that thing is in the future that you may be fearing, know that just as the presence of the Lord literally dwelt in the center of the camp where the Tabernacle was as a pillar of fire by night and a glory cloud by day, that God was always there, so too, as you age in life, God will always be there for you. He'll always be your Sukkah. He'll always be your Tabernacle and your covering. This is a special opportunity for you to prophetically take part in celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. Let me explain. The Feast of Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles is also referred to as the Feast of Ingathering. Israel would go into their fields and they'd bring back to the Lord a tremendous harvest and then celebrate before Him. Jesus used this same type of language for you and me. He told us, "Go into the world and bring me a harvest, for the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few." What He's doing is mandating us, beloved, to go into the world, share the gospel, and bring Him back a harvest, the harvest being those that have received the good news. When you sow your financial gift to the Lord through Discovering the Jewish Jesus during this holy special season, you're going to be playing a part truly, beloved one, in reaching people for King Jesus. And the harvest that this ministry is bringing to Him, you're going to be able to have a part in, be rewarded for, and celebrate before Him on the final day when you see all the souls that have been won to the Lord through this ministry. Bring your special offering to the Lord and you'll be blessed and celebrate with them in the end times.
Dustin Roberts: Amen. And if you'd like to take part in the work of Discovering the Jewish Jesus, you can give a special Tabernacles offering at discoveringthejewishjesus.com or call 800-777-7835. As Rabbi and I talked about today, we're celebrating Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. It began at sunset Friday, September the 25th, and it continues through nightfall Friday, October the 2nd. Sukkot is also known as the Feast of Ingathering. Israel gathered the harvest and they brought it before the Lord with thanksgiving and rejoicing. We encourage you to participate in this holy convocation. From all of us at Discovering the Jewish Jesus, have a wonderful Sukkot.