EXTRACTS

The feast of booths has two parts. Compare Leviticus 23: 34–36, 39–43. The first had a fulfilment in Solomon’s day, but not the second. The first had reference specialty to God, it was a “holy convocation”; the second part of the feast is brought in at the end of Leviticus 23, and the kind of things they were to use to make the booths is mentioned, branches of trees, and the like. The latter part has the love of the saints for one another in view and their mutual joy before God.

It is said of Nehemiah’s feast that there was none like it since the days of Joshua; that is to say, Solomon’s did not come up to it. Solomon had the first part of it, from the fifteenth day to the twenty-third day of the seventh month, but there is not a word about the booths, 2 Chronicles 7: 9, 10. Solomon had a great house, things were big in his day, according to God, of course, but the corresponding smallness was what was wanting. That is what I take the second part to indicate, and I believe that it marks, or is intended to mark, the end of our dispensation. As I enter into the truth of the Holy Spirit, I come out here in this world in littleness and in readiness to share with the brethren; it is no hardship to me to live with them in the smallest circumstances. Moses had experience of living in very great circumstances in the king’s palace, but it says that he fled to Midian, and in Midian he sat by the well. He says, as it were, I see now that it is no question of natural energy, of slaying Egyptians with my own hand, it is a question of the Spirit of God. He sat by the well, as much as to say, I have arrived at this, that it is a question, not of my energy, but of the Spirit of God. Then he watered the flock of the daughters of Reuel, he did not slay any of the shepherds. The presence of the Holy Spirit means that I am able to help, not to destroy. Then it says that he was “content to dwell with the man”, the priest of Midian. So whatever the circumstances into which I am led in the government of God, I am to be content. In my relations with my brethren, or in my financial circumstances, I am restful; I know what I have got up there, by the Spirit, and I am content with what I have got down here; I make no effort to change. Moses was content to dwell with the man, and during all those years he stayed there he never asked for any wages. Jacob did; it was a question of wages with Jacob, but not with Moses. The man who sits down by the well is not serving for wages; he that does so, when the wolf comes, will leave the sheep. At the end he is said to have led the flock of his father-in-law, showing what good terms existed between them, to the backside of the desert, to the mount of God, to Horeb. Could he have done better? I do not think so.

He led them to the backside of the desert and came to the mount of God. What a word for every servant of Christ! And God said to Moses, as it were, I see what you are at, and He appeared to him in the bush and called him by name, “Moses, Moses!” Exodus 3: 4. Moses understood this in his own experience, and therefore he could speak feelingly about the feast of booths. God said through him to the people earlier, “I caused the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt”, see Leviticus 23: 43. So God, when He takes us out of Egypt, would teach us love. Now He would teach His people how to love; as the apostle says to the Thessalonians, “Ye yourselves are, taught of God to love one another”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 9. So He puts me alongside His people in humble circumstances, and teaches me how to love them. He says, ‘I do not want you ever to forget how to love: keep this feast on the fifteenth day of the month. Appear before Me during this feast’.

J. Taylor (Vol. 32, pp.354–356) (Deuteronomy 16: 16, 17)

Ques Should not each gift that God raises up, although maintaining what has gone before, have his own peculiar distinctiveness in the ministry?

JT Yes; indeed there was not another like Joshua. I do not think he was just like Moses, he had his own distinction. God loves distinction, He loves variety. The stars represent that “Star differs from star in glory”; that is, God likes diversity. The stars are innumerable, they cannot be counted, but it shows what God has, like the worlds; we do not know how many there are, but He made them, He made them by Christ.

J. Taylor (Vol. 71, p.238)

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