The emphasis is on worship. But again, it isn’t the singing in the Spirit or the worship that has any explanation in itself. We know that we are commanded to do it (Mark 12:29–30; Exodus 34:14). Year after year, whenever people begin to seek the Lord, the emphasis comes back to this thing of worship. Worship is the key, just as it was when we first began to walk in this move of the Spirit. It is the key to the next experience God is going to bring.
“What is the next thing God will bring forth upon the earth? What will it be?” The singing in the Spirit that came forth in the Latter Rain movement was very important; and with it, there sometimes came a very scriptural experience: gifts being imparted by prophecy and by the laying on of hands by the elders (I Timothy 4:14; II Timothy 1:6). We have seen this happen.
Prophecy and the laying on of hands have imparted gifts to people; people have walked in gifts of the Spirit. At the same time, we have been aware that with everything God is doing in the way of bringing forth the gifts and the ministries, those gifts and ministries are still not an end in themselves, but they are a means to an end. God uses them to bring us into something. These gifts and ministries had to be established, but everywhere where they were an end in themselves, that move of God died out. It died out because the people did not understand that the gifts and the ministries were tools.
One of the things that has kept the singing in the Spirit on the right track and has kept a spiritual balance has been the fact that God has constantly set before us this Word: there is something more coming; there is a glory coming. Where people do not have this vision of what is coming, they often go into endless speculations about doctrines. But God has kept us very sound in our teaching.
The foundational ministries are ministering so that you will be no more children, tossed to and fro, but speaking the truth in love you may grow up into Him who is the Head. The ministries are going to bring you into the Head which is Christ (Ephesians 4:14–15). It will be a release from being just the individual members of the Body; it will mean a positioning in His Headship.
This thing that God is creating is going to be directive; it will be in such manifold wisdom that it relates to the Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is unique that the signs are coming for it.
In the vision which Zechariah saw, the angel said that the headstone would be brought forth with shouts of “Grace, grace, unto it” (Zechariah 4:7). The headstone was the peak. It was the crowning thing of wisdom.
I believe I have found the secret of the next experience, the experience of the Feast of Tabernacles. We have seen the Passover experience and the Pentecost experience, and we have been waiting to see what God would bring as the Feast of Tabernacles experience.
We know it has to be an experience of glory. We know it has to be an experience, like all other experiences in God, which can be entered into by faith.
Salvation is a divine provision and men come into it by faith and by applying the blood of Jesus (Ephesians 1:7).
The baptism of the Holy Spirit and the fullness of the anointing of the Father come to us because we see it in His Word as the gift that is ours (Acts 2:38–39); and we enter into it, again, by faith. The experience is based upon grace through faith.
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast. Ephesians 2:8–9.
We know that the Feast of Tabernacles experience has to be something related to the glory of God that we will be able to come into through faith.
Again, it is through faith. It cannot be an elementary experience which just anyone can enter into; only those who are walking in the fullness of the Spirit will be able to enter into this. It will have to be people to whom God has given the realm of the gifts through the baptism of fire; it has to be a baptism of fire.
The Holy Spirit has to do two things: we are to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18); and we are to be baptized with the Spirit and with fire (Acts 8:14–17; Matthew 3:11).
When James and John pleaded for the opportunity to sit one at His right hand and one at His left, the Lord said, “You don’t know what you are asking for. Can you be baptized with the baptism I am to be baptized with?” (Matthew 20:21–23; 26:39.) Later on, Christ made it plain that it was a baptism of fire that He had to go through and how constrained He was until it be accomplished (Luke 12:49–50).
We have seen that the anointing of the Holy Spirit has led people in two directions. It has brought gifts and ministries which enable us to prophesy, to sing in the Spirit, and to do many mighty things. But it has also done a second thing: it has put us through fire. It has put us through a time of dealing such that in the psychic and spiritual realms we have been going through the furnace. We have actually been tried in fire. The remnant who walk with God in this day will never know the simple physical persecution like God’s people have known in days gone by. You will go through the intensity of this in another realm; in the mental and spiritual realm, you will go through the fire. But then afterwards, you will be positioned in a place where you are prepared to enter into the Feast of Tabernacles experience. These are progressive experiences, and the last one depends upon the others. Many of you have been going through this fire, and now you are ready.
How are we to move into this? Something in the Word has been opened to my heart concerning this; it is one of those things that seems to be hidden.
Now in the things which we are saying the chief point is this. We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary (this is what we are calling Christ), and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. Hebrews 8:1–2, ASV.
The Greek word for tabernacle that was used here also applies to that tabernacle which was in the center of the camp of Israel (Numbers 2:2). We have dwelt so much upon the little tabernacles, the little booths the people were to live in for seven days (Leviticus 23:41–42), that we forgot that the Feast of Tabernacles is mainly commemorating, not those little lean-tos, but the tabernacle where God dwells. It is the true tabernacle which God pitched and not man, and Christ becomes the minister, the High Priest to minister to us in that tabernacle.
But Christ having come a high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. Hebrews 9:11–12, ASV.
This tabernacle we are talking about is not at all the tabernacle which Moses built (Exodus 40). It is the tabernacle in the heavens which God pitched and not man. It is the heavenly sanctuary into which people will enter.
Notice Hebrews 8:5, where Paul said that the earthly tabernacle … is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned of God when he is about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount.
Apparently, when Moses was on the mountain he saw the tabernacle that was pitched in the heavens. And the tabernacle made on earth was just a shadow and a copy of that, but it was to be an exact copy.
Moses accomplished the miracle of taking something that was spiritual and making a counterpart of it in the natural. He made a copy of it, and it had a deep spiritual significance. Instead of seeing the tabernacle and the things in it as a type or a symbol of something in God, we ought to see that it was a copy of something which actually exists in the spiritual realm. It is an actual thing. It is not a material thing; it is a spiritual thing.
Everything that Moses did was an exact copy of the heavenly tabernacle, with one exception—the altar of incense. And this one exception is the key to the experience of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Hebrews 9:1–4, ASV: Now even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service, and its sanctuary, a sanctuary of this world. For there was a tabernacle prepared, the first, wherein were the candlestick, and the table, and the showbread; which is called the Holy place. And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holy of holies; having a golden altar of incense (this is what we are interested in), and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was a golden pot holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant.
Why were those things put in the tabernacle, in the Holy of holies? Because the Holy of holies represents a place in God where men are going to abide in His presence, in the fullness of the Father. We speak about the glory returning, but we would be even more accurate to speak not only about the glory returning to the house of God (Haggai 2:9), but about the house of God entering into the glory of the Lord.
“ ‘The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘and in this place I shall give peace,’ declares the Lord of hosts.” Haggai 2:9.
The Holy of holies was the gold room. Everything in it was made of gold, and the walls were covered with gold (Exodus 25:10–22; 26:29). The only thing different was that the floor was earthen. Those who went in found that in spite of the gold—as brilliant as it was—there was no light except for one, the Shekinah glory which was over the ark of the covenant (Exodus 40:34). In the ark of the covenant was a pot of manna (Exodus 16:32–33). In any other locality, that pot of manna would spoil. When it was gathered it had to be eaten that day or else it would breed worms and stink (Exodus 16:20). But here was a pot of manna that continued for centuries, still fresh, still alive (Exodus 16:32–34).
Aaron’s rod was also in the ark of the covenant. When there was gainsaying against the choice of Aaron to be the high priest, all of the sons of Israel were commanded to lay their rods by the ark of the covenant (Numbers 17:1–9). After they did so, Aaron’s rod budded. It budded without root and without any sustenance that was visible at all. That rod blossomed forth and produced fruit overnight.
Aaron’s rod was put with the ark of the covenant because it was a symbol of new life and new strength, of a new day of glory and a new day of the Living Word, of the living manna from heaven that would be given to the overcomers and would feed them (Revelation 2:17).
The tabernacle was a symbol of something. It was to be a place in God where men were going to live. The Holy of holies in the heavenly sanctuary had one distinguishing thing that was not found in the earthly one, and that was the altar of incense. This one exception becomes the key of the next experience that God is going to bring to us.
In the Old Testament, the altar of incense was placed just before the veil, in the Holy place, where the lampstands and the table of showbread were also kept (Exodus 40:23–28). But in Hebrews, in the description of the heavenly tabernacle, the altar of incense is described as being inside the veil (Hebrews 9:3–4). The altar of incense represented the place where worship was to come up continually before the Lord. That worship in the true spiritual sense is to break through inside the veil into the Holy of holies. And in some way, during periods of worship, the ministries are going to succeed in taking people, when they stand at the altar of incense, right into the Holy of holies. The glory will return by our being positioned inside the veil. That is the way the glory will be visited. A lot of the problems and conflict that we are in will cease there. The man who stands in the Holy of holies finds that that is where the rod buds without any root, without any watering. He finds that that is where the manna is pure and fresh and living and never deteriorates, never decays. The glory of the Lord will have a quality of sustaining men in the life and the fruitfulness of the Lord.
We are coming to a day when human plans are going to end and give way to a people who will be led by the Spirit of God. It will be most characteristic that people will be led by the Spirit of the Lord once they get into this realm (Romans 8:14). I do not know whether they could get out of that realm or whether they will be secure in it or what. Few, if any on earth, have entered into it yet. This is an experience of the Feast of Tabernacles that God is beginning to unveil.
There are hints of this all through the Scriptures. In II Corinthians chapter 3, Paul described the glory that is greater than that which came upon the face of Moses when he was on the mount, when he saw the glory of the Lord and was transformed by it (II Corinthians 3:7–11). Paul went on to say that, under this new covenant, as we behold the glory of God with an unveiled face, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory (II Corinthians 3:18). Here is the remarkable thing. Paul spoke of it as though it had already happened, and yet men have not yet broken into the presence of the Lord so that the glory could be transmitted to them. But they are going to break through, and it is going to come through our worship. This is a deep witness to my spirit.
In the next days or months or years, if necessary, it would behoove the hungry people to keep standing, worshiping the Lord with faith, because in a time appointed—it could be during this season of the Feast of Tabernacles—God is going to grant that the people actually be positioned right into the Holy of holies, right into the very center of what He is doing in manifesting His glory.
The altar of incense is positioned in the Holy of holies, with the ark of the covenant: And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holy of holies; having a golden altar of incense (that is the place of worship), and the ark of the covenant … Hebrews 9:3–4, ASV. The ark of the covenant originally held the first covenant—the covenant of Moses—the one that was set aside. Paul constantly spoke about the fact that that which is waning and vanishing away is to be set aside because there is a new covenant (II Corinthians 3:10–11; Hebrews 8:13; 10:9). He quoted from Jeremiah about the new covenant, the everlasting covenant that God was to make with us—a covenant of His presence, of His power, and of His cleansing for His people (Hebrews 8:8–12; 9:11–12; 10:15–17).
We are not under the old covenant; we are under the new covenant. And when we come before the Lord, that promise of the Lord’s presence, that promise of the Lord’s glory being visited upon us, is attained at the altar of incense in the presence of the Lord.
You say, “That doesn’t sound too complicated.” No, it isn’t. Nothing that God sets before us is really complicated. It is just that it is hidden from us until the Lord brings revelation of it.
Do you believe there is something beyond the experience of Pentecost? Do you think there is something beyond this baptism of fire that you have been going through? Do you think these ministries that have been created in the church are an end in themselves? If they were, they would have been sent forth. The worldwide ministry is waiting for the sons of God to come into this real experience. The laying on of hands and the imparting of gifts and ministries has only been to create the means, the tool that God is going to use to bring men into His presence, where His glory will be lavished upon them.
As wonderful as this move of God is, those who are deeply thoughtful know the limitations of it. We know that it is not complete in itself. As farfetched as this may seem, I have a witness that we are going to learn how to bring people into the presence of the Lord. When a person is ready, when his faith is ready and God indicates that he is ready, the ministries are going to stand with that person and literally escort him into the Holy of holies; and the glory of the Lord will come upon him. Many years ago, I wondered at the great thing of laying on of hands, but I do not think that this experience will come by the laying on of hands as we have experienced it. There will be something in the Word that will give us a key. I’m going to look for it. I’m going to pray for it. Are you? There is some way that the people are going to be escorted into it. It is going to be something connected wholly with worship, a worship positioned in the Holy of holies. The teaching that has come on practicing the presence of the Lord is one of the basic keys. This worship that God is bringing forth is one of the basic keys.
There was the hint of a real pattern during an unusual service when we had ministries of faith go down and escort people into the presence of the King. It was something very much of the Lord, and yet we did not know what we were doing exactly. Two people would go down and stand on either side of someone who was seeking to break through. They would just stand there and worship with that person and by faith bring him into the presence of the Lord. Something would begin to happen. It was one of the most effective ministry services we have had. How did the people break through so quickly? It was not by the laying on of hands with prophecy and revelation. It was when two ministries of faith would stand on either side of someone who was striving to come into the presence of the Lord. They would begin to bless and impart to that person. As they blessed the person, they brought him right into the Lord’s presence, right into the presence of the King, into the throne room.
The day will come when, instead of encouraging people, laying hands on them, we will have ministries who will literally walk people right into the glory of God. That may well be the pattern for this experience. This experience will be greater than any vision, greater than any revelation, greater than any realm we have ever walked in.
The leaders of the worship service should escort you into the presence of God.
All that we have experienced so far has prepared us to enter His presence (Parousia).
Passover is an experience of escape; Pentecost is an experience of anointing (within us).
Tabernacles is an experience of entering His presence.
Tabernacles is a place of residence. Psalm 91:1; Psalm 90:1.
Impartation has imparted gifts to us; now impartation is escorting us into God.