Deuteronomy 16:13-15
Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your feast--you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. For seven days celebrate the Feast to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.

The Feast of Tabernacles (Feast of Sukkot or Feast of Booths) is an eight day Judaeo - Christian festival (the Season of our Joy) that pictures the establishment of the 1000 year messianic kingdom to be set up at the second coming of Jesus Christ . It is one of the three pilgrimage festivals God gave the children of Israel in the Bible (Leviticus 23). It was during these festivals that the Israelites would bring their offerings and firstlings to the Temple in Jerusalem and enjoy a feast! Not many Christians celebrate this festival now, yet each one of us should be looking forward to what it signifies i.e. the day when the King of Kings rules his people from Jerusalem and each nation goes up to celebrate it. (Zechariah 14:16)

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Dr. Johnson Cherian MD. PhD.

I think we were doing okay until we got to this part.

To clarify and so that no one is mislead... there is no reference to any 1000 year messianic kingdom found in the Bible. Neither this passage nor the passage in Zechariah are referencing anything to do with a messianic kingdom. The millennium, tribulation, etc., is all a false doctrine that was created by man and has become widely accepted among the denominational world.

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In Christ,
brother Sonnie

Here is a very good study on the Millenium by Burton Coffman:

THE MILLENNIUM

I. The history of the doctrine. The first millennarians were the heretics who troubled the church of Thessalonica with their theory that "the day of the Lord is just at hand" (2 Thess. 2:2); and the canonical 2 Thessalonians was dispatched by the apostle Paul for the express purpose of refuting them. During the first three centuries of the Christian era, the theory recurred in various forms a number of times. Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and other notables were premillennarians of varying degrees. Some of their speculations would put modern millennialists to shame:

The elders that saw John, the disciple of the Lord, state that they heard him say how the Lord used to teach in regard to those times (the millennium) and say: The days will come when vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and each branch ten thousand twigs, and each twig ten thousand shoots, and each shoot ten thousand clusters, and in every cluster ten thousand grapes; and every grape would yield twenty-five meters of wine!<1>

As is so often true, one extreme begets another, and the wild millennial theories of the Ante-Nicene period were destroyed in the "spiritualized" speculations of Augustine and Origen. Origen invented the doctrine of purgatory, and Augustine came up with original sin and total hereditary depravity. Origen was of the third century and Augustine of the fourth; and, after the fourth century, premillennarianism became a dormant heresy, dormant, but not dead.

It sprang to life again in the 19th century, due to: (1) a revival of interest in studying the Scriptures; (2) the marvelous scientific advancements; and (3) the special activity of Satan which always appears with renewed preaching of the truth. This was the period that saw the epochal work of Stone, Kelly, Smith, Campbell, Scott, and many others. By the year 1843, the premillennarian prophet William Miller had over one million followers at a time when the total population of North America was only 16,000,000. He announced the end of the world in 1831, which was followed by an unusual meteorite shower on November 13, 1833. That display of "the falling stars" confirmed the faith of many in Miller, as did also a comet in 1844. After several recalculations, he finally set the date of the End for October 23, 1844.

Incredible numbers of people disposed of all earthly possessions and streamed out of Boston, Philadelphia, and other cities to the countryside to see the great event. Some wore white ascension robes; and one prominent Philadelphian in a white robe calmly stepped out of a third-story window to fly to heaven. Some tried to make it from high bridges. In Worcester, Massachusetts, a respectable citizen wearing turkey wings tried to make it from the top of an elm tree. Thousands crawled around on their knees with others on their backs in imitation of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on an ***!

When the sun rose with the world still intact, Miller's followers, with their robes damp and dirty, made their sorrowful return to homes and businesses, if fortunate enough to have either left. Old, weary, and tired, Miller checked and rechecked his calculations for several years and then died still wondering. It does seem that such a disaster would have given other "prophets" pause; but Uriah Smith, Charles T. Russell, and "Judge" Rutherford took up where Miller left off. The world would come to an end every few years. Sensational leaflets announcing that "millions now living will never die" were placed in every home in the United States announcing the end of the world in 1914, later "revised" to 1919. Finally, Rutherford decided that "it did end"! in 1914. His followers, Jehovah's Witnesses, still preach that it did!<2>

II. Complexity of the doctrine. Two separate systems of millennarianism are pre-millennarianism and post-millennarianism, as related to the coming of Christ. The "pre's" believe Christ will come before the millennium, and the "post's" believe the millennium will occur first. The "pre" type is more common. Here is an incomplete summary of what is taught:

1. At the start of the millennium, Christ will literally return to earth and personally take charge of all things for literally one thousand years.

2. He will reign from Jerusalem on the literal throne of David.

3. The righteous dead shall be raised with immortal bodies to help the Lord reign over people with normal bodies.

4. The Lord will personally convert the whole world, who, though they reject the gospel, will receive him.

5. After 1,000 years, the Lord will suddenly turn the devil loose, and the Great Tribulation will follow.

6. The righteous will be caught up (the Rapture) to escape all this.

7. There will be a series of judgments ranging from two to seven, depending on the form of the theory believed.

8. During the Great Tribulation, Enoch and Elijah, who never died, will return to earth, preach Christ, suffer martyrdom, and then be raised from the dead and go on preaching!

9. The Jews will all be converted and rally around Christ in Jerusalem. Rejecting the gospel, they will nevertheless accept Christ!

10. The church becomes a step-child, or a concubine, in all millennially related speculations. It will be totally swallowed up in the glories of the millennium.

11. Resurrections are as plentiful as judgments, depending on the shade of the heresy advocated.

12. Some even assert that the wicked dead will rise and be given a second chance to accept Christ.

These are only a few of the "stock in trade" speculations of millennarians, and are merely typical. In all probability, this summary does not accurately represent the views of any particular brand of it.

III. Present status of the heresy. Some form of this speculation is today the accepted doctrine of countless thousands. It is not confined to denominational groups, but cuts across all party lines and labels. Whole congregations of many Protestant churches have been swallowed by it. The widespread de-emphasis of the importance of Christ's church stems, in part, from this heresy.

Many books and study systems, and even some Bibles (notably, Scofield) and countless preachers are busy spreading this false doctrine. Some churches have lost all denominational identity, except that of the millennial label. The error is widespread, active, aggressive, and endemic.

IV. Doctrinal refutation. As Milligan wrote, "Millennialism is liable to sundry very grave objections, some of which seem to me to be wholly unanswerable."<3> "This whole scheme is in my judgment, and not in mine only, but in that of the vast majority of believing Bible students of all the ages, entirely untenable.<4> "All of the creeds of the Christian church, ancient or modern, Catholic or Protestant, are amillennarian (non-millennarian). Chiliasm has not found recognition in any one of them."<5> What are the objections?


Objections:

1. It is based upon a literalism of Rev. 20:1-7, a passage which should be interpreted symbolically. It is ridiculous to suppose that the devil could be caught and tied with a literal chain and imprisoned in a pit with no bottom in it!

2. The literal return of Christ to earth could not add anything to him who already has "all authority" in heaven and upon earth (Matt. 28:18-20). Christ is already seated on the right hand of God (Col. 3:1); bringing him back to earth and placing him in a literal throne in Jerusalem would be more than the equivalent of demoting a five-star general to the grade of private.

3. The physical and liberal return of Christ to earth would cancel and nullify all the benefits of his ascension. He said, "It is expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you" (John 16:7). The Holy Spirit could not operate if Christ were literally on earth. His return would mean the end of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

4. His physical, literal return would cancel and deny his office as the holy high priest of our sacred religion. "Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all" (Heb. 8:4).

5. When Christ comes again, he will give the kingdom back to the Father (1 Cor. 15:22-24). The Second Advent will be the occasion when Christ ends his reign, not when he begins it.

6. Christ is now reigning on David's throne (Acts 2:30-31). The only possible objection to this is that it places David's throne in heaven; but that is exactly where the Old Testament says it would be (Psa. 89:35-37 KJV).

7. The whole system belittles the church, a view flatly contradicted by Eph. 3:21; Acts 20:28, etc.

8. It denies the power of the gospel. The gospel cannot save people, especially the Jews, but Christ can! When Christ comes, it will not be to convert anybody, but to judge the ungodly sinners who rejected his gospel (2 Thess. 2:8).

9. Such speculations deny the truth that "no man knoweth the day, nor the hour, of our Lord's return" (Matt. 24:36). One may only marvel at the gullibility of people who trust some "prophet" who pretends that he knows.

10. The whole complex of multiple resurrections and judgments prevalent in all phases of this heresy is contrary to the plain words of the whole Bible. There is only one literal resurrection of the dead and only one judgment, repeatedly referred to by Christ as "the judgment." Scofield Bible fabricates multiple judgments; but this is a perversion of the sacred Scriptures.

11. The millennial heresies, whether "pre" or "post," deny the many New Testament passages (1 Cor. 10:11; Acts 2:16,17, etc.) which designate the current era as "the last days."

12. The millennialists read into Rev. 20 an immense amount of material that does not belong there.<6>

13. There is not a word in the entire Bible about any "Millennium," except as it is imported into the first seven verses of this chapter.

14. The many theories constructed on these verses are mutually contradictory and destructive of each other. There is no generally accepted or agreed upon theory of a millennium. Thoughtless and reckless indeed is the man who can devote his time, money, study, talent, and teaching to that which at best is an uncertain and illusive theory, and one that practically the entire company of Christian scholarship of all ages and shades of belief have found it utterly impossible to accept. In a word, the theory is absolutely preposterous and ridiculous.

We not only reject all millennial theories, but also the supportive interpretations which have been concocted in order to bolster them. Such things as the Great Tribulation, the Rapture, the Resurrection of the Martyrs in a separate resurrection, which have no proof at all in the New Testament, are among the concepts rejected.

ENDNOTES:

<1> J. C. Ayer, Jr., Source Book of Ancient Church History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons).

<2> See Reader's Digest, January 1943, for many of these details.

<3> Robert Milligan, The Scheme of Redemption (St. Louis: Bethany Press, 1960), p. 571.

<4> Albertus Pieters, Studies in the Revelation of St. John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1954), p. 295.

<5> Ibid., p. 311.

<6> Albertus Pieters, op. cit., p. 296.

__________________
In Christ,
brother Sonnie