Episode Transcript
Let's move into Hosea chapter 13 verses 5 through 6.
The title of the message this morning is "Dwelling in Tabernacles."
Dwelling in Tabernacles.
How many of y'all like camping?
How many of y'all do not like camping?
I figured.
Miss Priss over there.
Alright.
But you know what?
As Christians, we all need to do a little camping out.
And we're going to learn that this morning life has all kinds of bitter twists and turns.
But the bitterness will turn to thankfulness if we'll trust God at every turn.
No one is more faithful than the Lord to us in our difficult times.
And nothing teaches us that lesson like spending a little time in the wilderness dwelling in Tabernacles.
If you'll look here in our text this morning, Hosea 13 verse 5, God told Israel, "I did know thee in the wilderness."
I did know thee in the wilderness.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your precious word.
And I pray, Father, you will remove all distractions this morning.
That all hearts and eyes will be upon you and upon your Scripture.
Teach us, Lord.
Feed us, Father, with your precious word.
We ask it in Jesus' holy name.
Amen.
God said, "I did know thee in the wilderness."
And now the Hebrew word translated "wilderness" here, it literally means to drive.
As in the sense of a cattle drive, as in the sense of a wide open space.
That's what the wilderness is.
The city doesn't have wide open spaces.
It has buildings and streets and things like that.
But the wilderness is a wide open space that you could drive cattle through.
And when God delivered the people out of the land of Egypt, guess what He did?
He led them through that wilderness.
And it was like leading His sheep on a cattle drive.
Now in the Scriptures, cattle is any quadruped.
And so when they talked about cattle, most of the time they were talking about sheep and goats and things like that.
They were real big into that, those Israelites were.
But God was leading His sheep through the wilderness, through the desert, when He brought them out of Egypt.
And God said, "That's where I knew you.
I knew you in that wilderness."
Now the desert is not the best grazing place for sheep.
The desert is a hot place, a dry place.
It's a difficult place to live.
There's not a lot of food and water in the desert.
But that's where Israel was when they began their journey.
That's where I was when I began my spiritual journey with God.
I was in that desert.
Actually before then I was in Egypt and I got to watch Him bring me out.
But then I was in that desert as a young believer.
I was saved out of Egypt, but I wasn't very far from Egypt.
And I had a long way to go to get to the land flowing with milk and honey.
But God knew Israel in the desert.
He knew them in the desert while they were still in Egypt.
You know the deserts where God met Moses at and said, "I've heard the cry of my people.
I've come down to deliver them."
So He knew them even then.
What do we learn from all of this?
God knows His sheep while they are still lost and held captive by the enemy.
God knows His sheep while they are still lost and held captive by the enemy.
When I was in sin in the darkness of my fleshly mind, when I was still lost, God knew me.
When I was in a church that wasn't teaching the truth, God knew me there.
When I was awakened to my sin and I was confused about my salvation, I was afraid of dying and going to hell.
God knew me at the absolute lowest point in our spiritual life.
That's when we are desperate and helpless to save ourselves.
And that's when God knows us like Israel in the desert land.
But wait a minute, Brother Richard.
God knows everything.
What does He mean when He says, I mean, God knows everything.
God knows everybody.
God knew the Israelites before they were even born.
So what does it mean when God says, He knew Israel in the wilderness?
Well, get that answer.
You'll never guess where you get that answer from.
The book of Genesis.
The book of Genesis.
So let's go back to the book of Genesis this morning and understand what God sang when He said He knew Israel in the wilderness.
Genesis chapter four verse one, Genesis chapter four verse one, the Bible says in Adam knew, now it's the same Hebrew word, Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare cane and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
Now won't you notice the connection between Adam knowing and Eve conceiving?
This wasn't mere intellectual knowledge here.
This was a personal experiential knowledge that affected Eve and had a great impact on her life.
It was a knowledge that had a profound effect.
And the key to understanding this is to look beyond the name Eve to the title that comes after the name Eve.
Adam knew Eve, what?
His wife.
Adam knew his wife.
In other words, Adam knew Eve as his wife and she conceived.
That's the kind of knowledge the word of God is talking about here.
So understand now, as Adam knew Eve, as a husband knows his wife, so God knew Israel as a shepherd knows his sheep.
That's the kind of knowledge God's saying to Hosea that he had for Israel.
In the wilderness, God protected his sheep.
In the wilderness, God led his sheep.
He cared for his sheep.
He fed his sheep.
In the gospel of John chapter 10 verses 13 through 14, Jesus said, speaking of the relationship between him and his sheep.
Now remember that cloud in the wilderness that Israel was falling out of Egypt, that was Jesus.
That pillar of fire at night, that was Jesus.
That voice coming from outside eye, that was Jesus.
What was shaking the ground beneath their feet when he was giving out those 10 commandments, that was Jesus.
The same one who led his sheep to the wilderness says in John 10, 13 through 14, the hireling flieth because he is in hireling and care not for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd and, there's our word again, no.
My sheep and am known of mine.
I know my sheep as a shepherd.
I tend to my flock and my flock knows my grace that they receive.
To know his sheep is to care for them as a shepherd.
God said he knew Israel in the wilderness that way.
There's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
Jesus knows his sheep in desert places.
Jesus knows his sheep in desert places.
One day Jesus was talking to people during the feast of tabernacles.
That's why I asked you if you like camping out.
Tabernacles a tent or a little shack, some little temporary structure that you live in.
One day Jesus was talking to people during the feast of tabernacles.
The Bible says in the Gospel of John 7, verse 37, it says in the last day, that great day of the feast, talking about the feast of tabernacles, Jesus stood and cried saying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink."
Do you know what the feast of tabernacles was?
That was a time, see when they left Egypt and they're getting driven like sheep through that desert.
When they go out to that desert, there's no RV parks out there.
There's no manufactured housing.
There's no neighborhoods out there in the desert.
So what do they have to live in?
Whatever they put together.
They just had to make do.
They had to make themselves tents, had to make themselves little booths maybe out of sticks and find themselves little things, gather and make themselves something to live in.
What God would do, there'd be a time when God would have the Israelites, a time in the year when God would have the Israelites have a feast of tabernacles.
They would leave their houses and they'd go out somewhere and they'd dwell in tabernacles, in tents, in temporary structures.
They would put sticks together and make themselves little booths or maybe tents out of animal skins or cloth.
They would live in these temporary structures reenacting.
You know how you see in the Civil War, reenactors and all that?
They were basically reenacting their deliverance from Egypt.
They were going out and living in these temporary shacks to commemorate the time when God delivered them from their bondage and to remember where they were so they could be thankful for where they are.
That's what the Feast of Tabernacles was all about.
God was reminding the people in Hosea's day who had left God, had gone off to worship bells we've learned in the previous weeks, He was reminding them of where they came from and how He cared for them when there was nobody else to care for them.
Here's Jesus and He's saying during the Feast of Tabernacles, "If any man's thirsty, let him come into me and drink."
You know when you're dwelling in tabernacles and you're out in the wilderness, water's a hard thing to find but not with Jesus around.
He's all the drink you need.
You'd think during the Feast of Tabernacles it had plenty of things to drink but Jesus said, "If you're really thirsty, I can give you water that you'll never thirst again."
The Feast of Tabernacles again was a time when the children of Israel remembered how they dwelt in tents.
Concerning this feast, God commanded them in Leviticus chapter 23 verse 42 through 43.
He said, "Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.
I am the Lord your God."
God made them dwell in booths.
God brought them into that wilderness.
God made them thirsty.
God put them in situations that wasn't the best place to live.
When they were in the Promised Land, the Israelites were dwelling in nice houses but on the Feast of Tabernacles.
They're going to dwell in these little shags to commemorate God's faithfulness to them and it was a way of making sure that they always remembered where they came from and that God provides for us in the wilderness in the worst possible circumstances of our lives.
And now here's Jesus in the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Come on.
Did I lose my mic?
Yeah, there we go.
Now here's Jesus in the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles telling his people who are pretending to be dwelling in the desert, "If you're thirsty, Israel, come to me and drink.
Come to me and drink."
Wow!
I can't help but think as Jesus was looking at them in these booths and these Tabernacles, he remembered their forefathers many years ago and how he dwelt among them then.
Wow!
the more I think about it because you know what it says in the Gospel of John chapter 1?
"The Word was made flesh and literally tabernacled among us."
Jesus was there among them in the Holy Sanctuary as he was with their fathers and he's telling them, "Come drink, Israel."
Jesus was the one who gave Israel water in the desert and he is the one who offers us that spiritual water today.
When we are in a desert land, the desert wasn't a land flowing with milk and honey, it was a harsh land but God led Israel through that land.
Now remember the desert wasn't the place of Israel's destination, but it was the place of Israel's preparation.
It was a land that God led them through that he might get them to the place he's taking them to.
When God does us the same way, God leads us to thirst that he might lead us to water.
If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.
You never see someone seek out a water fountain if they're not thirsty.
You'll never see someone seek Jesus if God didn't first lead them to thirst and let them know they need him to be saved.
Jesus said, "If any man thirsts, Christian, can you remember a time in your life when you were living in a dry barren land?
Can you remember a time when you were spiritually thirsty?
Can you remember a time when you were hungry for the truth?"
Boy I can.
And if you're a believer this morning, can you remember a time when you first tasted the sweet water of the gospel?
You first understood what Jesus did for you.
The truth of God's word came to your understanding.
God opened your eyes to give you the good news of Jesus Christ and helped you to understand the simplicity of his gospel.
Do you know what that was?
That was God knowing you in Egypt.
It was God giving you that understanding, God knew you in that dry barren land.
There's anything that makes my heart leap for joy.
It's when I remember the awful mess that I was in.
It's when I remember the darkness of my own heart and how God came to me where I was and poured the gospel of his grace upon my poor parched tongue.
Oh how thankful I am when I remember how God had compassion on me and brought me to the truth of Jesus Christ.
And once I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, I remember as a new Christian struggling with the devil trying to attack me and trying to get me confused on doctrine, trying to make me wonder, "Well how does works and grace and faith and all this fit in?
What about someone teaching this and someone teaching that?
What about this stuff I've heard from this pastor or that pastor or what I've heard on the Christian radio station?"
In my ignorance, I was trying to gain strength and knowledge in my walk with Christ.
You know what that was?
It was saved.
I had believed on Christ as my Savior, but I'm out in the wilderness and there's not much to eat.
And I remember how God was faithful to me then as well, assuring me with the truth and the power of the cross.
Christian when you think back on how God saved your poor lost soul and you thank God for being so gracious and faithful to you in all your struggles.
You see, whenever you do that, you ever think back how God saved you, you think, "Thank you God for saving me.
Thank you Lord for not letting me continue in the mess that I'm in."
Like this microphone.
Y'all ever do that?
Do you know what you're doing when you do that?
You're celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles.
That's what you're doing.
You are literally or spiritually, but you're fulfilling in the most greatest, purest form, the Feast of Tabernacles.
When you go back and you remember where you were, the mess you were in, and how God was faithful to you in that mess and brought you out of it.
You ever been in a mess that God's brought you out of?
Can you ever go back and remember, "Thank you Lord.
Thank you for bringing me out of that mess."
You're celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles.
It's good for us to dwell in our grand spiritual houses.
I tell you what, I thank God that I'm not in the wilderness anymore.
I thank God that I don't have to live in Tabernacles anymore.
I thank God that I don't have to live in a barren wasteland.
I thank God that I've learned enough of His word, experienced enough of His grace that I can dwell in a land of milk and honey and say, "Thank you Lord.
Thank you Lord for all you've done for me.
Thank you Lord for letting me pastor a church.
Thank you Lord for giving me a godly wife.
Thank you Lord for letting me understand the Scriptures.
Thank you Father for letting me feast on a land that flows with milk and honey."
I love living in that big house, but I tell you what, if you live in the big house too long you'll quit being thankful for it.
You'll begin to forget where you came from.
So it's good for us to dwell in our grand spiritual houses, but periodically we need to go back and dwell in booze so we don't forget where we came from.
That's what Israel's problem was.
They forgot where they came from so God was reminding them that He knew them.
Look back in your text, "In the land of great drought, in the times when the world could not provide what they spiritually needed, in the times when the world could not provide what we spiritually need, and when we are in great trouble, and when God is the only one who can know us as a shepherd knows His sheep."
Psalm 31 verse 7.
Psalm 31 verse 7.
The Bible says, "I will be glad and rejoice in Thy mercy, for Thou hast considered my trouble, Thou hast known my soul in adversities."
As a shepherd knows his sheep, you've known me in adversities.
Remember how David was as a shepherd?
He knew his sheep when the bear came.
He knew his sheep when the lion came.
And that's how God does us.
He knows us in those adversities.
This morning Tammy and I got up.
We had two conversations from two different folks that we're very close to who both had traumatic struggles this morning.
And of course it hurts our hearts to hear that.
But then I started thinking back on the text that we're looking here and hear the psalmist is saying, "You've known my soul in adversities."
It doesn't matter what you're going through.
God knows you and God will tend to you as His sheep, no matter what trouble you are in.
God has known your soul in adversities, has He not?
And if He has, then let us like the psalmist rejoice in His mercy.
Let's rejoice that God knows us in the dry places.
Psalm 63 verse 1, a psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
Isn't that something?
Now here's another one of God's sheep and now he's in the wilderness.
And he says, "Oh God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee, my soul thirsteth for thee."
Do you see what the wilderness did for David?
It made him thirsty for his God.
That's what adversity does in our lives if we'll let it.
Now the children of Israel had two things they could do in the wilderness.
They could either thirst for God and let God know them as His sheep or they could say, "Let's go back to Egypt."
That's what a lot of Christians want to do.
They start having trouble into their life and they go, "Well, I just give up."
Well, you're wrong.
You're bad wrong.
God knows His sheep in the wilderness.
And David said, "My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is."
Now look, if the dry land, if the thirsty land can make me thirst for God, then that land is a great blessing to me.
That land's a great blessing to me.
You may be in a land where no water is right now.
You may be in a very dry and difficult place to live.
And if you are in that land, come to Jesus and drink.
You drink for Him where you are.
It doesn't matter what your circumstance is.
Jesus can fill your heart with His marvelous grace no matter where you are in life.
God said, looking now in verse 6, "According to their pasture, so were they filled."
Now you memorize that part of Scripture.
You memorize that part of Scripture, and when you get into a dry and barren land, when you get into a place where there is adversities, when the bear and the lion is coming after you, when the devil's coming out after you with both barrels, you remember this text, "According to their pasture, so were they filled."
You can get filled with the grace of God in any pastured land, whether it's desert or the sweet green grass of home.
Wherever they went, God filled them.
Whether it was water from a rock or bread from the sky, God filled them.
The Israelites got filled when they quit complaining about the desert, and they started looking for the bread and water that God supplied them in the desert.
And you'll get filled too, if you'll let it.
Every heartache that you ever go through in life will teach you a lesson about the love and the grace of God.
So quit griping about the rocks and learn how to drink from them.
Do you get that?
Quit griping about those dry rocks in the desert and learn how to drink from them.
Here's the kingdom truth this morning, "According to our pasture, so were you filled."
According to our pasture, so were you filled.
You can graze on the grace of Jesus in any land.
When hard times come your way and the devil's attacking you, don't throw your hands up and quit, don't blame God like some of them did in the desert, you learn to trust in God and let him teach you and fill your thirsty soul.
In the middle of the study, I broke out with a poem.
When you're having a good time studying God's word, then your sermon preparation is a time of worship.
And so kind of like Miriam coming across the Red Sea and she breaks out with worship, well I broke out with a poem in the middle of my sermon.
Every mountain has a blessing.
Every valley has a song.
Every desert has sweet water, barren wastelands, food for all.
God didn't know me in the wilderness.
There in his wisdom I was brought that I may suffer from the thirst and by his grace be taught.
God feeds his sheep in every place with great thankfulness I'm thrilled that according to my pasture, so there my heart is filled.
When God's been good to us, we tend to forget where we came from.
So God sometimes lets us go hungry so we can remember how we are filled.
When God lets you go hungry, don't say, "God, what have I done wrong?"
Isn't that the first thing we do?
Man, when trouble comes in our lives, the most natural thing for us, the most Adamic thing for us is, "Oh God, what have I done wrong?"
Can you imagine each year when it's time for the Feast of Tabernacles?
Can you imagine when that time comes, they're out there and they're dwelling in booths and there's their nice house a few miles away or however far it is from, maybe they're camped out on top of the house, I don't know, but wherever their booth is, they're thinking, "Now why am I in this booth when I could be living in that nice house?
Lord, I must have done something wrong."
Do they think that?
No, because they knew that them dwelling in booths at that time in their life was the command of God.
It was God's providence.
God led them to live in that booth so he could make them grateful for the house whenever they got back in it.
When you have those hard times in your life, and if you're going through that hard time right now and you're struggling, you know what?
It doesn't mean you've done something wrong.
God leads us to the booths so we can remember how we're filled.
God leads us to be hungry and to be thirsty so we can thirst after him like the psalmist when he was in the wilderness.
Speaking of God's grace to Israel, the Bible says in Deuteronomy 32, verse 13 through 15, the Bible says, "He made him ride on the high places of the earth that he might eat the increase of the fields."
Now I tell you what, God's made me ride on the high places of the earth.
He's let me eat the increase of the fields.
He has filled my belly with his word and with his grace and with his joy.
I thank God for that.
He made him to suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock.
He has taught him things.
He has given him grace out of the most unlikely places.
"A hunter of kind and milk of sheep with fat of lambs and rams of the breed of bation and goats with the fat of kidneys of wheat, and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape, but gesture and wax fat and kicked."
Now you see what happened?
They got all fat.
They got all filled up with the blessings of God and then two things happened.
Two things happened.
They waxed fat and they kicked.
Now you know what happens when you wax fat?
You quit working.
You know what happens when you kick?
You start rebelling.
They quit serving God and they started rebelling against him.
They kicked.
Remember how Jesus said it's hard for thee to kick against the pricks?
It's the same thing that Israel did back then.
God blessed them and the more he blessed them after a while they're like, "Oh, this is nice."
They had everything they needed so they forgot about God who gave it to them.
They got spoiled.
They waxed fat and they kicked against God.
He said, "Thou art waxing fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness."
Then he forsook God which made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation.
He was no longer thankful to the God who saved him out of Egypt.
Thus God said, if you look back in your text now, they were filled and their heart was exalted.
Oh, man.
That's the opposite of what's supposed to happen.
Remember Brother Shepherd Sunday School this morning?
Hezekiah was praying that God would be exalted, that he would deliver them, then all the nations of the earth would know that he's the only true God.
What happened here, their heart got filled, right?
It says they were filled and their heart was exalted.
Man, when we're filled, our heart should be humbled and God should be exalted.
Sometimes when God blesses me, I just think, "Oh, dear God, I don't know why I don't deserve this but you're so good."
But the exact opposite can happen if we don't understand and keep God in his place in our hearts.
God can bless us and bless us and bless us.
We think, "Well, man, I deserve this."
Then we forget about God.
They were filled and their heart was exalted.
When we don't occasionally dwell in tabernacles, our full heart will lead to an exalted heart.
Repeat that again.
When we don't occasionally dwell in tabernacles, our full heart can lead to an exalted heart.
This is why we always need to go back and remember where we came from and give thanks to God for what we have and for bringing us from where we were.
Their heart was lifted up in pride so God said as we close our text now, "Therefore have they forgotten me."
Therefore, have they forgotten me.
We'll close with the kingdom truth this morning.
If the sheep will remember the desert, then they will never forget the shepherd.
If the sheep will remember the desert, then they will never forget the shepherd.
Father, we thank You so much for Your precious Word.
Thank You, Father, for knowing us in the land of drought.
Thank You, Father, for commanding us to go back and visit that land and to dwell in it.
Thank You also, Lord, for commanding us to only dwell in those booths for seven days.
Thank You, Lord, that when we remember, Father, where You brought us from, that's when we can always come back with that perfect understanding of where we came from.
Then we can truly enjoy where we are now in Your grace.
Lord help us to dwell in booze and when You bring us into the wilderness by Your providence, You take us in the dry land as You did, David.
Help our hearts to not kick against You, but to grow thirsty for You and to cry out for You to water us.
Help us, Lord, that according to our pasture, there we will be filled.
There Father will drink water from the rock.
There Lord will learn the lessons of Your grace in the hardest times of our lives.
In Jesus' precious name, amen.
