Rapture on the Feast of Tabernacles ? (original) (raw)

Dear Doves,

The Fall feast days are always a high Rapture watch time for Rapture-watchers. I personally think that the Feast of Tabernacles holds a lot of potential for the timing of the Rapture. I just wanted to share a few reasons why (Just remember that this is pure speculation.):

Possible Pattern from the 3 Pilgrimage Festivals

Out of the 7 feasts of the Lord presented in Leviticus 23, three feasts (Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles) are highlighted by God. They are known as the Pilgrimage Festivals because God required all Jewish males to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate them. In addition to their mention in Leviticus 23, they are exclusively mentioned in Exodus 23:14-17 and in Exodus 34:18-24. So why are these three out of seven feasts so important to God � why are they singled-out?

Did you ever notice that the first two Pilgrimage Festivals have a direct impact on the Church? Our sins are forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb and the Head of the Church. And the first members of the Church were indwelt by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. So, it is probably safe to speculate that something important will happen to the Church on a future Feast of Tabernacles. So, if the 3 Pilgrimage Festivals illustrate a pattern applicable to the Church, the next holiday on the Church�s radar should be Tabernacles.

The Sign of Jonah

As you may remember, Jonah was directed by God to preach to the people of Nineveh. He was told to warn them that judgment was coming unless they repented. Jonah initially ran away from this mission by boarding a ship at Tarshish. When a terrible storm ensued, he confessed to the crew that it was probably due to him, and they threw him overboard. God had a great fish swallow him and he survived inside of it for three days and three nights. While inside of the fish, Jonah prays and is reconciled to God, and he is vomited out onto dry land.

He then goes to Nineveh and warns the people that God�s judgment is coming in 40 days. �So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.� Jonah 3:5.Their repentance displeased Jonah because he knew that the Lord was compassionate enough to forgive them. So he went to the east of the Nineveh and built himself a shelter and waited in it to see what would happen to the city. While he was there a vine grew over Jonah and provided him with shade, but a worm chewed on it and it withered. When Jonah became bitter about it, God chided him:�And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?� Jonah 4:9-11.

The more modern translations of the Bible let us know that there were more than 120,000 people in Nineveh. (Remember that number!)

Please consider that the salvation and rescue of a group of Gentiles (perhaps the Gentile Church?) from judgment could be the sign of Jonah to the Jewish people. It would be fitting if the Rapture occurred while they were dwelling in booths or temporary shelters, like Jonah. The correlation would be obvious.

�A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.� Matthew 12:30-41.

The Pilgrimage Festivals and the sign of Jonah

We also find confirmation of the proposed Pilgrimage Festival Pattern in the book of Jonah. I have to give credit to Pastor Daniel Lizerraga, who used to post here, for seeing the Pilgrimage Festival Pattern in Jonah and for connecting it to the sign of Jonah.

Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. Likewise, Jesus was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40) � the fulfillment of Unleavened Bread/Passover. Remember that 120,000 Ninevites were ultimately saved. (See Jonah 4:11). 120 people initially received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost � and note that 120 is a multiple of the number of saved Ninevites. (See Acts 1:15). Jonah also built a tabernacle to watch the destruction of Nineveh � but Nineveh was preserved from judgment. (See Jonah 4:5). Tabernacles are also built in observance of the Feast of Tabernacles. So, we see that the outlines of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles are all encoded in the book of Jonah.

In the passage where Jesus mentions the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39-42), he made a specific point about Gentile believers coming to the faith. He also mentions the Queen of Sheba who came to the faith during the time of King Solomon. (See Matthew 12: 42.) It seems that Jesus was showing the Jews that His resurrection and the conversion of Gentiles would be a sign to them and that the 3 Pilgrimage Festivals would be connected to this sign of Jonah.

Let�s face it, the Rapture is going to be seen as a miraculous sign to the world, especially if God rescues us from judgment. People will wonder why they were left behind. People will see the evidence of God. They will see God seeking mankind through the fulfillment of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles.

If the Rapture of the Church occurs on a Feast of Tabernacles, the Jews will assume there is a correlation between the two events. They will see a predominantly Gentile body (one who has accepted Jesus Christ, the Unleavened Bread, as her Savior) preserved from judgment on one of their own feast days. Ironically, the book of Jonah is the Haftarah reading on Yom Kippur. So, Jonah will still be in their memories when the Feast of Tabernacles begins five days later.

The Ninevites were spared from judgment while Jonah watched from a tabernacle. Will the Church also be spared from the judgment at a time when Jews are dwelling in tabernacles?

Prophecy of Destruction

There may be a time of destruction connected with the Feast of Tabernacles, which is also called the Feast According to Hosea 9:5-7:�What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD? For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles. The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.�

The Chuppah

Many of you know that the bride and groom of a Jewish wedding stand under a Chuppah during the wedding vows. The Chuppah is a type of tent-like canopy. Ironically, as a consequence of the pandemic, tent-like structures have been set up throughout the world. We congregate, worship and eat under them. Is it a coincidence that we can see so many �pandemic� tabernacles set up throughout our world this year? 2020 has been a year of tabernacles. (Maybe we should see them as reminders of our Groom.)

In a way, a chuppah is a type of tabernacle. It is symbolic of the cover of protection that will be provided to the bride. Through the Rapture, God will protect us, He will cover us as a hen covers her chicks under her wings: �He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.� Psalm 91:4;�O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!� Matthew 23:37. What a wonderful image � God will put His arm around us. And we will be in the safest place possible.

Does the Feast of Tabernacles represent the time when we will be raptured to places of safety?:�Come, my people, enter thou thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.� Isaiah 26:20;

�In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.� John 14:2-3;

�For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion:in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.� Psalm 27:5;

�I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Selah.� Psalm 61:4;

�My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.� Ezekiel 37:27;

�And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.� Revelation 21:3.

Season of Our Joy

The Feast of Tabernacles is a joyous festival. The people are actually commanded to be joyful. �Be joyful at your festival�you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns.� Deuteronomy 16:14.

There must be something significant and joyful with regard to the fulfillment of Tabernacles because it will still be observed during the Millennium Kingdom. (See Zechariah 14:16-28) Could it be a wedding anniversary and/or Rapture anniversary?

Final Harvest of the Year

The Bible connects resurrections to harvests.�But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body �. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 1 Corinthians 15:35-39 and 42- 44.

Since the Feast of Tabernacles celebrates the final harvest of the year it may be a fitting time for a big resurrection event like the Rapture. The final harvest of the bride. When all of the members of the Body can finally be assembled together.

Tabernacles are Bodies

The Bible compares human bodies to tabernacles. �For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.� 2 Corinthians 5:1. �For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.� Today we live in tabernacles of flesh, but some day we will be clothed in immortality. Peter also referred to his body as a tabernacle:�Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.� 2 Peter 1:13-14. Could the Feast of Tabernacles celebrate a time when we get new bodies � new tabernacles?

Full Moon

The Feast of Tabernacles is a full moon festival. The full moon may give us another clue as to the timing of the Rapture. I must explain that there are two passages in the Bible that describe a global earthquake � in Revelation 6:12-17 (after the opening of the 6th Seal) and Ezekiel 38:19-23 (during the Gog Magog War). Years ago, I read a book by David Lowe concerning a pattern that earthquakes follow resurrection events, partly because of the energy expended by the resurrection process. (For example see Matthew 27:50-53 and Revelation 11:11-13.) If earthquakes do follow resurrection events, then the one that may follow the rapture should be huge since it will include all Christians (dead and alive) from all over the globe. It is possible that the passages in Revelation and Ezekiel describe the same global earthquake and possibly the same Rapture earthquake. I must admit that I get a little excited when I hear rumblings of the Gog Magog War.

Also, the voice of God can cause earthquakes:�See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.� Hebrews 12:25-26. When we will hear His voice at the time of the Rapture, it will shake the heavens and the earth.

All of this background just to tell you that there is a full moon in Revelation 6:12 at the time of the earthquake in that passage. Furthermore, the sun will turn black like sackcloth (see Revelation 6:12). Now, take a look at Psalm 19:4: �Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hathhe set a tabernacle for the sun �� If there is a tabernacle for the sun doesn�t it make sense for the sun to be darkened when it enters it (perhaps on the Feast of Tabernacles?!)

The Great Multitude

In Revelation 7:9-17, we see a great multitude in white robes and holding palm branches. This scene occurs after the global earthquake of Revelation 6.�After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.� Revelation 7:9-10. The make-up of individuals sure sounds like the diverse types of people who will make up the Church. And the holding of palm branches is something that is done for the Feast of Tabernacles. �Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.� Leviticus 23:39-40. If that is the case, then the global (Rapture?) earthquake may be on or near the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Last Trump?

Psalm 81:3-4 links the Feast of Tabernacles to Rosh Hashanah and to the blowing of trumpets: �Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.� Since two occasions are referenced in this passage � there are two times when the blowing of a trumpet is mandated (a first and last trump?) Rosh Hashanah is a new moon festival and the Feast of Tabernacles is the full moon festival referenced here. The Hebrew for �in the time appointed� means full moon. So we have two trumpet blasts that are specifically required by Scripture.

Since the Feast of Tabernacles is the last feast in the cycle of 7 feasts, any trumpet blast during it could be the Last Trump of the festival cycle. Identifying the Last Trump may be as simple as that.

Birth Day

There is a possibility that Jesus was born on the Feast of Tabernacles. It would explain why there was no room at the inn for his family if it was during one of the Pilgrimage Festivals. We are told: �And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.� John 1: 14.(The Greek word used here for �dwelt,� means �to tabernacle.� And Jesus certainly dwelt here in a body or tabernacle of flesh. He and His family also lived in a stable or temporary structure (or tabernacle) after His birth. In fact, the town where Jacob made cattle stalls was named Succoth: �And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built him an house, and made booths for his cattle: therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.� Genesis 33:17. So, if Jesus was born on the Feast of Tabernacles (i. e. Sukkot), He and His family were already complying with the law to dwell in a booth. Coincidence?

Perhaps Sukkot will be a birthday for us as well. Since we are born with bodies on our birth day, it follows that we should get new bodies on our second birth day. And what better day for this to happen than the birthday of Christ?

Final Thoughts

It�s always frustrating when another Feast of Trumpets comes and goes but it ain�t over until it�s over. Let�s see this Tabernacles through first. Sukkot is a big deal to God because people will be punished for not observing it in the future (Zechariah 14:16-28). I think we have yet to understand its significance fully. And I really look forward to celebrating it with you all in the future.

This year Sukkot starts on October 2, 2020.

Maranatha

� Lisa Taylor