Scott Brown's sermon 'Where Do You Run in Times like These?' focuses on Nehemiah 8:13-18, highlighting the Israelites' response to the reading of the law by Ezra. The sermon describes the revival among the Israelites as they discovered and celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, which symbolized God's presence with them during their wilderness journey. The sermon emphasizes the importance of the Word of God in bringing revival, joy, and guidance to believers. Brown connects the events in Nehemiah to Jesus Christ's teachings, particularly His declaration during the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7. The sermon encourages believers to seek the Word of God earnestly and to let it guide them through difficult times, just as it did for the Israelites. The comprehensive analysis of the passage reveals how God's Word can transform hearts, bring understanding, and provide comfort and joy even in times of trouble.

A sermon text today is Nehemiah 8, 13 through 18. Now on the second day, the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people, with their priests and Levites, were gathered to Ezra the scribe in order to understand the words of the law. And they found written in the law, which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, and that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying, go out to the mountain and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of leafy trees to make booths as it is written. Then the people went out and brought them and made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house or in their courtyards or in the courts of the house of God and in the open square of the Water Gate and in the open square of the gate of Ephraim. So the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and sat under the booths for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun until that day the children of Israel had not done so and there was very great gladness also day by day from the first day until the last day, he read from the book of the law of God, and they kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a sacred assembly according to the prescribed manner." Father in heaven, what a great miraculous, sovereign work of grace you did in the hearts of these people to align their hearts with your commands, with your law.

Oh God, I pray that you would align our hearts with the truth, even now, Lord, as you did for them, that our souls would crave your word, that our souls would long to understand, Lord, as these people long to understand and to know, O God, but they would not only know and understand, Lord, but that our hearts would burn within us, Lord, as you speak to us through your word. Lord, that your Holy Spirit would just stir up holy affections and right desires and longings, Lord, and most of all, love for you and for our neighbor. Lord, I pray that you would unite our hearts to fear your name, O God, that we would rather do anything than disappoint you, Lord, that we would prefer anything over sinning against you willfully. In Christ's name. Amen.

Well, it's with great joy I have this morning to bring this Old Testament passage of Scripture that points to the Lord Jesus Christ and all of His glory and how He walks with His people, how He tabernacles with His people as they're walking, you know, through this wilderness world, that He's pitched His tent among us, and wherever our tent is pitched, there He is, He's present. He sent His Spirit, he sent his Word, and this passage of Scripture points to all of that here in Nehemiah chapter 8 verses 13 through 18. And it's also a picture of how God turns people around by His Word. In this wilderness world, as you're camping through this world, and you never know where you're going to end up camping, here's one thing that you do have. You have this reality of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the form of His Word.

And no matter what state you find yourself in as you're in on this journey He can turn you around he can he can change your heart. He can give you things that he hadn't hadn't given you before in joy in understanding in connection with his people and And really with with the what the Bible calls the comfort of the scriptures. And I pray that somehow this morning we would be able to receive the word, the implanted word in meekness like these people did here. And they understood the wisdom of God. And they had neglected something and it was recovered by the Word of God.

Now, what's happening here? This gathering that we just read about is smack dab in the middle of an upheaval that was going on among God's people in Nehemiah chapter 6 verse 15, which is the last time marker. We read about the 25th day of the sixth month. Now, the walls were completed at that time. Now we're only six or seven days beyond that when we encounter this passage of Scripture.

And what's happening? It's a time of famine. It's a time where the economy is in the tank. It's a time where there's real tensions between people because greed and self-interest and self-glorification have really done some damage to the people of God. There are harsh and unrelenting landlords that are taking away...that have taken away property of the people of God.

The taxes are high and there's...it's a time of trouble. And there's...there are threats of attack right at this very time. And so all of this happening, this great revival, this turning to God happens in the midst of a really tough time. And the people, you know what? The people are normal people.

They're like every man who goes through trials and tribulations in this world. They have fears, they have threats, they have losses. There might be some people here who've lost everything. And you're just like some of the people that were here. Or you have some slanderer who wants to destroy you.

Well, that's what you find here. And in the midst of this trouble, God does a remarkable thing. And it tells us how wonderful it is to know Jesus, to have Him with you as you're pitching your tent in this world. Because the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles was exactly that. It was a picture of God's presence among his people in their wilderness wanderings.

And it shows how God comforts a broken people. It shows how God brings joy, even to those who are losing their prosperity. And how he brings solace to the hearts of the people who have really high taxes and the economy is terrible. And they really aren't sure how they're going to pull out of it. And how did it happen?

How does that happen? Well, we'll see how it happened here. And I'll tell you what it is. It happened because they received the Word of God in humility, and it changed them. It turned them around.

And that's how it happens. This week our family was reading Psalm 119, and I couldn't get over how it seemed to be so connected to this passage of Scripture. Like, for example, you know, Psalm 119 verse 92, if your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. These people would have perished in their affliction if the word of God had not become their delight. And here you find the way to pull you out of every moment of your life.

We learn in Psalm 119 that his word enlarges your heart. That's in verse 32. I will run the course of your commandments, for you shall enlarge my heart. That's what they did here. They ran the course of his commandments.

They kept their eyes on His commandments. They kept their eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of their faith. They kept their eyes on the Word of truth in the midst of their afflictions. And He enlarged their heart. That's what happened right here.

Or how about Psalm 119 verse 54, where we learn that when the Word of God keeps you singing through this world, your statues have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. Your statues, isn't that beautiful? My songs in the house of my pilgrimage while I'm pitching my tent from place to place in this world. Sometimes that tent might get torn down, it might get moved to another location, you just never know. But how do you get through that?

You've got to have songs in the house of your pilgrimage and those songs are the songs from the Word of God. In Psalm 119 we learn how He revives you. In verse 107, I'm afflicted very much, revive me, O Lord, how? According to your word." You want to be revived? There's one way.

It's Jesus Christ and his word. And then finally, verse 97, we learn how God gives you love for His Word, and what happens to you is you meditate on it, and it changes everything. Oh, how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day. This passage points to Jesus Christ, the Word of Truth. Jesus said, my words are spirit and are life, and everything in this passage points to that, and we'll see how He connects it, particularly in John chapter 7.

Now, so Nehemiah chapter 8 is composed of two days and then the celebration of some other days after that. Day one is Nehemiah chapter 8, 1 through 12. The people gathered at the Water Gate. They heard the Word of God read for six hours. They went home.

And then now when we get to verse 13, it's the next day. Do you see that in the text? This is day two of this revival that was taking place. And the fathers, heads of households, and the teachers came together and they wanted more from Ezra. They wanted to be taught more.

And so that's what we find here. And then out of that gathering comes all of this other stuff. Now, I want you to see where this fits in redemptive history. You have an outline in front of you that gives you an outline of redemptive history from creation until this moment in the days of Nehemiah. You know, the earth was created in 404 BC, the flood was in 2348 BC, Abraham was in 2000 BC, the Exodus was in 1445 BC, Joshua, this is a key date in Nehemiah chapter eight, Joshua enters the promised land in 1405 BC, David is at 1000 BC, Sinakarib sacks the northern kingdom in 722.

Nebuchadnezzar comes and destroys Jerusalem and takes captives to Babylon in 586. Cyrus issues a decree that the people can return in 538. And now in 458 BC, we have the Feast of Tabernacles. It's right at the end of the Old Testament record. The next prophet who will speak is Malachi, and then there will be the intertestamental period, and Jesus Christ will come in his first coming.

So that's where we are in redemptive history. This outline will have meaning as we get deeper into the text here. So they gathered, they were engaged in this gathering. These are two days of their lives. And so let's dive into the text here, because what we find here is that even in the midst of such a troubled time, They celebrated like nobody had celebrated for 900 years.

Isn't that amazing? That's what God did. And how did he do it? Well, we'll see. So the first thing that we see is in verse 13.

Now, as you can see in your outline, I've divided this into six sections, one for each verse. I'm just going to go from verse to verse. The first verse we'll engage in is verse 13. The fathers and the leaders gathered to study the Word of God. Then verse 14, they discovered what they neglected then verse 15, they announced the feast and Verse 16 they gathered to celebrate in booths verse 17 they had never celebrated like that before.

And then finally in verse 18, they had seven days of the feast and a sacred assembly and they were full of joy. So that's the basic outline. So let's begin with this first section. The fathers and the leaders gathered to study the Word of God. So day two, after they'd heard the Word of God read all day, this group thronged to Ezra and Nehemiah.

Now on the second day, the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people with the priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe in order to understand the words of the law. So let's understand who gathered. These are the heads of households and they were seeking out instruction. One commentator called this a special Bible study group. They wanted more and they were seeking out instruction.

They, you know, and they really did experience the promise of Proverbs chapter 3 that if you seek her as silver, you are going to find it and God will bless you. What you have here is a discipleship community focused on the teachers and the heads of households, those who have the jurisdictional authority to teach. And this was an occasion that Paul speaks about to Timothy, where he tells Timothy, entrust these things to faithful men. That's what Ezra was doing, and he was taking the law of Moses and he was applying it. This is very much like what Moses did in Deuteronomy 6, where he gathered Israel together and he told the fathers to teach their children when they sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up.

Here Ezra is teaching the heads of households to do the same thing that Moses taught the heads of households to do back in Deuteronomy chapter 6. And they had gathered two Ezra. Remember Ezra? He was skilled in the law of Moses. And he sought with all of his heart to seek the law of God and to do it and to teach others in Israel.

Those are the three things that characterized Ezra's life. That was his life. That's what he did. And so there's teaching going on. When we had men's Bible study, one of the men said that this was like what modern corporations do, training the trainer.

That's exactly what he was doing. Ezra was training the heads of households and the other trainers in Israel. And you know, the question, do you gather for the teaching of the Word of God? Well, you are right now, and it's such a good thing to do that, when the people of God come to hear the teaching of the Word of God. If you have authority of some kind, whether you're a mother, whether you're a father, or whether you're a teacher of some kind, are you seeking out further instruction?

Just because you're a teacher doesn't mean that you don't need to be taught. And these people felt that they needed to be taught, and so they were seeking it out. I think it's a picture of Acts 2, 42, and they were steadfastly continuing in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayers. And this is how revival breaks out. It doesn't break out when you have smoke machines and music that moves your heart.

It doesn't happen that way. It happens when the Word of God is received with meekness. We have a Christian environment today that thinks that that's how you move people to revival, but God has a simpler way. His Word, the teaching of His Word. This is how God revives his people.

And a mark of life is when people desire the word. A mark of deadness is when the people don't desire the word of God. And so they're teaching. And, you know, so where do you run in times like these, in times of difficulty? Well, you run to the Word of God.

Just like David said in Psalm 119, I will run the course of your commandments for you shall enlarge my heart." They ran, they ran in the course of his commandments and they sought it out among the teachers and the teacher Ezra himself and there and his statutes were their songs in the house of their pilgrimage, and they sought the word of God. So the fathers and the leaders gathered to study the word of God. That's verse 13. Let's go to verse 14 now. Go ahead and look at that.

Here we find that they discovered what they neglected. This happens, doesn't it, by the way. And they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month. So they were taking the law seriously, they sought and they found, you know, the Lord says if you seek me you'll find me and they did and to him who asks more will be given, or to him who has more will be given. And they found out what they had neglected.

They had neglected the heart of the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, this is really one of the joys of walking with the Lord Jesus Christ is that you're constantly discovering things. And you become a Christian and you discover something that you never understood, that never occurred to you before. And it keeps happening in your life. You might discover something about the use of your tongue and you think, oh wow, I wish I'd known that 10 years ago.

Or you discover something about what it means to be a mother and you say, oh, I wish I discovered that. I'll never forget. We had a conference for young couples who had just been married for under seven years. And I was up there preaching and I was just going through Ephesians 5, and one of the women in the front row, I would hit a point, she would go, and she would jab her new husband. They'd been married not very long.

And, But that's what was happening. It was awesome. And there they were, you know, smiling thinking, Oh, wow, look what we missed, you know. And that's what God does. You discover something what manhood is or fatherhood.

You understand something about the great commission. You understand something about the Sabbath and you go, wow, I totally missed that. How come I've been a Christian for 15 years? And well, the reason is that God progressively sanctifies His people. He does it in his own time.

And it's a beautiful thing. If you discovered something, you discovered it in God's time. And that's what's happening here. And remember when it first sunk into you that you were justified by faith? Maybe you were saved, you had a great conviction of sin, but as time went on, you realized what justification by faith really meant.

Like you might have gone through a period of guilt as a Christian because you didn't really understand justification by faith. Has that Happened to anyone here? Okay. It's happened to so many of us. But what happened was that they discovered something that had been neglected.

And they said what we've said many times. I wish I knew that 20 years ago. You know, the Word of God is living and active, and it's sharper than any two-edged sword. And that's what they were experiencing here. And they were reading through the Word of God.

Here's my encouragement, read the Word of God, read it every day, read it in your family. Here's another encouragement, read the whole Bible through every year. That's my encouragement. Go do that. Even if you have little kids, do it.

Our family tried to do that, you know, every year. In fact, I'm just finishing a book called Journey Through the Bible where I took my notes from doing that over the years. I ended up with about a 400-page document that had notes about this book of the Bible and what we should memorize and what questions and things like that. I finally compiled it into a book. I should have it out in a couple months.

But I just want to encourage us to read the Bible. When you do that, you'll discover something. And you might say, I wish I'd known that twenty years ago. Well, maybe your kids don't have to do it as much as you did if you would read through the Word of God Well, here's another reality Sometimes you read stuff and it doesn't hit you You actually did read it before But it didn't hit you So that's always a trouble isn't it? But I think God is sovereign over over all those things now What did they what did they discover they they discovered that they they weren't treating?

The feast of tabernacles like it should have been treated. Now, so now we're on the Feast of Tabernacles. There are seven feasts of Israel. Every feast points to the character and the works and the accomplishments of Jesus Christ. So in Leviticus 23 verses 33 through 40, we find this feast explained.

Leviticus 23 explains all seven of the feasts. There are seven feasts, and they're called Sabbaths. And then there is the Sabbath day. So there are two kinds of Sabbaths that are described in Leviticus 23 and other places. The first is Passover.

If you're in Leviticus 23, Well, the weekly Sabbath is described in verses 1 through 3. Then the Passover is described in verses 4 and 5. The second feast is the feast of unleavened bread, that's in verse 6. The third feast is the feast of first fruits, that's in verse 10 in Leviticus 23. The fourth is the feast of Pentecost, that's verse 17.

The fifth is the feast of trumpets, that's verse 24. In Leviticus 23, that's also called Rosh Hashanah today. The sixth is the Day of Atonement, verse 27, and that's also called Yom Kippur, and the seventh is the Feast of Tabernacles, and that's in verse 34. These last three feasts are the feasts that are celebrated in this seventh month during this chapter of Nehemiah. And so you have these feasts.

The feasts were a tutor to lead Israel to Jesus Christ, their Savior, to give them a sense of who this Savior was and what He will be like. And so the feasts were established there. Now remember, the Babylonian captivity happened because the children of Israel didn't celebrate the feasts for 490 years. And so through a mathematical formula, it was determined by God to give them 70 years of captivity in Babylon because they had neglected it for 490 years, one year of captivity for each Sabbath year unobserved. And you learn about that in 2 Chronicles chapter 36 verses 20 through 21.

But in Leviticus 23 you find the disclosure of this feast of tabernacles. And they were called to live in booths, or tabernacles, to use another word. And they were commanded to build temporary shelters. And these temporary, transient, leafy structures were constructed to tell the story of the Christian who's wandering in the desert, in a desert wasteland with beasts and storms and trouble. They're vulnerable to the elements, but it's symbolized God's faithfulness through man's vulnerable journeys in this world and it speaks of man's need to walk in dependence upon God as their shelter.

He's their shelter and so God would commanded them to live that way for seven days. And here in Nehemiah, they went out and they built these booths on top of their houses. They built them in their front yards. They put them in the squares, and they lived there for seven days. You know, I've always thought of just how wonderful this would have been for all the children, you know.

Children love to do that. Like for example, maybe you've never done this, but have you ever set up a tent in your living room because your children wanted to go camping? Have you ever done that? Yeah, a lot of people are saying yes. Well, the reason is, is because children just love that whole idea.

Well, that's exactly what they did. But for seven days, it would be driven home to them that God is your refuge and strength. God is your present help and trouble. He's going to protect you in your wilderness wanderings. You know, whether they're fiery serpents or they're enemies or whatever it is, disobedience in the camp, He's going to see you through.

He's going to get you to the promised land. And so the feast of booths or the feast of tabernacles was to remind you that no matter where you pitched your tent, God was with you. And that's why the Lord Jesus Christ comes and he is the word made flesh the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and that word dwelt among us means tabernacled he tabernacled with us so wherever you tabernacle, wherever you got your tent pitched, He's tabernacling with you. He's with you. He's right there among you.

And you have no need to fear. And so there are two particular places in the New Testament that you can hardwire this to. The first, I think, is the most significant, and that is in John chapter 7 verse 37. John 7 pictures the feast of tabernacles that was taking place during the time that Jesus walked. And in verse 1 we read this, after these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for he did not want to walk in Judea, for the Jews sought to kill him.

Now the Jews' feast of the tabernacles was at hand. Jesus is on the outside of the city. He didn't want to go into the city, but we'll find later that he did go into the city. He went in, he went in after the feast. On the last day of the feast.

He went in secretly and where did he go? Well, he went into the temple. Now, when he goes into the temple and there's this dramatic pageantry going on, there are there are 446 priests, there are 446 Levites. The high priest goes down to the pool of Siloam and he gets Gold a golden vessels full of water and and they're singing the Hallel, you know Psalms that begin in Psalm 111 and he would put the water on the shoulder and he'd pour the water out and they would draw the water for seven days. Well now on the eighth day the priests don't draw the water.

It's a different kind of day on the eighth day. And what does Jesus do? He goes into the temple and on the very last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and He cried out saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." And he was fulfilling Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23, Nehemiah chapter 8, all point to this very moment in redemptive history where Jesus Christ cries out in the temple and he says, He who believes in me as the scripture has said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. And this he spoke of the Spirit which had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified.

And so this feast of tabernacles and then the final eighth day points to Jesus Christ coming and pouring out of spirit. That's why you can say with all confidence that wherever you pitch your tent, Jesus Christ has pitched his tent with you in the form of himself who dwells within you and his spirit who gives you rivers of living water and his spirit gives you his word and that's how you sustain yourself in your wilderness wanderings you sustain yourself through the trials and tribulations of your wilderness wanderings through one way and that is by the Word of God by looking unto Jesus, the author and the perfecter of your faith. And so how do you deal, how do you run? Where do you run in times like these? You run in the way of His commandments.

Now, if anyone's discouraged about their moment that they're in, where their tent is pitched or what condition it's in or whatever it is, here is your and my only hope is that we run in the way of his commandments. And that's how we get through these times. That his statutes would be our songs in the house of our pilgrimage. That we would say, oh how I love your law. It's my meditation all the day.

It's what keeps me alive. It's what keeps me moving. It keeps me doing what I ought to do in this world. It's His Word. That's how God revives His people.

And that's why God sent His Son to tabernacle among us, and he would send his Spirit, and his Spirit would communicate and convict us concerning the words of life. And they are the words of life themselves. And so, it was discovered what they had neglected. They neglected the rivers of living water. And then, thirdly, they announced the feast.

That's verse 15. So, and that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying Go out to the mountain and bring olive branches branches of oil trees myrtle branches palm branches and branches of leafy trees to make booths as it is written." So it's announced that in the cities that they should take action. They read and they responded. That's what Christians should do. They should read and then they should take action.

And they wanted everyone to know. I think that's interesting. What kind of organization do you think it took to let everybody know this throughout the land? It took some organization. It took an orderly way to get the Word out.

They wanted to get the Word out and they got the Word out. And this is what churches should do. They should have ways to get the Word out. And in fact, there actually is a line item in our church of budget called spreading the Word. And you know, there are things that you have to do to spread the Word.

It's what we're obligated to spread the Word of God as far and wide as we can. And so they said, go out of the mountain and tell everybody to bring in the branches. And do you see how they did it? At the end of verse 15, as it is written. They did it as it is written.

They didn't want to do their own thing. They didn't want to go invent their own feast of tabernacles. They were doing it as it is written. This is the regular principle of worship. They wanted their worship to be regulated by God and by God alone, and so they spread the word about it.

I think you can connect this with the Great Commission. Go spread the word. There's a feast. Get dressed in your wedding garments. Turn to Jesus Christ.

Be saved from this perverse generation. Confess your sins to Jesus. He will forgive you of your sins, he will bring you into his kingdom. And I think that's what this is figurative of, go out into the highways and byways and gather those who would repent and bring them into the feast. And they need to be wearing wedding garments.

They need to be robed in the robes of righteousness when they come. And so then the fourth thing we see in verse 16 is that they gathered to celebrate in booths. Then the people went out and brought them and made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house or in their courtyards or in the courts of the house of God and in the open square of the Water Gate and in the open square of the Gate of Ephraim. So they were building booths all over the place and they responded. You know it's such a blessing when you see people responding to the Word of God.

You know, and that's, you see this just happy urgency to come and do what God has commanded. You know, in Judges 5, in the song of Deborah, in her song, she praises God for the way that people responded in those days. And she said, you know, when leaders lead in Israel, when the people willingly offer themselves, Bless the Lord. Bless the Lord. They willingly offered themselves and they went after it.

Just like Psalm 103, your people shall become volunteers in the day of your power in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning you have the dew of your youth." In other words, you read the word of God, He gives you desire for it, and you go after it, and you do it with joy, and you become a volunteer. And then they reenacted what God had done. And I think this is really pivotal here. Maybe this is the heart of the text. They remembered their history.

They remembered who they were. They remembered that they were sojourners in the desert. They remembered that they lived for 40 years and they really didn't know what was going to happen to them. They lived in tents and they moved all the time and they had no permanent dwelling place for 40 years. Has anybody experienced that?

Well, maybe not in the way that they did, but they were reenacting their history. And here's the summation of their history. God never left them or forsook them when they were in the wilderness. That's their history. God is faithful.

That's your history. And you might just think about your own view of life now, your own life. What has God done? Who are you? Do you see yourself as a people who are set free?

Do you see yourself as a people whom God will never leave or forsake? Do you see yourself a people whom Jesus Christ has tabernacled with you, like right next to you? Is that who you see yourself as? Or is it woe is me? Woe is me for I just, everything is so bad.

Well, God was reviving these people with a sense of who they were. You know, do you see yourself under the finished work of Jesus Christ? Do you see yourself as justified? Do you see yourself as being glorified? Do you see yourself as being brought to glory because he's bringing many sons to glory?

Is that who you see yourself as? Well, this celebration was designed to help them see who they really were they real There are people wandering in the wilderness, but they're but God is gonna take care of them all the way through he's gonna get them to the promised land which is a figure of heaven And it was a very timely reminder. I mean, remember, it was a time of famine. It was a time of high taxes. It was a time when the economy was at the worst of the worst.

They just spent 52 days rebuilding the wall. Their houses weren't even rebuilt, many of them. And now, what, now we're supposed to go celebrate this feast. Well, God gave them such a heart to see who they really were, and they, they, they moved into these booths to proclaim that everything was going to be Okay. Yeah, they had just worn themselves out moving rocks for 52 days under threat of attack, having a weapon in one hand and a trial in the other.

You think they might have been worn out by this? Do you think maybe they wanted to take a vacation? Well, this was the kind of vacation they took right here. They moved into booths. Now, I know many people in modern times don't like to take vacations where there's not air conditioning, but they were...they moved...

You know, I don't know why it is that every child wants to move into a ramshackle booth, but every parent wants to stay in their nice air-conditioned house. Well, sometimes parents seem to loosen up a little bit. But God brings them into this experience to help them to remember who they really were, that God had made a covenant with them, that He would never leave them or forsake them, that He has tabernacled with them as Jesus Christ has done. So how do you, Where do you run in times like this? You run in the way of His commandments, and that's how you're pulled through the time that you're in.

You make His statutes your songs while you're in your pilgrimage. You make them your songs in the night. You sing of His mercies in the morning, because His mercies are new every morning, and you lay down in your bed singing of His grace and His faithfulness. And then the fifth thing we see here in verse 17 is that they had never celebrated like that before. So the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and sat under the booths.

For since the days of Joshua, the son of none, until that day the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very great, great gladness." So there's a time marker here. They hadn't done it since the days of Joshua. Now, what does that mean? They hadn't done so.

Do you see that in the text? They had not done so. What does so mean? The word, you know, in many places is used as like manner or such a thing. In other words, they had not done it in like manner.

Here's what the text doesn't mean. It doesn't mean they never celebrated the Feast of tabernacles since the days of Joshua because we have several occasions where they did celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles including Ezra chapter 3. You find it in 1st Chronicles and you find it in other places. They did celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles But they didn't celebrate it in the way, in the manner that they celebrated it in the days of Joshua. It had been a long time.

It was a celebration to beat celebrations from the time of Joshua onto that time. And so, I think what we're being told here in this text is that it was an unparalleled celebration. They celebrated it and its grandeur like they did in the in the days of Joshua. But since Joshua there hadn't been anything like it since. And so that's why in your timeline I've identified the days of Joshua in 1405 BC.

So since the days of Joshua in 1405 BC until 454 BC in the feast of tabernacles It had not been celebrated with such joy with such ardency With such happiness with such clarity with such precision And so they were they were celebrating it like they had never celebrated since the days of Joshua. And so, you know, what about us today? You know, how are we celebrating today? You know, All week long I've been saying, Lord, is it possible you could fall down upon us and like even today we would celebrate this Sabbath day like we've never celebrated it before? Like not like last week, not like the week before?

Is it possible? Well, it happened here. How did it happen? You know how it happened. It happened because they were running in the way of his commandments.

They desired the Word of God. It is the desire for the Word of God that causes this kind of thing to happen. You know, I think we can ask, what's it like for us today when the scripture is being read? What's it like for us today when we sing? We're going to sing a song at the end of this celebration.

What's it like when someone's praying for us? What's it like when we're having our fellowship meal today? Well, if our hearts are fully desiring to do it according to the Word of God. He'll give us a celebration like never before. And it happens because we run, we run in the way of His commandments.

And then finally the sixth item in your outline, verse 18, the last verse in our text, seven days of the feast and a sacred assembly. Also day by day from the first day until the last day He read from the book of the law of God, and they kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a sacred assembly according to the prescribed manner." So they were reading from the law for seven days. They just kept going back to the Word of God, and then on the eighth day they had a sacred assembly, and this was distinct from the rest of the celebration. Notice they had a heart to obey according to the prescribed manner. They wanted to do it the way God wanted them to do it.

And so they had several days to prepare for it, because remember this meeting with Ezra took place on the second day, but it wasn't until the fifteenth day that they would celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. They celebrated the Feast of Trumpets on the first day, And then they celebrated the Day of Atonement on the tenth day, which was a day of mortification of sin. And then on the fifteenth day, they started to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. So they'd been preparing, and they began it and they ended it on the eighth day after they had had begun it and they understood it better than they ever had before and They they really experienced what true Christianity is You keep discovering things and God allows you to do that for his own glory. He might show you a truth that you didn't know before.

He might show you a sin that you didn't understand and you get free of it. And you have the happiness of identifying it and turning from it It breaks your heart at first, but then your heart is strengthened by grace as the Apostle Paul said he said let your heart be strengthened by grace and they were running in the course of his commandments. So God took these people and he filled their hearts with desire. It led to their obedience and it led to their joy. And it happened because of the Word of God.

Now the joy of the Lord is given to God's people, irrespective of your temperament, irrespective of your disposition. God gives you joy and sorrow. We rejoice in our tribulation and we rejoice that we were counted worthy to be persecuted even when we're persecuted. God gives this to His people but it's a direct result of the Word of God. You know, a lot of times people want to refresh their joy by going to a counselor or doing something like that.

There's no better place to go than the Word of God. I'm not making an argument against going to counselors. I'm just saying that we often prefer a secondary means when there's a primary means available to us that is sure if we come to it with a heart of obedience. And all of this points to that last day of the feast, that great day of the feast, where Jesus stood up and said, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, and out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And you know, I don't know who in this room today needs to be turned around today, but here's what I know.

Your only hope of being turned around is to turn your face to Jesus Christ and to drink of his word, and to drink it deeply, and to keep on drinking it. And that his statutes would be your songs in the house of your pilgrimage. That those are the songs you'd be singing. Now what songs do you sing all day long? Or what songs do your children sing all day long?

Like when they're walking through the house are they singing silly songs? Are they singing the songs of their pilgrimage? Are they singing the songs of the words of God? Be concerned if your children are just singing the songs of this world out of the last movie or the funny video clip they saw two days ago. Be concerned about that.

Those will be their songs and you want them to have songs that will be songs of strength and glory and joy and might by the Holy Spirit while they walk through this wilderness world. And by the way, it will get hard for your children from time to time and you better be preparing them with the songs worthy of a pilgrimage like that or they don't know where their tents are going to be pitched but they will know this they will know the songs they'll have the songs of the Word of God to carry them through in this wilderness world. And they say, Oh, how I love thy law. It is my meditation all the day. Well, what do we all need to do today to make this day more special than it's ever been?

And there are two answers to that question. To the person who has not loved Jesus Christ and wanted to follow Him, you must be born again. You must be born again and be justified by faith. Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Jesus is a good shepherd.

Don't delay coming to him. And then secondly, you must run in the way of His commandments. If you're a Christian, if you want to make your way through this world, run in the way of His commandments. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, we pray that You would give us a great thirst for this water.

We pray that you would help us to run in the way of your commandments. We pray that our songs would be your songs in the house of our pilgrimage, that our hearts would say, oh how I love thy law, and it would be the thing that dominates our thoughts and our ways in this world. That we, like newborn babes, would long for the pure milk of the Word, so that we might grow in respect to salvation and that we might know day after day, wherever our tents are pitched, that you've tabernacled among us. That you've poured out your spirit of living water that your word is available and so oh Lord our mouths are wide open, come and fill them. Amen.